10 50 763 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/b0796fa8b2660b4705e3a2cbbc295b77.pdf 23d26ddc20d8142914d94cc45e480bbc PDF Text Text 34 SLOVAKIA PROCLAMATION of 39th Congress - Slovak League of America May 5, 1964 - Gree,t ingsl Philadelphia, Pa., On the occasion of the 39th Congress of the Slovak League of America convened in Philadelphia, the cradle of American liberty, the home of the Liberty Bell and the birthplace of the American flag, the officers and delegates of the Slovak League of America declare that: 1. We rededicate ourselves and our membership to the preservation of the basic moral principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights of the United States of America. 2. We condemn all forms of tyranny and totalitarian political systems, especially repudiating the atheistic philosophy of materialistic Communism as the most ruthless conspiracy against free humanity. 3. We respectfully request that appropriate action be taken by our own government as well as the United Nations organization in accordance with the views so well expressed by our late lamentd President, John F. Kennedy, in bis renowned Yale University address, namely, that we must distinguish between the myths of the past and the realities of the present. This especially as it pertains to the myth of a so-called Czechoslovak tongue and a Czechoslovak people and the reality of tormented and freedomseeking Slovaks in Slovakia. 4. As we mark the completion of eleven centuries since the· Christianization of Slovakia in 863 A.D. by the great Slav Apostles, Sts. Cyril and Methodius, we ask the entire world to give an attentive ear to the pleas and cries of the· Slovak nation with its ancient and continuous Christian culture, especially now when younger, smaller and less mature ethnic groups are being given national, cultural, diplomatic and international recognition by the leading powers of the world and by the United Nations. 5. As stated on many previous historic and memorable occasions, we, individually and as representatives of more �SLOVAKIA 35 than 250,000 organized Americans of Slovak birth or descent, submit that in justice and equity, the nation of our forbears should likewise enjoy the blessings of freedom and independence. In this regard, we call attention, by way of example, to the following salient and revelant facts: (a) In 1962 alone, four new states were admitted to the famliy of the United Nations-Sierra Leone, Outer Mongolia, Mauritania and Tanganyika; (b) None of these states has the 1100-year old Christian heritage of Slovakia; (c) None of these states has the high population to area ratio as does Slovakia; and (d) None of these states has had the self-governing experience of Slovakia. In support of the above, all in keeping with the basic fundamental truths of our American way of life, we have prepared and will make available the research and historic proof which will substantiate and justify our legitimate claims and aspirations. THEREFORE, on the solemn occasion of this, our 39th Congress as representatives of the vast majority of the Slovak ethnic group of Americans, we deem it our moral duty to move for, seek and, as dutiful citizens, rightfully demand, that our duly elected officials-national , state and municipal-give a sympathetic ear to our pleas and that they take all legitimate avenues of action to bring about their fruition. Soberly mindful of the soul searching efforts of the Constitutional Fathers, here in this City of Brotherly Love, and in a humble effort to make comparable worthy contributions towards the liberation of our brethren and kinfolk from the tyranny and yolk of atheistic Soviet Communism in our ancestral land of Slovakia, we unanimously adopt this form of proclamation to put in operation our highly principled aims. We, accordingly, request our member organizations and their memberships to solicit their local, state and federal �SLOVAKIA 36 officials for the assistance needed to reestablish, in God's good time, Slovakia as a free state in central Europe, an indepndent Slovakia, firmly dedicated to the moral principles upon which our own United States of America and all Western civilization stand and must stand or be doomed to the extinction that befell the Roman civilization and its predecessors. Finally, we take this means to convey to President Lyndon B. Johnson, our warmest wishes for continued good health and success in his arduous task as our Chief executive, and to assure him of our continued prayers that God's choicest blessings may come to him and his family, personal and official, as he seeks to bring about God's greater honor and glory in a Brotherhood of Man under the Fatherhood of God. In Witness Whereof, we have caused these sentiments to be published on this 5th day of May, 1964 at historicPhiladelphia. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA (Signatures) Dr. Peter P. IDetko, President Dr. Joseph Pauco, Executive Secretary Edward J. Behuncik, Chairman, Resolutions Committee V. J. Tylka, Member, Resolutions Committee Ed. Kovac, Member, Resolutions Committee. "SLOVAK!A AND ITS PEOPLE" by Professor Gilbert L. Oddo can now be sent on order. Get your copy TODAY, beca use the supply is limited. Over 2,100 copies have been sold. The first real history of the Slovaks and their country in English. The book has 384 pa ges and sells for $6.00 per copy postpaid. Order your copy TODAY from: Slovak Institute, 2900 East Blvd. Cleveland 4, Ohio � 34 SLOVAKIA PROCLAMATION of 39th Congress - Slovak League of America May 5, 1964 - Gree,t ingsl Philadelphia, Pa., On the occasion of the 39th Congress of the Slovak League of America convened in Philadelphia, the cradle of American liberty, the home of the Liberty Bell and the birthplace of the American flag, the officers and delegates of the Slovak League of America declare that: 1. We rededicate ourselves and our membership to the preservation of the basic moral principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights of the United States of America. 2. We condemn all forms of tyranny and totalitarian political systems, especially repudiating the atheistic philosophy of materialistic Communism as the most ruthless conspiracy against free humanity. 3. We respectfully request that appropriate action be taken by our own government as well as the United Nations organization in accordance with the views so well expressed by our late lamentd President, John F. Kennedy, in bis renowned Yale University address, namely, that we must distinguish between the myths of the past and the realities of the present. This especially as it pertains to the myth of a so-called Czechoslovak tongue and a Czechoslovak people and the reality of tormented and freedomseeking Slovaks in Slovakia. 4. As we mark the completion of eleven centuries since the· Christianization of Slovakia in 863 A.D. by the great Slav Apostles, Sts. Cyril and Methodius, we ask the entire world to give an attentive ear to the pleas and cries of the· Slovak nation with its ancient and continuous Christian culture, especially now when younger, smaller and less mature ethnic groups are being given national, cultural, diplomatic and international recognition by the leading powers of the world and by the United Nations. 5. As stated on many previous historic and memorable occasions, we, individually and as representatives of more �SLOVAKIA 35 than 250,000 organized Americans of Slovak birth or descent, submit that in justice and equity, the nation of our forbears should likewise enjoy the blessings of freedom and independence. In this regard, we call attention, by way of example, to the following salient and revelant facts: (a) In 1962 alone, four new states were admitted to the famliy of the United Nations-Sierra Leone, Outer Mongolia, Mauritania and Tanganyika; (b) None of these states has the 1100-year old Christian heritage of Slovakia; (c) None of these states has the high population to area ratio as does Slovakia; and (d) None of these states has had the self-governing experience of Slovakia. In support of the above, all in keeping with the basic fundamental truths of our American way of life, we have prepared and will make available the research and historic proof which will substantiate and justify our legitimate claims and aspirations. THEREFORE, on the solemn occasion of this, our 39th Congress as representatives of the vast majority of the Slovak ethnic group of Americans, we deem it our moral duty to move for, seek and, as dutiful citizens, rightfully demand, that our duly elected officials-national , state and municipal-give a sympathetic ear to our pleas and that they take all legitimate avenues of action to bring about their fruition. Soberly mindful of the soul searching efforts of the Constitutional Fathers, here in this City of Brotherly Love, and in a humble effort to make comparable worthy contributions towards the liberation of our brethren and kinfolk from the tyranny and yolk of atheistic Soviet Communism in our ancestral land of Slovakia, we unanimously adopt this form of proclamation to put in operation our highly principled aims. We, accordingly, request our member organizations and their memberships to solicit their local, state and federal �SLOVAKIA 36 officials for the assistance needed to reestablish, in God's good time, Slovakia as a free state in central Europe, an indepndent Slovakia, firmly dedicated to the moral principles upon which our own United States of America and all Western civilization stand and must stand or be doomed to the extinction that befell the Roman civilization and its predecessors. Finally, we take this means to convey to President Lyndon B. Johnson, our warmest wishes for continued good health and success in his arduous task as our Chief executive, and to assure him of our continued prayers that God's choicest blessings may come to him and his family, personal and official, as he seeks to bring about God's greater honor and glory in a Brotherhood of Man under the Fatherhood of God. In Witness Whereof, we have caused these sentiments to be published on this 5th day of May, 1964 at historicPhiladelphia. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA (Signatures) Dr. Peter P. IDetko, President Dr. Joseph Pauco, Executive Secretary Edward J. Behuncik, Chairman, Resolutions Committee V. J. Tylka, Member, Resolutions Committee Ed. Kovac, Member, Resolutions Committee. "SLOVAK!A AND ITS PEOPLE" by Professor Gilbert L. Oddo can now be sent on order. Get your copy TODAY, beca use the supply is limited. Over 2,100 copies have been sold. The first real history of the Slovaks and their country in English. The book has 384 pa ges and sells for $6.00 per copy postpaid. Order your copy TODAY from: Slovak Institute, 2900 East Blvd. Cleveland 4, Ohio � 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 1964, Vol. 14 Description An account of the resource Vol. 14 (No. 37), 1964. 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 1964 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 PROCLAMATION of 39th Congress - Slovak League of America May 5, 1964 - Gree,t ingsl Philadelphia, Pa., On the occasion of the 39th Congress of the Slovak League of America convened in Philadelphia, the cradle of American liberty, the home of the Liberty Bell and the birthplace of the American flag, the officers and delegates of the Slovak League of America declare that: 1. We rededicate ourselves and our membership to the preservation of the basic moral principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights of the United States of America. 2. We condemn all forms of tyranny and totalitarian political systems, especially repudiating the atheistic philosophy of materialistic Communism as the most ruthless conspiracy against free humanity. 3. We respectfully request that appropriate action be taken by our own government as well as the United Nations organization in accordance with the views so well expressed by our late lamentd President, John F. Kennedy, in bis renowned Yale University address, namely, that we must distinguish between the myths of the past and the realities of the present. This especially as it pertains to the myth of a so-called Czechoslovak tongue and a Czechoslovak people and the reality of tormented and freedomseeking Slovaks in Slovakia. 4. As we mark the completion of eleven centuries since the· Christianization of Slovakia in 863 A.D. by the great Slav Apostles, Sts. Cyril and Methodius, we ask the entire world to give an attentive ear to the pleas and cries of the· Slovak nation with its ancient and continuous Christian culture, especially now when younger, smaller and less mature ethnic groups are being given national, cultural, diplomatic and international recognition by the leading powers of the world and by the United Nations. 5. As stated on many previous historic and memorable occasions, we, individually and as representatives of more SLOVAKIA 35 than 250,000 organized Americans of Slovak birth or descent, submit that in justice and equity, the nation of our forbears should likewise enjoy the blessings of freedom and independence. In this regard, we call attention, by way of example, to the following salient and revelant facts: (a) In 1962 alone, four new states were admitted to the famliy of the United Nations-Sierra Leone, Outer Mongolia, Mauritania and Tanganyika; (b) None of these states has the 1100-year old Christian heritage of Slovakia; (c) None of these states has the high population to area ratio as does Slovakia; and (d) None of these states has had the self-governing experience of Slovakia. In support of the above, all in keeping with the basic fundamental truths of our American way of life, we have prepared and will make available the research and historic proof which will substantiate and justify our legitimate claims and aspirations. THEREFORE, on the solemn occasion of this, our 39th Congress as representatives of the vast majority of the Slovak ethnic group of Americans, we deem it our moral duty to move for, seek and, as dutiful citizens, rightfully demand, that our duly elected officials-national , state and municipal-give a sympathetic ear to our pleas and that they take all legitimate avenues of action to bring about their fruition. Soberly mindful of the soul searching efforts of the Constitutional Fathers, here in this City of Brotherly Love, and in a humble effort to make comparable worthy contributions towards the liberation of our brethren and kinfolk from the tyranny and yolk of atheistic Soviet Communism in our ancestral land of Slovakia, we unanimously adopt this form of proclamation to put in operation our highly principled aims. We, accordingly, request our member organizations and their memberships to solicit their local, state and federal SLOVAKIA 36 officials for the assistance needed to reestablish, in God's good time, Slovakia as a free state in central Europe, an indepndent Slovakia, firmly dedicated to the moral principles upon which our own United States of America and all Western civilization stand and must stand or be doomed to the extinction that befell the Roman civilization and its predecessors. Finally, we take this means to convey to President Lyndon B. Johnson, our warmest wishes for continued good health and success in his arduous task as our Chief executive, and to assure him of our continued prayers that God's choicest blessings may come to him and his family, personal and official, as he seeks to bring about God's greater honor and glory in a Brotherhood of Man under the Fatherhood of God. In Witness Whereof, we have caused these sentiments to be published on this 5th day of May, 1964 at historicPhiladelphia. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA (Signatures) Dr. Peter P. IDetko, President Dr. Joseph Pauco, Executive Secretary Edward J. Behuncik, Chairman, Resolutions Committee V. J. Tylka, Member, Resolutions Committee Ed. Kovac, Member, Resolutions Committee. "SLOVAK!A AND ITS PEOPLE" by Professor Gilbert L. Oddo can now be sent on order. Get your copy TODAY, beca use the supply is limited. Over 2,100 copies have been sold. The first real history of the Slovaks and their country in English. The book has 384 pa ges and sells for $6.00 per copy postpaid. Order your copy TODAY from: Slovak Institute, 2900 East Blvd. Cleveland 4, Ohio  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 Proclamation of the 39th Congress, Slovak League of America, Philadelphia, Pa., May 5, 1964 Description An account of the resource Slovakia, Vol. 14 (No. 37), 1964 pp. 34-36 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/0b5d64855f73b86814c1701e758e50d5.pdf 3477b337422365a8252c90db4ec08f03 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 153 PROF. DR. F. DURcANSKY - POLITICIAN, SCHOLAR AND FIGHTER FOR SLOVAKIA'S INDEPENDENCE If one could say that Slovak politics were for a long time a domain of dedicated amateur politicians, in 1930' this period ended with the emergence of a new Slovak generation, educated at universities at home and abroad, who regarded politics not only as a patriotic duty towards their oppressed nation, but also as a profession requiring thorough preparation. One of the most prominent representatives of this new generation has been Prof. Ferdinand nurcansky, LL.D.,Dip.Sc.Pol., author of several scholarly writings and the first Foreign Minister of the Slovak Re-public, who was 60 years old on December 18, 1966. Whoever will write the history of Slovakia during the dramatic years 1938-1945, will be forced to come to grips with the impact this dynamic and highly educated personality left on the relations between Czechs and Slovaks in the last year of the pre-war Czecho-Slovakia. And ~imilarly no honest historian can omit the dominant role which Dr. Durcansky played in the emergence of the Slovak Republic and in her domestic and foreign policy in 19391940. Unlike some other politicians of his generation, Prof. nurcansky did not come into politics from student's organizations-the general preparatory school for politicians in Central Europe-but from behind an university chair. The years which other students spent in academic associations and party politics, Dr. f>urcansky was dedicated to studies abroad and to the preparation for an university career, specializing in political science and international law. The University of Bratislava was, however, not only dominated by Czech professors and administrators, but her aim was also to serve the official policy of Prague, directed at the political and economic domination of Slovakia and assimilation of Slovaks. Coming from a family of well known fighters for Slovakia's autonomy (his father was a senator and his older brother was a publisher of the political periodical Ndstup) , Dr. nurcansky could not get his "veniam docendi" at such university and the scholar was plunged into politics during the crucial years of his country. �154 SLOVAKIA !.>urcansky's education in law and political science at The Hague and in Paris, his knowledge of foreign languages, his elan and inexhaustible energy were welcomed by the leaders of the Slovak autonomist movement and he became overnight, at the age of 32, one of the leading politicians in Slovakia, cabinet minister in the first Slovak autonomous government and one of the main promoters of the idea of Slovak independence. Actually he marked very strongly the whole autonomist movement in its last phase, not only because the proposal of autonomy, submitted to Prague by the Hlinka Populist Party in June 1938, was his work, but also because he influenced the movement in its attitude towards Prague in the fall of 1938, mainly through the political periodical Ndstup, around which the young educated generation was grouped. When on October 6th, 1938, the Prague Government finally agreed to grant Slovakia political autonomy, which was stipulated to Slovaks before they entered into the union with the Czechs in 1918, it was only natural that Durcansky would be called upon by the leaders of the autonomist movement to be a member of the first Slovak government. In fact, he became very soon one of the leading members, since the international situation, the territorial demands of Slovakia's neighbors and very soon also Prague's manoeuvres aiming at undoing what they granted Slovaks when they agreed to federalize Czecho-Slovakia, required a man of his knowledge of law, foreign languages and his self-confidence. Since Germany was given practically a free hand in Central Europe by the Agreement of Munich, sanctioned by all European Great Powers, it was to Berlin that the Slovaks had to turn either in their defence of their territory against unjust claims of their neighbors or when economically pressed by Prague. From these contacts it became clear to the Slovak politicians that the situation created in Munich was a temporary one and that the peoples of Central Europe had to "make the best terms they could with the triumphant Nazi Power" as Churchill expressed it in the British Parliament on September 1938. As a member of Slovak delegations which defended the territory of �SLOVAKIA 155 Slovakia at the Vienna Conference or which looked for economic co-operation with Germany, :ourcansky naturally came in the forefront and, aware of the dangers faced by Slovaks if they remained inactive, became a staunch advocate of the idea of Slovakia's independence. As a result, the historical events which in March 1939 saved Slovakia from division among her neighbors and put it on the map of Europe as a Slovak Republic, are very hard to be dissociated from the foresight, courage and patriotism of Dr. :ourcansky. He also deserves credit as the first Minister of External Affairs for the rapid international recognition of the Slovak state by practically all European nations and the establishment of diplomatic relations, and, as Minister of interior, for peaceful transition to independence. An expert in international law and a patriot educated in the atmosphere of struggle for self-determination and self-government, :ourcansky understood, however, the notion of independence in its theoretical and legal connotations and inevitably came into conflict with the Government of the Third Reich from the beginning of the existence of the Slovak Republic. In 1940, not even a year and a half in his portfolio, nurcansky was forced to leave Slovak political life and, as prove the Documents on German Foreign Policy, published by the Government of the United States and England, it was for reasons of defending the Slovak interests, for trying to keep Slovakia neutral and for resisting introduction of Nazism in Slovakia. The wrath of Berlin against him was so intensive that the German Ambassador to Slovakia reported on August 19th, 1940: "the name t>urcansky and Kirschbaum should not appear anymore in any newspaper. If they do, I shall ask to forbid publication of the newspaper .. ." Ousted from politics, Dr. :ourcansky went back to the University, which at this time was in Slovak hands, and practiced law. At the end of the War he was, however, again on the political barricades and tried to save the Slovak Republic and Slovakia from catastrophy. Unwilling to make �156 SLOVAKIA deal with Moscow, he left for the West and for the past twenty years he was one of the anti-communist exiled leaders against whom the Communist regime in Prague organized the most vicious smear campaigns and on several occasions asked for his extradition. ~ Scholarly and Political Writings Originally set for a scholarly career, Dr. Durcansky used his education and knowledge for giving higher standards first to Slovak politics and later in exile to the struggle for Slovak independence. His book, Pohl'ad na slovensku minulost', ( A Look on the Slovak Past, Bratislava, 1943) many memoranda, his huge White book (Buenos Aires, 1954) and dozens of shorter studies in foreign languages published during the War or in exile, are marked by his academic background and large intelectual horizons . Given more favourable circumstances, Dr. f>urcansky would have certainly been one of the first Slovak politicians and statesmen who had not only formal education for politics but also scores of books elevating Slovak politics from provincialism to European standards. His first book M edzindrodnd intervencia (The international Intervention, Bratislava, 1936) was actually his academic thesis on the basis of which he was supposed to obtain "veniam docendi" - his professorship at the Faculty of Law of the Commenius University in Bratislava. There was no doubt whatsoever, that the scientific work met the requirements, it was nevertheless rejected because of Durcansky's political views on the relations between Czechs and Slovaks in Czechoslovakia. The work was the result of Durcansky's studies at the Institut de Hautes Etcodes Internacionales in Paris as well as the Academy of International Law at the Hague. Submitted again for acceptance in 1938 it became the basis for his teaching position first as "Docent" (Associate professor) and from 1941 as full professor. The first political work by nurcansky was his Pohl'ad na slovensk1i, minulost' ( A Look on the Slovak Past, Bratislava, 1943) in which he presented not only a new interpretation of the history of Slovaks and Slovakia, but in �SLOVAKIA 157 which was also searching for the meaning of various political actions of Slovak generations and found their logical culmination in the national independence. By its method, thorough knowledge of sources and literature and clear style the book deserves to be considered among the best political writings on Slovakia's past. An extensive summary in German made the book accesible also to scholars of other nationalities and there are references to it even now by foreign historians. Before the end of the War Durcansky published in English, French, Spanish and German several scholarly writings which aimed at acquainting the World with the Slovak problem and Slovakia's right to independence. Among them should be mentioned a historical study of the events which led to Slovakia's independence, The Way t o Slovak Freedom, published also in German as: Der Weg zur slowakischer Freiheit (Bratislava, 1944) and a political and juridicial essay on the right of small states to their existence: Die Existenzberechtigung der Kleinen Staaten (Bratislava, 1944) and a historical survey on Central Europe: Mitteleuropa in Vergangenheit und Zukunft (Bratislava, 1944). The last one was published also in Spanish in Madrid and in French by the Revue de droit international in Geneva (Vol. XXII, 1944) under the title "£'Europe Centrale dans le passe at dans l'avenir". The author advocated in it the idea of federation in Central Europe and the right of Slovak's to political equality with other Central European peoples. Equally in French Durcansky denied in the same periodical any right to existence of Czechoslovakia in a well written article: Le probleme de l'existencie de la TchecoSlovaquie, ( The Problem of Czecho-Slovakia's Existence, Vol. XXI, 1944 ) . Writings Published in Exile Even though circumstances after the Second World War have been for Slovak political exiles the most unfavourable, Durcansky disregarded the difficulties and serious danger to his own safety and fought from the first moment for Slovakia's right to independence in post-war Europe. Believing in justice and later in a possible clash between the Western Powers and the Soviets, who in spite of all �158 SLOVAKIA assurances and solemn declarations were imposing their rule and Communist system on Eastern European nations, Durcansky organized from Austria Slovak political refugees and presented several memoranda to the Peace Conference in Paris in French and English advocating either the necessity of a treaty of Peace with Slovakia, or a plebiscite, or arguing against the "rationality of the existence of CzechoSlovakia (Rome, 1946). Considering the fact that the Government of Prague was organizing an international hunt for his capture, Durcansky undoubtedly displayed an uncommon courage when he went personally to Paris or when, believing in the right of political asylum in neutral countries, he made a dangerous journey through the Alps to Geneva, and from there to Rome. In Rome he tried to write various factions of Slovak refugees into one organized body, but circumstances were not only unfavourable for such an endeavor but also dangerous and therefore he left Europe in 1947 for Argentina with a group of Slovak intellectuals, with whom he created the Slovak Action Committee. There he continued to publish books and studies until 1952 when he returned to Germany. Among the books and studies which Durcansky wrote or prepared in exile for publication, the huge volume of documents (998 pages) called Prdvo Slovdkov na samostatnost' vo svetle dokumentov, Biela kniha, (The Right of Slovaks to Independence in the Light of Documents, or White Book; Buenos Aires, in April 1954), deserves special consideration. Even though his fighting temperament led him to disregard or to misrepresent the activities of other exiled Slovak organizations (such as the Slovak National Council Abroad) and even if a smaller volume in some foreign language might have been more useful, one has to recognize the assiduous work, patience and knowledge which were required for publication of this first and most camplete collection of documents on the Slovak question. The work was published thanks to the financial support of two outstanding Slovaks: Stephen B. Roman from Canada and Rev. John J . Lach, from Whiting, Ind., U.S.A. A shorter, concise study of the international aspect of the Slovak question was published by Durcansky in 1954 �SLOVAKIA 159 in German, in 1955 in English and in 1957 in Spanish under the titles: Die Slovakische Frage als eine internationale Frage (Munich, 44 p.); The International Aspects of the Slovak Qu.estion (38 p.) and El aspecto internacional de la question eslovaca (Buenos Aires, 54 p.). As in all his writings nurcansky displayed in this booklet a thorough knowledge of political literature in several languages as well as his versatility in International Law. In addition to these publications Durcansky contributed from 1952, when he settled in Europe, to various leading political and scholarly periodicals, mostly German and Austrian, such as: Politische Studien (Munich), Donauraum (Vienna), Der Europiiische Osten (Munich) ect. All these contributions ( some 20 of them are listed in his bibliography) aim at explaining to the Western World basic Slovak political problems or defending Slovakia and Slovaks against the ruthless Czech and Communist propaganda. In style and contents they meet and sometimes even overpass the high standards of European political literature and the same can be said of the memoranda (15 altogether) which :ourcansky alone or in co-operation with others published in various foreign languages on the Slovak question. A Struggle Against Many Odds From the beginning of his political career Dr. :ourcansky was engaged in a struggle against many odds. Rarely in Slovak history any political leader faced so many times a serious danger to his own safety and hardly anyone's political conceptions were subject to such a barrage of lies and misrepresentations as it was the case of :ourcansky's fight for Slovakia's independence. He faced them all as a man and never failed to believe that Slovaks can achieve an equal status with other Central European nations if they fight and make sacrifices for it. By his own activities, courage and perseverance :ourcansky set an example which deserves recognition by everyone for whom freedom, justice and human progress have any value. History of Slovakia in the crucial years before and during the Second World War was shaped by him more than his friends or adversaries have been ready to admit. In the first Slovak �160 SLOVAKIA political exile he was undoubtedly spiritus moveus and at times regarded as the uncompromising leader if not by all, certainly by a great number of those who left Slovakia in 1945. If for some period of time his methods did not lead to the intergration of all Slovaks in the free world for a united action in favour of Slovakia's liberation, it would be unjust to put the blame on him alone. Exiled groups with greater political experience and waves of political emigrees before them, passed through the same phases of mutual struggles, distrust and disunity. Slovaks in the free world could not escape the special "climate" which the circumstances of the exile generate, but even in this regard, Slovaks achieved what no other exiled group achieved: intergration of both political Slovak representations in the free world into the Slovak Liberation Council, of which Dr. nurcansky became the first president of the Executive Committee. His sixtieth birthday finds Dr. nurcansky still in undiminished activity for the Slovak cause and with unbroken belief that the Slovak struggle - a struggle against many odds - will finally be victorious . We greet him in the same spirit and cordially wish him also on behalf of those who are silenced in Slovakia: Ad multos annos! J.M. Kirschbaum THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA condemns and unequivocally opposes all forms of tyranny, every form of totalitarian political system. The Slovak League of America has always recognized the Godless philosophy of materialir.tic Communism for the dread evil and conspiracy against free humanity that it is, as the political system which threatens mankind with utter enslavement and, therefore, has fought resolutely against it in and out of season and, today, is still determined to fight against it with all the means at its command until the dread plague of Communism is wiped off the face of the earth. � SLOVAKIA 153 PROF. DR. F. DURcANSKY - POLITICIAN, SCHOLAR AND FIGHTER FOR SLOVAKIA'S INDEPENDENCE If one could say that Slovak politics were for a long time a domain of dedicated amateur politicians, in 1930' this period ended with the emergence of a new Slovak generation, educated at universities at home and abroad, who regarded politics not only as a patriotic duty towards their oppressed nation, but also as a profession requiring thorough preparation. One of the most prominent representatives of this new generation has been Prof. Ferdinand nurcansky, LL.D.,Dip.Sc.Pol., author of several scholarly writings and the first Foreign Minister of the Slovak Re-public, who was 60 years old on December 18, 1966. Whoever will write the history of Slovakia during the dramatic years 1938-1945, will be forced to come to grips with the impact this dynamic and highly educated personality left on the relations between Czechs and Slovaks in the last year of the pre-war Czecho-Slovakia. And ~imilarly no honest historian can omit the dominant role which Dr. Durcansky played in the emergence of the Slovak Republic and in her domestic and foreign policy in 19391940. Unlike some other politicians of his generation, Prof. nurcansky did not come into politics from student's organizations-the general preparatory school for politicians in Central Europe-but from behind an university chair. The years which other students spent in academic associations and party politics, Dr. f>urcansky was dedicated to studies abroad and to the preparation for an university career, specializing in political science and international law. The University of Bratislava was, however, not only dominated by Czech professors and administrators, but her aim was also to serve the official policy of Prague, directed at the political and economic domination of Slovakia and assimilation of Slovaks. Coming from a family of well known fighters for Slovakia's autonomy (his father was a senator and his older brother was a publisher of the political periodical Ndstup) , Dr. nurcansky could not get his "veniam docendi" at such university and the scholar was plunged into politics during the crucial years of his country. �154 SLOVAKIA !.>urcansky's education in law and political science at The Hague and in Paris, his knowledge of foreign languages, his elan and inexhaustible energy were welcomed by the leaders of the Slovak autonomist movement and he became overnight, at the age of 32, one of the leading politicians in Slovakia, cabinet minister in the first Slovak autonomous government and one of the main promoters of the idea of Slovak independence. Actually he marked very strongly the whole autonomist movement in its last phase, not only because the proposal of autonomy, submitted to Prague by the Hlinka Populist Party in June 1938, was his work, but also because he influenced the movement in its attitude towards Prague in the fall of 1938, mainly through the political periodical Ndstup, around which the young educated generation was grouped. When on October 6th, 1938, the Prague Government finally agreed to grant Slovakia political autonomy, which was stipulated to Slovaks before they entered into the union with the Czechs in 1918, it was only natural that Durcansky would be called upon by the leaders of the autonomist movement to be a member of the first Slovak government. In fact, he became very soon one of the leading members, since the international situation, the territorial demands of Slovakia's neighbors and very soon also Prague's manoeuvres aiming at undoing what they granted Slovaks when they agreed to federalize Czecho-Slovakia, required a man of his knowledge of law, foreign languages and his self-confidence. Since Germany was given practically a free hand in Central Europe by the Agreement of Munich, sanctioned by all European Great Powers, it was to Berlin that the Slovaks had to turn either in their defence of their territory against unjust claims of their neighbors or when economically pressed by Prague. From these contacts it became clear to the Slovak politicians that the situation created in Munich was a temporary one and that the peoples of Central Europe had to "make the best terms they could with the triumphant Nazi Power" as Churchill expressed it in the British Parliament on September 1938. As a member of Slovak delegations which defended the territory of �SLOVAKIA 155 Slovakia at the Vienna Conference or which looked for economic co-operation with Germany, :ourcansky naturally came in the forefront and, aware of the dangers faced by Slovaks if they remained inactive, became a staunch advocate of the idea of Slovakia's independence. As a result, the historical events which in March 1939 saved Slovakia from division among her neighbors and put it on the map of Europe as a Slovak Republic, are very hard to be dissociated from the foresight, courage and patriotism of Dr. :ourcansky. He also deserves credit as the first Minister of External Affairs for the rapid international recognition of the Slovak state by practically all European nations and the establishment of diplomatic relations, and, as Minister of interior, for peaceful transition to independence. An expert in international law and a patriot educated in the atmosphere of struggle for self-determination and self-government, :ourcansky understood, however, the notion of independence in its theoretical and legal connotations and inevitably came into conflict with the Government of the Third Reich from the beginning of the existence of the Slovak Republic. In 1940, not even a year and a half in his portfolio, nurcansky was forced to leave Slovak political life and, as prove the Documents on German Foreign Policy, published by the Government of the United States and England, it was for reasons of defending the Slovak interests, for trying to keep Slovakia neutral and for resisting introduction of Nazism in Slovakia. The wrath of Berlin against him was so intensive that the German Ambassador to Slovakia reported on August 19th, 1940: "the name t>urcansky and Kirschbaum should not appear anymore in any newspaper. If they do, I shall ask to forbid publication of the newspaper .. ." Ousted from politics, Dr. :ourcansky went back to the University, which at this time was in Slovak hands, and practiced law. At the end of the War he was, however, again on the political barricades and tried to save the Slovak Republic and Slovakia from catastrophy. Unwilling to make �156 SLOVAKIA deal with Moscow, he left for the West and for the past twenty years he was one of the anti-communist exiled leaders against whom the Communist regime in Prague organized the most vicious smear campaigns and on several occasions asked for his extradition. ~ Scholarly and Political Writings Originally set for a scholarly career, Dr. Durcansky used his education and knowledge for giving higher standards first to Slovak politics and later in exile to the struggle for Slovak independence. His book, Pohl'ad na slovensku minulost', ( A Look on the Slovak Past, Bratislava, 1943) many memoranda, his huge White book (Buenos Aires, 1954) and dozens of shorter studies in foreign languages published during the War or in exile, are marked by his academic background and large intelectual horizons . Given more favourable circumstances, Dr. f>urcansky would have certainly been one of the first Slovak politicians and statesmen who had not only formal education for politics but also scores of books elevating Slovak politics from provincialism to European standards. His first book M edzindrodnd intervencia (The international Intervention, Bratislava, 1936) was actually his academic thesis on the basis of which he was supposed to obtain "veniam docendi" - his professorship at the Faculty of Law of the Commenius University in Bratislava. There was no doubt whatsoever, that the scientific work met the requirements, it was nevertheless rejected because of Durcansky's political views on the relations between Czechs and Slovaks in Czechoslovakia. The work was the result of Durcansky's studies at the Institut de Hautes Etcodes Internacionales in Paris as well as the Academy of International Law at the Hague. Submitted again for acceptance in 1938 it became the basis for his teaching position first as "Docent" (Associate professor) and from 1941 as full professor. The first political work by nurcansky was his Pohl'ad na slovensk1i, minulost' ( A Look on the Slovak Past, Bratislava, 1943) in which he presented not only a new interpretation of the history of Slovaks and Slovakia, but in �SLOVAKIA 157 which was also searching for the meaning of various political actions of Slovak generations and found their logical culmination in the national independence. By its method, thorough knowledge of sources and literature and clear style the book deserves to be considered among the best political writings on Slovakia's past. An extensive summary in German made the book accesible also to scholars of other nationalities and there are references to it even now by foreign historians. Before the end of the War Durcansky published in English, French, Spanish and German several scholarly writings which aimed at acquainting the World with the Slovak problem and Slovakia's right to independence. Among them should be mentioned a historical study of the events which led to Slovakia's independence, The Way t o Slovak Freedom, published also in German as: Der Weg zur slowakischer Freiheit (Bratislava, 1944) and a political and juridicial essay on the right of small states to their existence: Die Existenzberechtigung der Kleinen Staaten (Bratislava, 1944) and a historical survey on Central Europe: Mitteleuropa in Vergangenheit und Zukunft (Bratislava, 1944). The last one was published also in Spanish in Madrid and in French by the Revue de droit international in Geneva (Vol. XXII, 1944) under the title "£'Europe Centrale dans le passe at dans l'avenir". The author advocated in it the idea of federation in Central Europe and the right of Slovak's to political equality with other Central European peoples. Equally in French Durcansky denied in the same periodical any right to existence of Czechoslovakia in a well written article: Le probleme de l'existencie de la TchecoSlovaquie, ( The Problem of Czecho-Slovakia's Existence, Vol. XXI, 1944 ) . Writings Published in Exile Even though circumstances after the Second World War have been for Slovak political exiles the most unfavourable, Durcansky disregarded the difficulties and serious danger to his own safety and fought from the first moment for Slovakia's right to independence in post-war Europe. Believing in justice and later in a possible clash between the Western Powers and the Soviets, who in spite of all �158 SLOVAKIA assurances and solemn declarations were imposing their rule and Communist system on Eastern European nations, Durcansky organized from Austria Slovak political refugees and presented several memoranda to the Peace Conference in Paris in French and English advocating either the necessity of a treaty of Peace with Slovakia, or a plebiscite, or arguing against the "rationality of the existence of CzechoSlovakia (Rome, 1946). Considering the fact that the Government of Prague was organizing an international hunt for his capture, Durcansky undoubtedly displayed an uncommon courage when he went personally to Paris or when, believing in the right of political asylum in neutral countries, he made a dangerous journey through the Alps to Geneva, and from there to Rome. In Rome he tried to write various factions of Slovak refugees into one organized body, but circumstances were not only unfavourable for such an endeavor but also dangerous and therefore he left Europe in 1947 for Argentina with a group of Slovak intellectuals, with whom he created the Slovak Action Committee. There he continued to publish books and studies until 1952 when he returned to Germany. Among the books and studies which Durcansky wrote or prepared in exile for publication, the huge volume of documents (998 pages) called Prdvo Slovdkov na samostatnost' vo svetle dokumentov, Biela kniha, (The Right of Slovaks to Independence in the Light of Documents, or White Book; Buenos Aires, in April 1954), deserves special consideration. Even though his fighting temperament led him to disregard or to misrepresent the activities of other exiled Slovak organizations (such as the Slovak National Council Abroad) and even if a smaller volume in some foreign language might have been more useful, one has to recognize the assiduous work, patience and knowledge which were required for publication of this first and most camplete collection of documents on the Slovak question. The work was published thanks to the financial support of two outstanding Slovaks: Stephen B. Roman from Canada and Rev. John J . Lach, from Whiting, Ind., U.S.A. A shorter, concise study of the international aspect of the Slovak question was published by Durcansky in 1954 �SLOVAKIA 159 in German, in 1955 in English and in 1957 in Spanish under the titles: Die Slovakische Frage als eine internationale Frage (Munich, 44 p.); The International Aspects of the Slovak Qu.estion (38 p.) and El aspecto internacional de la question eslovaca (Buenos Aires, 54 p.). As in all his writings nurcansky displayed in this booklet a thorough knowledge of political literature in several languages as well as his versatility in International Law. In addition to these publications Durcansky contributed from 1952, when he settled in Europe, to various leading political and scholarly periodicals, mostly German and Austrian, such as: Politische Studien (Munich), Donauraum (Vienna), Der Europiiische Osten (Munich) ect. All these contributions ( some 20 of them are listed in his bibliography) aim at explaining to the Western World basic Slovak political problems or defending Slovakia and Slovaks against the ruthless Czech and Communist propaganda. In style and contents they meet and sometimes even overpass the high standards of European political literature and the same can be said of the memoranda (15 altogether) which :ourcansky alone or in co-operation with others published in various foreign languages on the Slovak question. A Struggle Against Many Odds From the beginning of his political career Dr. :ourcansky was engaged in a struggle against many odds. Rarely in Slovak history any political leader faced so many times a serious danger to his own safety and hardly anyone's political conceptions were subject to such a barrage of lies and misrepresentations as it was the case of :ourcansky's fight for Slovakia's independence. He faced them all as a man and never failed to believe that Slovaks can achieve an equal status with other Central European nations if they fight and make sacrifices for it. By his own activities, courage and perseverance :ourcansky set an example which deserves recognition by everyone for whom freedom, justice and human progress have any value. History of Slovakia in the crucial years before and during the Second World War was shaped by him more than his friends or adversaries have been ready to admit. In the first Slovak �160 SLOVAKIA political exile he was undoubtedly spiritus moveus and at times regarded as the uncompromising leader if not by all, certainly by a great number of those who left Slovakia in 1945. If for some period of time his methods did not lead to the intergration of all Slovaks in the free world for a united action in favour of Slovakia's liberation, it would be unjust to put the blame on him alone. Exiled groups with greater political experience and waves of political emigrees before them, passed through the same phases of mutual struggles, distrust and disunity. Slovaks in the free world could not escape the special "climate" which the circumstances of the exile generate, but even in this regard, Slovaks achieved what no other exiled group achieved: intergration of both political Slovak representations in the free world into the Slovak Liberation Council, of which Dr. nurcansky became the first president of the Executive Committee. His sixtieth birthday finds Dr. nurcansky still in undiminished activity for the Slovak cause and with unbroken belief that the Slovak struggle - a struggle against many odds - will finally be victorious . We greet him in the same spirit and cordially wish him also on behalf of those who are silenced in Slovakia: Ad multos annos! J.M. Kirschbaum THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA condemns and unequivocally opposes all forms of tyranny, every form of totalitarian political system. The Slovak League of America has always recognized the Godless philosophy of materialir.tic Communism for the dread evil and conspiracy against free humanity that it is, as the political system which threatens mankind with utter enslavement and, therefore, has fought resolutely against it in and out of season and, today, is still determined to fight against it with all the means at its command until the dread plague of Communism is wiped off the face of the earth. � 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 153 PROF. DR. F. DURcANSKY - POLITICIAN, SCHOLAR AND FIGHTER FOR SLOVAKIA'S INDEPENDENCE If one could say that Slovak politics were for a long time a domain of dedicated amateur politicians, in 1930' this period ended with the emergence of a new Slovak generation, educated at universities at home and abroad, who regarded politics not only as a patriotic duty towards their oppressed nation, but also as a profession requiring thorough preparation. One of the most prominent representatives of this new generation has been Prof. Ferdinand nurcansky, LL.D.,Dip.Sc.Pol., author of several scholarly writings and the first Foreign Minister of the Slovak Re-public, who was 60 years old on December 18, 1966. Whoever will write the history of Slovakia during the dramatic years 1938-1945, will be forced to come to grips with the impact this dynamic and highly educated personality left on the relations between Czechs and Slovaks in the last year of the pre-war Czecho-Slovakia. And ~imilarly no honest historian can omit the dominant role which Dr. Durcansky played in the emergence of the Slovak Republic and in her domestic and foreign policy in 19391940. Unlike some other politicians of his generation, Prof. nurcansky did not come into politics from student's organizations-the general preparatory school for politicians in Central Europe-but from behind an university chair. The years which other students spent in academic associations and party politics, Dr. f>urcansky was dedicated to studies abroad and to the preparation for an university career, specializing in political science and international law. The University of Bratislava was, however, not only dominated by Czech professors and administrators, but her aim was also to serve the official policy of Prague, directed at the political and economic domination of Slovakia and assimilation of Slovaks. Coming from a family of well known fighters for Slovakia's autonomy (his father was a senator and his older brother was a publisher of the political periodical Ndstup) , Dr. nurcansky could not get his "veniam docendi" at such university and the scholar was plunged into politics during the crucial years of his country. 154 SLOVAKIA !.>urcansky's education in law and political science at The Hague and in Paris, his knowledge of foreign languages, his elan and inexhaustible energy were welcomed by the leaders of the Slovak autonomist movement and he became overnight, at the age of 32, one of the leading politicians in Slovakia, cabinet minister in the first Slovak autonomous government and one of the main promoters of the idea of Slovak independence. Actually he marked very strongly the whole autonomist movement in its last phase, not only because the proposal of autonomy, submitted to Prague by the Hlinka Populist Party in June 1938, was his work, but also because he influenced the movement in its attitude towards Prague in the fall of 1938, mainly through the political periodical Ndstup, around which the young educated generation was grouped. When on October 6th, 1938, the Prague Government finally agreed to grant Slovakia political autonomy, which was stipulated to Slovaks before they entered into the union with the Czechs in 1918, it was only natural that Durcansky would be called upon by the leaders of the autonomist movement to be a member of the first Slovak government. In fact, he became very soon one of the leading members, since the international situation, the territorial demands of Slovakia's neighbors and very soon also Prague's manoeuvres aiming at undoing what they granted Slovaks when they agreed to federalize Czecho-Slovakia, required a man of his knowledge of law, foreign languages and his self-confidence. Since Germany was given practically a free hand in Central Europe by the Agreement of Munich, sanctioned by all European Great Powers, it was to Berlin that the Slovaks had to turn either in their defence of their territory against unjust claims of their neighbors or when economically pressed by Prague. From these contacts it became clear to the Slovak politicians that the situation created in Munich was a temporary one and that the peoples of Central Europe had to "make the best terms they could with the triumphant Nazi Power" as Churchill expressed it in the British Parliament on September 1938. As a member of Slovak delegations which defended the territory of SLOVAKIA 155 Slovakia at the Vienna Conference or which looked for economic co-operation with Germany, :ourcansky naturally came in the forefront and, aware of the dangers faced by Slovaks if they remained inactive, became a staunch advocate of the idea of Slovakia's independence. As a result, the historical events which in March 1939 saved Slovakia from division among her neighbors and put it on the map of Europe as a Slovak Republic, are very hard to be dissociated from the foresight, courage and patriotism of Dr. :ourcansky. He also deserves credit as the first Minister of External Affairs for the rapid international recognition of the Slovak state by practically all European nations and the establishment of diplomatic relations, and, as Minister of interior, for peaceful transition to independence. An expert in international law and a patriot educated in the atmosphere of struggle for self-determination and self-government, :ourcansky understood, however, the notion of independence in its theoretical and legal connotations and inevitably came into conflict with the Government of the Third Reich from the beginning of the existence of the Slovak Republic. In 1940, not even a year and a half in his portfolio, nurcansky was forced to leave Slovak political life and, as prove the Documents on German Foreign Policy, published by the Government of the United States and England, it was for reasons of defending the Slovak interests, for trying to keep Slovakia neutral and for resisting introduction of Nazism in Slovakia. The wrath of Berlin against him was so intensive that the German Ambassador to Slovakia reported on August 19th, 1940: "the name t>urcansky and Kirschbaum should not appear anymore in any newspaper. If they do, I shall ask to forbid publication of the newspaper .. ." Ousted from politics, Dr. :ourcansky went back to the University, which at this time was in Slovak hands, and practiced law. At the end of the War he was, however, again on the political barricades and tried to save the Slovak Republic and Slovakia from catastrophy. Unwilling to make 156 SLOVAKIA deal with Moscow, he left for the West and for the past twenty years he was one of the anti-communist exiled leaders against whom the Communist regime in Prague organized the most vicious smear campaigns and on several occasions asked for his extradition. ~ Scholarly and Political Writings Originally set for a scholarly career, Dr. Durcansky used his education and knowledge for giving higher standards first to Slovak politics and later in exile to the struggle for Slovak independence. His book, Pohl'ad na slovensku minulost', ( A Look on the Slovak Past, Bratislava, 1943) many memoranda, his huge White book (Buenos Aires, 1954) and dozens of shorter studies in foreign languages published during the War or in exile, are marked by his academic background and large intelectual horizons . Given more favourable circumstances, Dr. f>urcansky would have certainly been one of the first Slovak politicians and statesmen who had not only formal education for politics but also scores of books elevating Slovak politics from provincialism to European standards. His first book M edzindrodnd intervencia (The international Intervention, Bratislava, 1936) was actually his academic thesis on the basis of which he was supposed to obtain "veniam docendi" - his professorship at the Faculty of Law of the Commenius University in Bratislava. There was no doubt whatsoever, that the scientific work met the requirements, it was nevertheless rejected because of Durcansky's political views on the relations between Czechs and Slovaks in Czechoslovakia. The work was the result of Durcansky's studies at the Institut de Hautes Etcodes Internacionales in Paris as well as the Academy of International Law at the Hague. Submitted again for acceptance in 1938 it became the basis for his teaching position first as "Docent" (Associate professor) and from 1941 as full professor. The first political work by nurcansky was his Pohl'ad na slovensk1i, minulost' ( A Look on the Slovak Past, Bratislava, 1943) in which he presented not only a new interpretation of the history of Slovaks and Slovakia, but in SLOVAKIA 157 which was also searching for the meaning of various political actions of Slovak generations and found their logical culmination in the national independence. By its method, thorough knowledge of sources and literature and clear style the book deserves to be considered among the best political writings on Slovakia's past. An extensive summary in German made the book accesible also to scholars of other nationalities and there are references to it even now by foreign historians. Before the end of the War Durcansky published in English, French, Spanish and German several scholarly writings which aimed at acquainting the World with the Slovak problem and Slovakia's right to independence. Among them should be mentioned a historical study of the events which led to Slovakia's independence, The Way t o Slovak Freedom, published also in German as: Der Weg zur slowakischer Freiheit (Bratislava, 1944) and a political and juridicial essay on the right of small states to their existence: Die Existenzberechtigung der Kleinen Staaten (Bratislava, 1944) and a historical survey on Central Europe: Mitteleuropa in Vergangenheit und Zukunft (Bratislava, 1944). The last one was published also in Spanish in Madrid and in French by the Revue de droit international in Geneva (Vol. XXII, 1944) under the title "£'Europe Centrale dans le passe at dans l'avenir". The author advocated in it the idea of federation in Central Europe and the right of Slovak's to political equality with other Central European peoples. Equally in French Durcansky denied in the same periodical any right to existence of Czechoslovakia in a well written article: Le probleme de l'existencie de la TchecoSlovaquie, ( The Problem of Czecho-Slovakia's Existence, Vol. XXI, 1944 ) . Writings Published in Exile Even though circumstances after the Second World War have been for Slovak political exiles the most unfavourable, Durcansky disregarded the difficulties and serious danger to his own safety and fought from the first moment for Slovakia's right to independence in post-war Europe. Believing in justice and later in a possible clash between the Western Powers and the Soviets, who in spite of all 158 SLOVAKIA assurances and solemn declarations were imposing their rule and Communist system on Eastern European nations, Durcansky organized from Austria Slovak political refugees and presented several memoranda to the Peace Conference in Paris in French and English advocating either the necessity of a treaty of Peace with Slovakia, or a plebiscite, or arguing against the "rationality of the existence of CzechoSlovakia (Rome, 1946). Considering the fact that the Government of Prague was organizing an international hunt for his capture, Durcansky undoubtedly displayed an uncommon courage when he went personally to Paris or when, believing in the right of political asylum in neutral countries, he made a dangerous journey through the Alps to Geneva, and from there to Rome. In Rome he tried to write various factions of Slovak refugees into one organized body, but circumstances were not only unfavourable for such an endeavor but also dangerous and therefore he left Europe in 1947 for Argentina with a group of Slovak intellectuals, with whom he created the Slovak Action Committee. There he continued to publish books and studies until 1952 when he returned to Germany. Among the books and studies which Durcansky wrote or prepared in exile for publication, the huge volume of documents (998 pages) called Prdvo Slovdkov na samostatnost' vo svetle dokumentov, Biela kniha, (The Right of Slovaks to Independence in the Light of Documents, or White Book; Buenos Aires, in April 1954), deserves special consideration. Even though his fighting temperament led him to disregard or to misrepresent the activities of other exiled Slovak organizations (such as the Slovak National Council Abroad) and even if a smaller volume in some foreign language might have been more useful, one has to recognize the assiduous work, patience and knowledge which were required for publication of this first and most camplete collection of documents on the Slovak question. The work was published thanks to the financial support of two outstanding Slovaks: Stephen B. Roman from Canada and Rev. John J . Lach, from Whiting, Ind., U.S.A. A shorter, concise study of the international aspect of the Slovak question was published by Durcansky in 1954 SLOVAKIA 159 in German, in 1955 in English and in 1957 in Spanish under the titles: Die Slovakische Frage als eine internationale Frage (Munich, 44 p.); The International Aspects of the Slovak Qu.estion (38 p.) and El aspecto internacional de la question eslovaca (Buenos Aires, 54 p.). As in all his writings nurcansky displayed in this booklet a thorough knowledge of political literature in several languages as well as his versatility in International Law. In addition to these publications Durcansky contributed from 1952, when he settled in Europe, to various leading political and scholarly periodicals, mostly German and Austrian, such as: Politische Studien (Munich), Donauraum (Vienna), Der Europiiische Osten (Munich) ect. All these contributions ( some 20 of them are listed in his bibliography) aim at explaining to the Western World basic Slovak political problems or defending Slovakia and Slovaks against the ruthless Czech and Communist propaganda. In style and contents they meet and sometimes even overpass the high standards of European political literature and the same can be said of the memoranda (15 altogether) which :ourcansky alone or in co-operation with others published in various foreign languages on the Slovak question. A Struggle Against Many Odds From the beginning of his political career Dr. :ourcansky was engaged in a struggle against many odds. Rarely in Slovak history any political leader faced so many times a serious danger to his own safety and hardly anyone's political conceptions were subject to such a barrage of lies and misrepresentations as it was the case of :ourcansky's fight for Slovakia's independence. He faced them all as a man and never failed to believe that Slovaks can achieve an equal status with other Central European nations if they fight and make sacrifices for it. By his own activities, courage and perseverance :ourcansky set an example which deserves recognition by everyone for whom freedom, justice and human progress have any value. History of Slovakia in the crucial years before and during the Second World War was shaped by him more than his friends or adversaries have been ready to admit. In the first Slovak 160 SLOVAKIA political exile he was undoubtedly spiritus moveus and at times regarded as the uncompromising leader if not by all, certainly by a great number of those who left Slovakia in 1945. If for some period of time his methods did not lead to the intergration of all Slovaks in the free world for a united action in favour of Slovakia's liberation, it would be unjust to put the blame on him alone. Exiled groups with greater political experience and waves of political emigrees before them, passed through the same phases of mutual struggles, distrust and disunity. Slovaks in the free world could not escape the special "climate" which the circumstances of the exile generate, but even in this regard, Slovaks achieved what no other exiled group achieved: intergration of both political Slovak representations in the free world into the Slovak Liberation Council, of which Dr. nurcansky became the first president of the Executive Committee. His sixtieth birthday finds Dr. nurcansky still in undiminished activity for the Slovak cause and with unbroken belief that the Slovak struggle - a struggle against many odds - will finally be victorious . We greet him in the same spirit and cordially wish him also on behalf of those who are silenced in Slovakia: Ad multos annos! J.M. Kirschbaum THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA condemns and unequivocally opposes all forms of tyranny, every form of totalitarian political system. The Slovak League of America has always recognized the Godless philosophy of materialir.tic Communism for the dread evil and conspiracy against free humanity that it is, as the political system which threatens mankind with utter enslavement and, therefore, has fought resolutely against it in and out of season and, today, is still determined to fight against it with all the means at its command until the dread plague of Communism is wiped off the face of the earth.  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 Prof. Dr. F. Ďurčansk - Politician, Scholar and Fighter for Slovakia’s Independence Description An account of the resource J.M. Kirschbaum Slovakia, Vol. 17 (No. 40), 1967 pp. 153-160 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kirschbaum, Jozef M., 1913-2001 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1967 SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/dbde9d29d97125296684855753e3b11b.pdf b79bbc59e21388cbb51d6e021352d1be PDF Text Text 60 SLOVAK.IA Prof. Stanislav Meciar (1910-1971)-ln Memoriam With a group of writers and poets who left Slovakia before the advancing Soviet armies in 1945, with the intention to fight for Slovak freedom and independence in the West, there were also literary critics and literary historians with established reputations. Among them, Prof. Stanislav Meciar, born on March 21, 1910, in Prievidza, was one of the most outstanding. His untimely death on November 23, 1971, in Buenos Aires , Argentina, has been . therefore, regretted with great sorrow everywhere in the free world where Slovaks live. In Stanislav Meciar, Slovak literary history and criticism had a well educated, eclectic literary critic, essayist and evaluator of Slovak cultural life. Meciar studied at the Universities of Bratislava, Prague, Leipzig and Warsaw, specializing in Slavic and German literatures and philology. Equipped with a solid academic preparation and a strong ambition to elevate Slovak literary and cultural life to European standards, he occupied during the War the prestigious position of the editor of Slovenske Pohl'ady and made it a tribune of intellectual ferment and struggle for national goals. His patriotism and nationalistic fervor marked not only the contents of Slovenske Pohl'ady but also his whole literary work. Like many other writers and literary critics, Meciar appeared on the literary scene first as a writer of literary comments, book reviews, short novels and verses. Subsequently he moved into the field of comparative literature and translations from Slavic, especially Polish, poetry and prose. By 1936 he emerged as a literary critic and aesthete with a solid knowledge of Slovak literature always bearing in mind specific hlstorical and cultural development of the Slovak people. His published works : Poetry and L i f e (1936 ); Unknown Verses of Janka Kral' (1938 ) ; Hviezdoslav's Forester's Wife (1939), and Beniak's Zofia (1941 ) proved that Meciar was a mature, erudite literary critic who applied scholarly methods in his evaluation of Slovak literature. �SLOVAKIA 61 On the basis of these literary works and Meciar's academic background, the President of the Slovak Republic nominated him in 1944 Professor at the University of Bratislava. The Soviet occupation of Slovakia prevented him, however, from contributing to Slovak scholarship at university level. Meciar's patriotism and nationalistic fervor grew even stronger in exile which can be easily understood if one takes into account that Slovaks, after a few years of independent cultural development, had to see their dreams of independence crashed and their traditional values destroyed by Communism imposed upon them from outside. He became an "ecrivain engage" opposed to any compromise in the Slovak national struggle. From 1949 to 1952 he edited the most nationalistic of all Slovak periodicals abroad Slovenskd Republika, a series of books "Slovenskd slobodnd kultura" (Slovak Free Culture, 1951-60) and Letopisy (Archives, 1963), the latter published by the Zahranicnd Matica Slovenskd which was organized in Buenos Aires by J. C. Hronsky with Meciar as secretary. Besides his many contributions to Slovak emigre newspapers on cultural and political matters, Meciar did not fail, however, to continue his scholarly work. His main literary achievement in exile has been two volume work on Martin Kukucin (Kukucin zivy, Buenos Aires, 1958-1960), the best Slovak novelist of the period of realism in Slovak literature, who also spent his life outside of his native country and died in Argentina. In the literary journals and almanacs (Most, Almanach Slovdka v Amerike, and in the symposium Vo Vyhnanstve), Meciar published essays on Slovak culture, on the leading Slovak post-war novelist Milo Urban, and on the most outstanding Slovak poets, Jan Holly and P. 0. Hviezdoslav. An intellectual with a proud national consciousness and dedicated to the struggle for freedom of the Slovak people, Meciar never hesitated to display his uncompromising attitude towards the foes of the Slovak striving for a free and independent cultural and political development. His death created a gap in the ranks of Slovak intellectuals abroad which will be very hard to fill. Slovak culture lost in Prof. Meciar a proud representative of a generation which helped the dream of Slovak independence to come true. J. M. Ki rs c h b au m � 60 SLOVAK.IA Prof. Stanislav Meciar (1910-1971)-ln Memoriam With a group of writers and poets who left Slovakia before the advancing Soviet armies in 1945, with the intention to fight for Slovak freedom and independence in the West, there were also literary critics and literary historians with established reputations. Among them, Prof. Stanislav Meciar, born on March 21, 1910, in Prievidza, was one of the most outstanding. His untimely death on November 23, 1971, in Buenos Aires , Argentina, has been . therefore, regretted with great sorrow everywhere in the free world where Slovaks live. In Stanislav Meciar, Slovak literary history and criticism had a well educated, eclectic literary critic, essayist and evaluator of Slovak cultural life. Meciar studied at the Universities of Bratislava, Prague, Leipzig and Warsaw, specializing in Slavic and German literatures and philology. Equipped with a solid academic preparation and a strong ambition to elevate Slovak literary and cultural life to European standards, he occupied during the War the prestigious position of the editor of Slovenske Pohl'ady and made it a tribune of intellectual ferment and struggle for national goals. His patriotism and nationalistic fervor marked not only the contents of Slovenske Pohl'ady but also his whole literary work. Like many other writers and literary critics, Meciar appeared on the literary scene first as a writer of literary comments, book reviews, short novels and verses. Subsequently he moved into the field of comparative literature and translations from Slavic, especially Polish, poetry and prose. By 1936 he emerged as a literary critic and aesthete with a solid knowledge of Slovak literature always bearing in mind specific hlstorical and cultural development of the Slovak people. His published works : Poetry and L i f e (1936 ); Unknown Verses of Janka Kral' (1938 ) ; Hviezdoslav's Forester's Wife (1939), and Beniak's Zofia (1941 ) proved that Meciar was a mature, erudite literary critic who applied scholarly methods in his evaluation of Slovak literature. �SLOVAKIA 61 On the basis of these literary works and Meciar's academic background, the President of the Slovak Republic nominated him in 1944 Professor at the University of Bratislava. The Soviet occupation of Slovakia prevented him, however, from contributing to Slovak scholarship at university level. Meciar's patriotism and nationalistic fervor grew even stronger in exile which can be easily understood if one takes into account that Slovaks, after a few years of independent cultural development, had to see their dreams of independence crashed and their traditional values destroyed by Communism imposed upon them from outside. He became an "ecrivain engage" opposed to any compromise in the Slovak national struggle. From 1949 to 1952 he edited the most nationalistic of all Slovak periodicals abroad Slovenskd Republika, a series of books "Slovenskd slobodnd kultura" (Slovak Free Culture, 1951-60) and Letopisy (Archives, 1963), the latter published by the Zahranicnd Matica Slovenskd which was organized in Buenos Aires by J. C. Hronsky with Meciar as secretary. Besides his many contributions to Slovak emigre newspapers on cultural and political matters, Meciar did not fail, however, to continue his scholarly work. His main literary achievement in exile has been two volume work on Martin Kukucin (Kukucin zivy, Buenos Aires, 1958-1960), the best Slovak novelist of the period of realism in Slovak literature, who also spent his life outside of his native country and died in Argentina. In the literary journals and almanacs (Most, Almanach Slovdka v Amerike, and in the symposium Vo Vyhnanstve), Meciar published essays on Slovak culture, on the leading Slovak post-war novelist Milo Urban, and on the most outstanding Slovak poets, Jan Holly and P. 0. Hviezdoslav. An intellectual with a proud national consciousness and dedicated to the struggle for freedom of the Slovak people, Meciar never hesitated to display his uncompromising attitude towards the foes of the Slovak striving for a free and independent cultural and political development. His death created a gap in the ranks of Slovak intellectuals abroad which will be very hard to fill. Slovak culture lost in Prof. Meciar a proud representative of a generation which helped the dream of Slovak independence to come true. J. M. Ki rs c h b au 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 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 60 SLOVAK.IA Prof. Stanislav Meciar (1910-1971)-ln Memoriam With a group of writers and poets who left Slovakia before the advancing Soviet armies in 1945, with the intention to fight for Slovak freedom and independence in the West, there were also literary critics and literary historians with established reputations. Among them, Prof. Stanislav Meciar, born on March 21, 1910, in Prievidza, was one of the most outstanding. His untimely death on November 23, 1971, in Buenos Aires , Argentina, has been . therefore, regretted with great sorrow everywhere in the free world where Slovaks live. In Stanislav Meciar, Slovak literary history and criticism had a well educated, eclectic literary critic, essayist and evaluator of Slovak cultural life. Meciar studied at the Universities of Bratislava, Prague, Leipzig and Warsaw, specializing in Slavic and German literatures and philology. Equipped with a solid academic preparation and a strong ambition to elevate Slovak literary and cultural life to European standards, he occupied during the War the prestigious position of the editor of Slovenske Pohl'ady and made it a tribune of intellectual ferment and struggle for national goals. His patriotism and nationalistic fervor marked not only the contents of Slovenske Pohl'ady but also his whole literary work. Like many other writers and literary critics, Meciar appeared on the literary scene first as a writer of literary comments, book reviews, short novels and verses. Subsequently he moved into the field of comparative literature and translations from Slavic, especially Polish, poetry and prose. By 1936 he emerged as a literary critic and aesthete with a solid knowledge of Slovak literature always bearing in mind specific hlstorical and cultural development of the Slovak people. His published works : Poetry and L i f e (1936 ); Unknown Verses of Janka Kral' (1938 ) ; Hviezdoslav's Forester's Wife (1939), and Beniak's Zofia (1941 ) proved that Meciar was a mature, erudite literary critic who applied scholarly methods in his evaluation of Slovak literature. SLOVAKIA 61 On the basis of these literary works and Meciar's academic background, the President of the Slovak Republic nominated him in 1944 Professor at the University of Bratislava. The Soviet occupation of Slovakia prevented him, however, from contributing to Slovak scholarship at university level. Meciar's patriotism and nationalistic fervor grew even stronger in exile which can be easily understood if one takes into account that Slovaks, after a few years of independent cultural development, had to see their dreams of independence crashed and their traditional values destroyed by Communism imposed upon them from outside. He became an "ecrivain engage" opposed to any compromise in the Slovak national struggle. From 1949 to 1952 he edited the most nationalistic of all Slovak periodicals abroad Slovenskd Republika, a series of books "Slovenskd slobodnd kultura" (Slovak Free Culture, 1951-60) and Letopisy (Archives, 1963), the latter published by the Zahranicnd Matica Slovenskd which was organized in Buenos Aires by J. C. Hronsky with Meciar as secretary. Besides his many contributions to Slovak emigre newspapers on cultural and political matters, Meciar did not fail, however, to continue his scholarly work. His main literary achievement in exile has been two volume work on Martin Kukucin (Kukucin zivy, Buenos Aires, 1958-1960), the best Slovak novelist of the period of realism in Slovak literature, who also spent his life outside of his native country and died in Argentina. In the literary journals and almanacs (Most, Almanach Slovdka v Amerike, and in the symposium Vo Vyhnanstve), Meciar published essays on Slovak culture, on the leading Slovak post-war novelist Milo Urban, and on the most outstanding Slovak poets, Jan Holly and P. 0. Hviezdoslav. An intellectual with a proud national consciousness and dedicated to the struggle for freedom of the Slovak people, Meciar never hesitated to display his uncompromising attitude towards the foes of the Slovak striving for a free and independent cultural and political development. His death created a gap in the ranks of Slovak intellectuals abroad which will be very hard to fill. Slovak culture lost in Prof. Meciar a proud representative of a generation which helped the dream of Slovak independence to come true. J. M. Ki rs c h b au 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 Prof. Stanislav Mečiar (1910-1971) - In Memoriam Description An account of the resource J. M. Kirschbaum Slovakia, Vol. 22 (No. 45), 1972 pp. 60-61 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kirschbaum, Jozef M., 1913-2001 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1972 SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/9cccf38bc22879e70dd339fdc97c1403.pdf 3399f86f31024434dee12664ff3567f9 PDF Text Text 38 SLOVAKIA HISTORY OR PROPAGANDA? P. A. HIROBAK In 1'9149, the Uniiversity of California Press, ipulblished the "third printing" of the !book "CZEOHOSW VAKIA" (504 pages) which was edited iby Rolbert J. Kerner, Sather professor of history in the Unilversity :of California. 'Dhe book was made ipossilble, ,p rofessor Kerner states in his preface, iby "the oolla!boration of twenty distinguished and alble scholiars and writers" and that, concludes Mir. Kerner, "has made it ;possiible to present a vo1ume ,which is an honest, unprejudiced:, and frank appraisal of the important contrilbution which the Czechoslovak nation made to the history of our time in its two short decades of independence between two world wars." Just how honest, unprejudiced and frank that aipp:r,aisal of the "important" contribution is, the ireader may be a;ble to g,ather from what follows here and arrive at the condusion, stated so aiptly iby professor Kerner, that, indeed, "few nations, if any can show such a record" or, possibly, go a bit .farther and state cate.gorically that, indeed, no niation can show .such a record! But how honest and unprejudiced are "distinguished and able scholars" who set out to do a job beyond their competency? Can a distinguished historian write a true history of CZIDCH0-1SUOVAKITA without a thorough lmowledge of the SlovaJks and the land they 'haive occupied during the past 1500 years? And yet that is exaotly what the "twenty distinguished and aJble scholars and writers" of Kerner's "Ozechoslovaikia" did to ,produce something which, in his opinion, was "hQlrulst, unprejudiced" ! Kerner's "Ozechoslovikia' is dirvided into six parts, but the tendency in all parts is much the same: strictly Czech. Kerner should haive named the 1b ook "Czechia," t'hen the wonk might ibe called, by a stretch of the imagination, a semlblance of something "hlOlll.est and unprejudiced." Otherwise, informed readers know rthat it definitely is not, and the uninformed axe cruelly deceived. The s~gniificance of this may be !better understood when we glance at the remarkaible selection of books in the sug- �SLOVAKIA 39 geeted bibliog,r aphy at the end of each cha;pter. The list is rema.r.kaJble not only for the !books and literary woi,ks included, but for the 1bodks and literary works omitted. The impression created is that the Slovruks had no ,w riters of a!lly impor-t and that no sourees of informatiO!ll on their history are availruble. iBut that i.'S not so. '.Dhis proves that the "twenty distinguished a:nd able scholars and writers," who collalborated with Kerner .cm his "Czechoslovakia" were little or not at all concerned with the history of the Sl01Vak people and their land. To magnify and glorify the history of the Ozechs and minimize, practically ignore, the history of the Slavruks, certainly cannot be the aim of an honest, UDJprejudiced and abjecti;ve writer of Ozecho~lovak history. Ozecho-Blovakia, as presented ,b y Kerner and his "twenty distinguished and aJble .s cholars and writers," does not give us a true picture of Czech-0-1Slovakia; it is not a true history of the Ozechs and SlOIV'aJks and their lands; it is definitely more propaga:nda than history - in line with other .such wm,ks which were promoted by the propaganda apparatus of Prag,ue. !Students of history should not 'be exposed to faJsifications and distortions of history, su<!h as that exemplified ·b y Kerner's "Ozechoslovakia," because. that does not make for the truth, or for better relations ibetween the Ozechs and the Slovalks, or for a ·pr.oper understanding of those nations. I do not want to say unequirvocally that the writers who collaborated to produce Kerner's "Ozechoslovrukia" were knowingly dishonest ,a nd prejudiced, but their work co.n,vinced me definitely that ,w ittingly or uniwitti.ngly they did ibeoome Ozech propa:gandists. The writers have an undu:ly high regard for the chairacter and accomplishments of T. G. Masaryk amd Benes and the Ozechs in general, without an equa:lJy high reg,aro for facts, and little or no regard for the Slorvaks and their history. ,M ost writers of Ozeolio..Slovaik history and "Ozecho..slovak" democracy (IS. Harrison Thomson, Joseph S. Roucek, Herbert AdolJphus ,Miller, Brackett Lewis, among them), follow the Ozech line of T. G. Masaryik and Ed- �40 SLOVAKIA ward Benes and their governmeints ,w ho ,c ontrolled the entire propaganda apparatus• o;f ,Czecho-1Slov8Jkia. This Masaryk~enes line was and e;ve:n now is adhered to iby exchange students and iprofessors, heads of official and unofficial information !bureaus, the America.n Institute in Prague, the YMCA and YWCA of 0zecho-Slovrukia and other countries, the "OzechoslQIViruk N ationa,1- Ohurch" (strictly a Czech enteriprise) and most other religious sects, and practically all "eminent" writers, scholars and correspondents. And today the governments of all countries of the ,w orld still lbase their knowledge 'Of OzechoSlovakia and the vario:us nations that comprise it on the information supplied by the state propaganda apparatUJS of T. G. iMasaryk and Edward Benes. The import Ol:f this will undouibtedly be appreciated iby students of history, and even historians themselves, if they rememlber that this line has been followed and ipvopagaJted for ·a t least the past thirty-seven years. Accordirrrgly, the Czechs are a "historical" nation, while the SlovaJks are oruy a •~branch" of it and their language just a "dialect" orf the Czech. Ridiculous attempts are made to trace the histo,r y of the non-.existent "Ozechoslovruk" nation to the times of the Great Moravian Empire ,a nd Sts. Cyril and [Methodius. The "CzechoslOW!Jks" are supposed to 1b e the nation of Hus, Masaryk, and Benes, but also the nation of Sts. Cyril and Methoilius, WenceslaUJS and Ludlmila. The Ozechs, however, are ",p rogressive" Catholics and the 1Slovruks "reactionary" Catholics. ,F rom officiail statistics we learn how many Poles, Germruns, Jews, 'Magyars and Uikrainians there Weir'e iin Czecho-1Slovakia at any ,g iven time,. but not how many ,SlQIVlaks. That is explained ruway by the s1Jateme.nt th:at the Slovaks were not considered a tminority, hence, they were included under the category of "0zechosloivaiks." The latter term, however, is terr1bly l<_?ng, so the shorter "Czech" is used in many in,stainces as an "aJbbreviation." The term "Slovalk" could not •b e us.ed, I suppose, because it has O'Ile more letter than "Czech"! When statistics do, however, mention Czechs and .Slovaks se,pairately, the figures are in- �SLOVAKIA 41 variably magnified on bhe Ozech side and minim1zed on the Slovak side. The !Magyars were experts at this sort of "mathematics" long before Ozecho-iSlova!kia was !born. The tendency is too olbviou.s. Many distinguished and aJble scholars and writers of the tyipe mentioned lby Kerner, can tell us exactly wh&e and albout when the Czechs, Poles, Russians, Slovenians, Croatians, rSe11bs, etc., fust settled in their respective territories, lbut, it seems, they cannot even venture a.in honest guess when it comes to the Slovaks. I say again: the tendency is dl:wious. They tell us that the Great Moraivian Empilre was the prede•cessor of the Czecho-Slol\TaJk RepU!blic, a Czech venttl!re, when in fact it was not. The Slova:ks, their predecesors that is, occupied both sides of the Morawa River at that time (whence, the name of :the empire) aind, hence, formed the very heart of the shor-Uived emipire, which was destroyed by the GermaJI1s with the aid of the Ozechs who had settled in, Bohemia, the land of the Boii. And we used to hear and read aJboot the "Crown lands of Bohemia," lbut now it seems to be the mode in "1p rogress,ive" historical ch'cles, to use the expression "Crech crown lands." I repeat : the tendency is only too. ohvio.us. The Czechs are not and do, not ,wa,,nt to be Slovaks a,nd, co,ruversely, the Slorva'ks are not and do not want to be Czechs. The SlovaJks .a nd the Ozechs did not have a common history, language, culture and tradition du.ring the past 1500 years, ~ause they did not occupy the same territQry. In a word, the Cizechs 0JI1d the Sl01Vaks developed sepaJTa tely and are, therefore, two distinct ethnic nations. 'l'he Slovaks never were, nor are they now, a "part" of the Czech nation. This simple truth, recognized 'by fille Czechs and SlOIVaJks themselves for many centuries ;past, should also be recognized lby "distinguished and alble scholars ood writers" of our time. It is tiiue that the SlovaJks formed a common political State with the Czechs in 19'.18, but only on certain conditions, the most important of which was that they would be a completely autonomous unit of the Ozecho-SlovaJk �42 SLOV.AKIA federatio.n, that is, that they would en~oy full states' rights. The condition not obeiirrg fulfilled, spelled the end of OrechoSlovaJkia. Because Benes insisted that the Czechs be the "stat~ation," Czecho-Slo1vaJk ia was doomed to perdition. Today the Slovaks do not want to be contained in any common State wti.th the Czechs or any other foreign nation. They can be kept so temporarily only lby force. !But that is not what the "distinguished and aJble sch~lars and writers" who oo1lalboraJted with professor Kerner tell us in the book "CzechoslovaJkia." Propaganda oa.- history? Let us anailyize Kerner's ''Czechoslovakia" chapter by chapter to prove our contentions. But let me note first t!hat on page xvii, at the end of the "contents," professor Kerner tells us how to pronounce "Czech" (not "Czechoslovak," mind you) letters; and on p. xxi, the poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay is entitled "Ozecho-iSlovakia" (:not "Czechoslovalkia") , which b,rings uip the question of hyphenization of the 1political state of tihe 1SlovaJks and the Czechs which was 'b orn iln 1918. The treaty 1b y which Czecho--Slova1kia came into being spelled ithe name with a hyphen to indicate that two indiividual ethnic entities, two distinct nations, 'had formed one political state. The hyiphen was dropped lby Masaryk and Ben-es and their followers. Whether the hyphen was J.eft in the title of the ipoem because of the author's insistence, or prof. Kerner's "careless" editing, I do not know, but it is singular that the hyphen should a;ppear in a book liike "Ozechoslova;lcia" at all! 1 • "C~ECHOSLOVA:KIA, Part I: BACKGROUND Chapter I-"The Czechoslovaiks-Anthropol ogical Notes . .." By Ales Hrdlfclka, M.D., Sc.D., Gura.tor, Division of Physical Anthropology, United States National Museum; Huxley 'Medal Lecturer, London (1927) ; memlber, National Academy of Scien-ces; honorary Doctor of 1S cience (Prague, Br.no)," etc., etc. Please not.e: The underscoring here and in the following is mine. "The term Czechoslovak ,i,s o! r ecen t coinage, dating from 1918, l\·hen the united Cze chs and Slovaks proclaimed. thei r independence of the Dual Mon,archy and th eir est abHshmi:mt of the Czeohoslovak �SLOVAKIA 43 Republic. . . . 'Illie name Czech (pronounced Chekh) ls derived, accord Ing to an old tradition, from the chiefta&n of the main Slav tribe who brought them some time during the dawn, of ihistory probably in tihe fifth cent\.U'ly A.!D. - to the heart of the land (IP, 3) . . . In fact, the hLstoTY of the Czechoslovak tribes, from the dawn of written ,r ecords to the present day, has •be.en one of ever.Jiasting struggles ·a.galns,t dnvooers (PP. 4.-5) . . . Tihe Slovaks, who u.p to 1029 formed a unit with Moravia, were then torn away by the Ma• gya,rs, isolated from the west, for,c ed .away from the best grounds iu the warm •lolwland,s, and eventuaUy repressed. in every way" (p. 6). It is evident that even Dr. Ales Hrrdli6ka, distinguished ,anthropologist of ~ech origin, :seems to be a bit confused about when the "Czechslovruks" came into being. Whether the Ozechs -are descendants ,of the "main. 'Slav trilbe" is open to ·question. The 'SlO!Vaks fo:nrned a "unit" with Moravia up to. 1029, according to Hrdlicka, 1but who the people were who settled in Morruvia is Jeft to the reader. Mora,via, of ooUTse, came under the influence of the Ozechs in time, at least the western portion of it, :b ut was not settled lby the Ozechs when the .Slovruks formed a unit with it, for the simple reason, it seems, that the for~ fathers of ithe Slovaiks settled on iboth sides of the river Morava, w'hile the Ozechs settled in fue J.and of the Boii, which was a distinot geographical unit, ,prolbaJbly a/bout the size of present-day Bohemia . • "The Czechoslovaks to 1620'' - ,b y S. Harrison Thomson, Ph ..D., BLitt. - Professor of Medieval History, Unirversity of Co-lorado; Ph.D., Charles Uni'Vers,ty, Prague; B.Litt., Omord University; Ewtor, Magistri Johannis Hus Tractatus Res-ponsivus; Johannis Wyclif Summa de Ente (1930) ;" etc., etc. CI:I\A.PrIDR III - "Led ,b y a travelln,g IFI'lankish merchant, Samo, tihe Slavic tribes freed themselves ,from the Av,a r rule, and chose Samo for their •k ing (623-624) . . . This ,e arly kingdom, which would appea,r to !have been pr.emature, iw,as ,neither Czech nor Slovak. It would have to be called Western ·s1av, ,b y .reason or a large intermixture of Slavic tribes which became gra.dua:l!y differentiated as they settled in different local!tes . . . The names of the princess Llbuiie and the peasant Premysl whom she cih ose to be her husband are in all proba• bility tJhe names of real persons. At any rate ,t he male descendants or this ,s-emilegendaxy .Pfemysl were to rule over ,Bohemia and neighboring regions until 1306 . . . It is not certain whether tihe Slavic chi,eftalne. enga,ged at this time to pay .tribute to the Fr,alllk.is~ emperor or not" (P. 9). �SLOVAKIA 44 Id: Samo, the "traveling 1F ranlkish merchant," established a kingdom, he necessarily must hruve stopped traveling somewhere, and that "somewhere" ,w as on territory occupied 'by "S1'arvic" tr.i!bes, out of which later a certain nation, or certain nations, arose. ,s amo's kingdom was not on the territory settled by the Czechs or other Sla-vonic peoples, 1b ut Olll the terri1lory settled by the "Slavs" who were later oalled ISlorvaks. Fredegar's Chronicles seem to indicate as much (THIE ISI.JOV~S AND !UNG SAMO'S EMiP]RE, by iDr. Henrich Bartelk, SU)VA.KIA, June 1954). The "Slavic trilbes" whioh ibecame gradually differentiated as they settled in "different localities" could not be identical witll the "Slruvic tribes" which remained on the territory of ISrum<>'s kingdom and, later, came to ~ ca1led the SlovaJks. As far ,as, the Ozech "Llbuse and Pfemysl" are concerned, let us talke the word Olf learned Czechs that they were legendary characters ("Ottuv SLOVN1K NAUONY," Vol.. XV, p. 1038; Vol. XX, rp. 625). We might a.loo concede, without offending historical truth, t!hat all "1S1'avic" chieftains, including the forefathers of the 'Czechs, paid tribute to the Frankish emperor, when he was strong enough to exact it. Why should the 'Slavs of Bohemia" be an exception? II t seems that professor Harrison is interested in building up a case for the Czechs to prove that they were completely independent during the time of Charlemagne (8th-9th cenrtury). Why? 1 • "Later in the ,c entury (846) !Louis the German su,bju,g-ated Mora. 11ia, •b ut suffered defeat wihen he ,a ttacked the Slavs of Bohemia. Th1s ,a ttack of tLouis the German n,vas directed ,against the empire of the Moravian prince Mojmir, who had shown rem arkable abllity in consolidating his rule south, east •a nd west to include southern Poland, Silesia, Bohemia, Moravia, and the valleys of the middle Danube and Theiss rivers a,s far as the northern boundaries of the Byzantine Empil'e . .. After the death of Svato,pluk (894) the Moravian Empire rapidly broke up into its component parts. The Czech princes of the Pi'emyslide line .gained independence for Bohemia, and the Magyars, new arrivals dn. t,he east, -extended llieir power over n~rthern Pannonia. German's and Slavs, united for the moment, were de• feated by the Ma,gyars in 907 neax (Bratislava (Pressburg), and the ruin of the Moravian state was complete" (P. 10). Louis subjugaited iMoravia, but was defeated by the "Slavs of Bohemia," which means that the latter were not �SLOVAKIA 45 identioal with the Slavs of Moravia, who were ruled by Mojmir. !Professor !Harrison also tells us that Mojmir, the Moravian prince, consolidated his rule by consolidating various ISlmrianic ('Slavic) trilbes, including those of Bohemia. This Mojmir did by force. It is significant that Harrison does not refer to Mojmir as a "Slovak" ,p rince, though he does not hesitate to say that 'Czech" princes gained independence fur Bohemia. He also omits to say that the Czechs, not the ",Slavs of Bohemia," mind you, gained their independence by !breaking ·a way from ,t he !MO!'aJVian Empire in 895, :aJfter the death of S,v atopluk. The Czechs, then, heliped to destro¥ the integrity of the Grea,t Moravian ffimpire, the heart of which ,was in Slovak country, the country of the Slavs of Moravia and Pannonia. In 900 the Czechs, the Slavs of Bohemia, together with the Germans, invaded the territory of the Sl01VaJks, the Slavs of Great Moravia, aJild after a terrific /battle forced !Mojmir II to sue for peace. Svatoplulk's three sons, ruling various areas of the Empire and constantly •a t each others throats, contributed greatly to the dissolution of Great Moravia. When the !Magyars moved into northern IPannonia, they met with little resistance, lbut professor Harriso n neglects to say what people settled in northern Pannonia, even though history tells us that the forefathers of the Slovaks occu'Pied tha.t territooy at the time. And where professor Harrison found the legend that "Germans and Slavs, uni.ted for the moment,." tried to save t!he Great Morawian Empire from falling into the hands of the Magyars in 907, he does !IlOt say. As mentioned rubove, the Germans, and the 'Slavs of Bohemia" (the Coochs) contributed to the downfall of Great Morawia. It is not, I thinlk, unreasonaJble to say that if the Germans and Slavs were really united to sruve the Moravian Em'Pire from falling into the hands of the Magyars, the latter would hardly have taken what was left of it in 907. Careless reporting of history? Probably, ·b ut to me it seems to be tendencious and puTposeful. Professor Harrison, it seems, was doing a jolb for the Brague regime and �46 SLOVAKIA the Ozechs. This is all the more obvious in his !book "Czechoslovakia in EmQpean H!istory" (Princeton Uniiversity Press, 1943, 1195'3), for which Harrison was ·aJWarded the "Czechoslovak State Prize for Literature" in 1944, when the Ozecho-1Slova'k State factually did not exist for five years. 'Dhe award was made iby Dr. Benes's ·g overnmentin.J..ondon at the Uni:versity Clulb in New Yorik, Decem.lber 30, 1944. • •~remysl Otaka.r [ (1197-1230:) was able to use circumstances for the •b enefit of his dynrusty and the Czech kingdom . . . iHe shifted his allegiance four times. eadh time gaining conoession:s or confirmation of eonc-essions .previously granted ,b y another claimant to the throne . . . . But to Pfomysl must be assigned the responsibility for inviting tJhe German immig,r ation. Encouraged by the court, many Czech nobles. had married Germ,a;n ,w omen; some of the best positions of the ·churoh in ,Bohemia and Moravia were occupied by German clerics; ·German mf.nnesin,g ers ,w,ere in high favor at the royal court and at the courts of the Ticher nobles" (P. 13). Here professor !Harrison tells us tJhat 1P rem.ysl Otakar was quite a "shifity" ruler, using circumstances for the benefit of his dynasty and the "Czech" kingdom, not the "Boh,emian" ikingdom, but favored German immigration, and "Czech" (not Bohemian) ndbles married: German women, and some of the best ;positions of ,t he Church in Bohemia and Moravia were held lby German clerics, etc. It is evident here rthat professor Harrison cannot make up his mind whether the Bohemians were Ozechs or GelUllans, or both! It is quite clear, however, that the Slovaiks, the Slavs of Moravia and Pannonia, did not .fit into the picture of the "Cz,ech" ikingdom at that ,t ime. The twenty ipa,ges of Kerner's "OzechosloivaJlda" taken up iby Harrison's "'IJhe Czechoolovaks to 1620" use the word Slovak(ia) some seven times and, therefore, repudiate the idea, insinuation or implication, that .there were any "Czechoslovaks" up ,t o 1620. Not only that, but for Harrison, it seems, the ISlo.vaJks - the Slavs of Moravia and Pannonia - simply do not exist at all after the fall of the Great iMoraivian Empire, except for the mention (p. 17) of "a consideraJble number of (Hussiite) adherents 1? Sfovalkia," which is quite a stretch of the imagination. The Hussite !business was strictly Cezch; the Hussites did �SLOVAKIA 47 more damage than good for the Czechs themselves, and aibsolutely no good for the Slovaks, whose lands they invaded, pillaging and !burning their homes, and murdering their population. Furthermore, !Harri.son oreaites the impression that the !Battle of White !Mountain (1620) was ,a; nationalistic affair, W1aJged lby the Ozechs against the Genmans. That is the legend fabricated 'Mld propagated by some Protestant Czechs. The White 1MoU1DJtain affair, however, was definitely a religious and dynastic aifafir. After Tilly, the emperor's general, defeated Frederiok and the Bohemian (111ot Czech!) maignates, some 27 of the leading "rebels" were beheaded: one a Catholic; six were Germans. Not one, however, was executed becaJUse of his nationality. Not without interest is Harrison's mention (p. 11) that the Premyslide iprinces di'Vided the country, in .t he tenth century, "into administrative distrfots (zupy) with a royal representative (zupan) at the head of each distTiot." wf the Czech Premys.lides actually used the terms "zupa, zupan," I wonder if professor Harrison mi,g ht enlighten us from whom they might have acquired those words, since they are rarely used !by the Czechs . • CHA!PTER III - "The Czechoslovaks from the Battle of White ,Mountain to the World War" - by RO'bert J. Kerner, Ph. D ., i.lL.D., /Litt.D. - Sather Professor of History, Uni'Versity of California; LL.D., Omaha University; Litt.iD., Paiik College; foreign memlber, Royal Bohemian Society of Letters and Sciences (Prague); foreign member, Safarik Learned Society (Bratislava); commander, Order of the Whlite Lion (Ozecho~SlovaJkia); memlber, Expert Staff, Colonel House Inquiry and American Commission to Negotiate Peace (!Paris); etc., etc. "The dlsa,strous battle of W•h ite Mountain on November 8, 1620, uslhered lin a period of three centur.les in which the Klngdom of Bohemia was reduced to .three provinces, Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, in ,t he Habs,b urg MOIIlarchy. During the first centUTY of •t his period the nation lost three-fourths of its native nobility, its most eminent and wealthy citizens, its schools and noted scholara, and its national independen-ce. A remarkable national renaissance took place in the second century. In the remainder of the period, the Czecho• slovak nation, after tlailin.g to bring •about a reorganization of the �48 SLOVAKIA Ha;bsburg Monarchy on ,a federal -basis, or to secure the same dg,h ts as tfue Magyars, ,c arried out a ,s uccessful revolution a,nd obtained its independence" (P. 29). !Referring to the underscored words, I ask professor Kerner: 1. What nation, the Czech or Bohemian? 2. What "Czechoslovak." nraition, when there was none? 3. What Magyars, ,o r does iKerner mean Hungarians? 4. What revolution 1by the "Ozechoslovaik" nation?. Kerner used the title he did for this chapter delilberately, because he must haJVe known there were no "CzechoslO'V8Jks," ethnically spooking, ,b efore or after the battle of White Mol.l.[ltain, to the World War, except in the minds of dreamers and chauvinistic, imperialistic Creohs. He could easily haJVe ,o mitted the d:ew references to Slovaks and the m8Jny to "Orechos}ovaiks" in the 211 1pages of the chrupter and had ,a rpretty good ,s tory on the "Czechs'' from the Battle of White Mountain to the World War." Practically everything in the chapter is "Czech" - language, literature, nation, historians, pe3Jsants noblemen, renaissance, Catholics, Pr.otestants, opera, national anthem, Lutherans, journalists - lbut Kerner still makes pretense at writing aJbout "Czechoslovaks." Is there any good ,r eason why an honest, Ulliprejudiced, objective historian should try to fool even himself? Surely, Kerner musrt !know that the ~echs devel01ped in the Austrian ,p art, ,w hile the Slova!ks developed in ,t he Hungarirun prurt of the Dual Monarchy. What Kerner means to imply when he says that the "Czechoslovak nafilon . . . . . . carried out a successful revolution" and db.tamed its independence is at least questionaJble. We know that there was not even a revolution in Prague. !Robert Ingrim tells us: "All that J:J.a;ppened ,was tJhat Emperor-King Charles, seeing that Wilson :a:bandoned his former program in the hour of victory, dropped tJhe fed,ema;listic idea and ordered his minds.tern and lieutenant-governors to surrend,e r the admi'llistration to coonmittees of the various nationalities. Thi,s explains among other things why Masaryk, as the first president of Czecho-Slovakia, had to decree which date was to be regarded as the beginning of the Czech re· volution. It simply had not taken place. All bhe successor states, including little. Austria, needed the legal fiction of a ,r evolution, because as• new states they repudiated the idea of continuity and based �SLOVAKIA 49 their la/\V,s upon a revolutionary origin. For the Czechs this was very important. When, in 1921, .the .Sudeten Germans complained to the League of Nations t:hat they had not been allowed to take par.t in the making of the constitution of the new State, the Czecho-Siov•a k government replied. that 'the Cz~ho./Slovak State was the work and product of the revolution, made solely by the Czecho-Slovak nation,' which was, therefore, 'the only constitutional factor.' Hence, 'the Natiooru Revolutionary Assembly was alone authorized to set up the constitution' by W1h1ch Germans, \Hungarians, Ruthenians, and Poles had •b een made second-class citizens" (After Hitler Sta11n? P. 107). To complete the above piotu.re, '.I might add that the Slovak memlbers of the "Na,tional Revolutioaiary Assembly" were lhand-'I)icked lby Masaryk and Benes and, included firve Czechs, hence, were not truly representa.tirve of the political will of the 1S101Vaik nation. The constitution that resulted, therefore, was strictly a Czech product, j'llSt as was Ozecho-lSlovak domestic iand foreign policy. In referring to the development that took ipla.ce during the Reformation and ICoU!Ilter-lReformation in Ozech rund Slovak territories, Kerner says that "in general the same development took place in the ISloivaJk counties od' Hungary as in Bohemia, /Moravia and \S ilesia." If a person did not know !better, he might be led to 1believe that Kerner did not use the express-ion "Ozech counties" in his comparison, because Bohemia, Moria.via and !Silesia were supposedly solidly Czech. We know that they were not. And we know, too, that Bohemia was not the only country that suffered during the Thirty Yea.rs' War; that war "ravaged Bohemia with the same fury it unleashed all over the Germanies. . . There was no, difference and certainly no national ,pll!'.pose" (I.n,g rim, op. cit., ,p. 57). Kerner, furthermore, writes ab.9-ut "Magyar'' magnates and "Magyar" nolbility, rwhen he really means "Hungarian" magnates and noibility. There is a difference: the Magyars were not the only inhabitants of Hungary before or aft-er the 17th century. The same applies .to the terms "Czech" and "Bohemian." Of course, we might say that the tenns today - af.ter the expulsion of over three million Germans - are mo.re or less synonymous. Let us, however, remember that they were not even in ,t he recent past: the Czechs were not the only inhabitants of Bohemia. �50 SLOVAKIA "A new period in .the history of the Czechoslovak nation was inaJugurated" (p. 32), when 1Fredericik the Great seirzed Silesia in 1740, Kerner states oaitegorically and, fartiher down on the same page, that "the reforms of Maria '.Dheresa and Joseph JiI . . . not only culminated in the completion of the evolution ,which tra.nsf.ormed the Kingdom of Bohemia into three provinces and hence virtual amalg,amaJtion of 1!he Austrian Hereditary Lands with the Lands of the (Bohemim Crown into a single administrative unit, but they threatened the Czechoslovaks with loss of identity as a nation 'by the process• of Germanization in schools, government, ,and church." Here, it is obvious that Kerner w-..s a 1b it ~fuddled and •a )pparently forgot, in his zeal to promot.e the concept of a "Czoohoslovaik nation," that ,t he SkwaJks lived in HU!Ilg,ary and,. hence, !by no stretch of t'he imaigination, even in this "enlightened" and "iprogres.sive" era, could have had any connection with the "Austrian Hereditary Lands" and the "Lamds of the Bohemi,a n Crown." It w.as the existent Czechs and not the nJOn-existent "OzechoslwaJks" who were threatened with the loss of identity as a nation iby the process of ~a.n:rzatiorn, in Austria. We can concede that the policy of Joseph ll "of trying to denationalize" Magyars, Italians, Poles, and Rumaniians "aroused them to activity" (p. 34), as it did the ~echs, SlovaJks, Croats, Slovenes, and Serbians, ibut why does Kerner lump the latter nations together as "Czeichoslovaiks" and "Jugoslavs" when he knows that such did not exist either in Joseph !I's time or even later? 'I'he reason fur this is only too obvious. On page 3Q,. the "Czechoslovaks" we.re threatened "w1t'h Joss of identity as a nation," but three pages later, according to Kerner, "at the same time the situation of the Slovaks in HWigary was somewhat improved by the reforms of Maria Theresa and Joseph II" (p. 35). The same reforms even led "to a great national revival (p. 32) . . . the Czech renaissance develo ped momentum step by step as decree after decree of Maria Theresa and Joseph II sought to a'bolish the use of the Czech language. When Joseph II completed t!he official demise of the Czech Ian1 �SLOVAKIA 51 guage in school, government, allld church in 1790, the Czech nation revwed. 1So mysterious was this development that its exact oauses have been a su:bject: of dispute among the best ·scholars" (1p. 34). Then on t:he following pa;ge (35) Kerner states: "The Ohurch feared that it would lose its ,g rip on the Czech nation i:f its priests spolke only German. These and other indications led to the establishment by Leoipold rnr of a chair in the Czech language at the University of ,Praigue in 1791." What, then, is this business ,th,a,t the reforms of Maria Theresa and Joseph JiI ''threatened the Czechoslovaks with loss of identity as a nation"? And what is so mysterious about <the reviival of the Czech nation in 1790? Kerner certainly must ha,ve ,h eard a;bouit the principle of action and reaction! If the iMa~rs, and laiter the Ozechs, had not tried to suppress the Slovak lang,uage and oppressed the Slovaks, they would have rprobaibly .perished as a nation in time . .Js it not olbtvious what ha,ppens to languages and peo~ ples in America rwhere freedom abounds? [n America peoples of every color, .race and creed enjoy freedom of the press, freedom of religion and freedom of asoomibly; they are d':ree to !build their own churches, schools, liibraries, 'beneficial organi:zations and ipubHsh new.s,pa,pers and books in their respective languages. Yet, there is no doufbt in. my mind that in time non-®nglish iperiodioa1s and 1books, published in America, will /be a rarity. Certainly, this must be just as olbvious - ,a nd not myst.erious - even to professor Kerner. • "A Protestant sc hool, -witJh a c hair in the Czech language a.nd literature, was founded in Brati,s.lava, and this inst:i,tution counted amQ/Ilg its s,t udents the future Czech his torian !FrantAse'k Palacky from Moravia and tlhe Slovaks Jan Kolla r ia.n.d Pave.I Josef i:lafaiik. The Protestant Slovaks followed closely the d·e velopment or the Czechs, Wlhereas the Catholic Slovaks under Antonin Bernolak tried to create, with indlff-erent success at the time, a. written Slovak dialect, which W'<IS s-eparate from .but closely akin to the Czech because a western dialect of spoken ,Slovak was used. The course of poli• tical events could not cheok the national revival of Czechoslovaks" (p. 36) . ,P rofessor Kerner does not relate the whole story, but only the part that s'l.lits his ipUTpOSe and, hence, sins by �52 SLOVAKIA omi-ssion. The Catholic Slcwa!ks oonstituted rut least 75 per cent of the Sl()IVaik nation, while the Protestant Slovaks only aibout ill per cent. Koillar and Safarik cultivated ,a "dead" 1amgiuage, a langu,a;ge tha;t was used iby a small part of tile Slovak nation, the Lutherans. And the latter used that language - "biblical" Czech, therefore, not the "live" language of the vast masses of the Czech people - mostly for and during religious functions, while at home they used Sloiv•aik. Anton, not Antonin (the Czech equivalent), Bernolwk not only "tried" to create a Slo.va!k literary language, but actually did estaibLish such a literary medium of Slorvak which was u:sed :some fifty years b,y S[ovak writers. There was no need :for iBernolaik to. create "a written Slovak dialect," ;b ecause various 'Slova!k dialects already were existent at that time. And iBernola:k definitely did 111ot choose the western dialect because it was "closely alkin" to Czech. Kerner, however, is quite right when he says that "the comse of political events could not check the nationa:I revival of the Ozechoslovalks," lbecaJuse they were non--existenrt. Those events could not check the national rerv:wal of either the Ozechs or the :S'1ov0iks . 1 • "Caug,h t between their sympathies with the Czechs and their fears of their .Magyar ov•erlord:s, Slovak patri'ots saw their security, not in coalescing at once with their Czech brethren, but in iworking to create a separate Slovak national movement by taking up once more the unsuccessful jdea of Bernolak that of developing a separate written Slovak language. Ludevit Stur, Michal Hodza, and Jo.:,ef Hurban, fearing the reproaches of the Magyars if they continued to use the Czech language, and hoping to attract the Slovak peasant masses, chooe in 184-5 to make. a dialect spoiken. in tlle central Slovak counties the '!lew literary language. The Czechs wa,r ned in v,a in against this departure from t.he practice of a thousand years. ·T hey argued that dts r esults would only be. to the >benefit of the Germans and Magy,ar.i" (p. 38). This statement is not based on 'hone.sit, hi:sitorical research. ilt is a fabrication pure and simple. Slova!k patriots ,t hen, even as now, fully realized that they could not safegu,,ard their nation.al existence !by playing second-, fiddle to other nations in the political coTIJCert. They did not fear the 'Maigyiars who sought to Magy.arme them any more than they feared the Czechs who sought to Ozechize �SLOVAKIA 53 the:rn. True Slovak ·p atriots never let their sympathies for the Ozechs or other oppressed nations interfere with their ultimate natioo.a.1 aim: freedom and rpolitioal independence - to become masters of their own household, of their own destiny. '.Dhey rebelled against the Magyars and, later, eiven against the Czechs, just as the Magyars and the Ozechs had rebelled ag,ainst the HlaJbsburgs. Stur, Hodza, Hurban (Jozef, not Josef) a,nd other Slova,k patriots developed the literary SlovaJk medilllIIl estrublished by iBen1i0laJk and his followers - the "lilve" language used lby the vast masses of the Slovalk people, both O~tholic and also Lutheran. They wrote in Czech for the Cze.ohs and in Slovak for the Slov,aks. Kerner does not say so directly, ibut the implication is ,t here that Stur, Hod.fa •a nd Hurb-an did use the Czech language exclusively in rtheir writings. The fact is thaJt; they did not and they did not fear the "reproaches of the Magyairs" for using Czech at ,any time they desired to do so. As int.elligent men they knew fully well they ieould not rouse their people nationally by using a language that was foreign to them, a language they did not consider their own. Why, then, the 'balderdash a:bout the Czechs warning Slo;vak paitriots against their depa;rture "from the practice of a thousand years"? '.Dhe vast majority of .the IS1ovruk natiO!Il, i!he Catholic Slovaiks, used their own Slovak language in their churches, homes and in their Hterary worlks, b;ut 'Professorr Kerner wO'Uld hruve students of history "Czechoslovak" history - believe that they used the Czech language forr a "thousand years" prior t,o 1845. Why does Kerner resort to outright falsehoods and aJbsurrd falbrications? Czech was brought into Siovakia, it is true, by Czech exiles during i!he Coun.ter..R.eformation to strengthen Lutheranism, ibut it never 'became the predominant literary medium of the ,vast masses of the Slovak people and their ,w riters. 1 • "The Magyar large landholder, the Catholic clergyman, and the Jewish merchant, screened, ,b ehind a blatant Magyar propaganda, worked to denaclonalize the Slovak peasant by falsifying his history and •by asserting tihat his language had no orelation to the Czech and did not belong to the languages of western Europe" (p. 44). �54 SLOVAKIA It is significant that Kerner should put the finger on "Catholic clergymen" - without mentioning names - and omit Protestant "progressilve" preachers and Jewish R3Jb.. bis who were equally interested in "denationiali ~ng" the Slovalk peasant, practically always woTking aigainst :the national interests of the ISlovalk nation. Of course, this is nothing new in history. T. G. iMasaryik and Benes, who should have learned the lesson of :A.ustr1a:-Hungary, denied the existence of it.he !Slovak nation as an individual ethnic entity, declaring the ISlovia!ks were only a "branch" of the Czech nation and their language only ,a "dialect" of the Ozech. (Falsifying history seems to be a specialty of the followem of Masaryk and Benes. And Kerner proves it! 1 • I "Whereas Kr-amai' became, so to ~,peak, the symbol of the economic u,psm1ge of the Czech lboUTgeoisie, Masaryk became the intellectual and spiritual head of the entire nation, including the Slovaks . • • . He (~·a saryk) became a Protestant, a modern Czech Puritan. Influenced by his reading af Czech history, he ,b elieved that h-e found. !ts plhilosophy 1n the religious ideal of il:he Hussites and the Ozeoh !Brethren" (pp. 47-48). The truth, however, is that T. G. Masaryk never was the "intellectual and spiritual head" of the 1Slov•lrlLs. If the Ozechs wish to consider Masaryk :as such, they are free to do so. The o.vel'IWhelming Catholic majority oif the Slovak people could not. Hlas Kerner forgotten Masaryk's blatant cries "away from !R;ome!" and "Rcxme must (be put on trial and condemned!"? Czech history is not Slovak history; the philosophy of Slova:k history does not rest on the "religious ideal of the Hussites and the Czech Brethren." Catholic Czechs form ibhe majority of the Czech nation, hence, we have good reason to doulbt Kerner's evaluation of Masaryik -as far as •t hey ,a re concerned, lbecaJuse Masaryk never did represent or COlllcern himself !With their spiritual interests, in fact, put them in jeopardy. Masaryik, according to Kerner, "viewed the problem of the small oppressed n.a:tiO'IlS ,as the polilticai and international phase of the social question - the exploit,aitdon of one nation by anot!her, for political exploitation meant cheap lalbor to the laboring drasse.s." 'But what happened after Czeoho-!Slovakiia was lborn and Masaryk !became he:r first president? He denied staites' rights to Slovakia and �SLOVAKIA 55 thought nothing of the OLechs exploiting the ,S lovaks and their national wealth! CHA[PTER [V - Peace Conference" - • "The World War, Revolution and iby RO{'bert J. Kern.er. '10n July 4 (191,5), Masaryk publicly in,a ugurated the revolutionary movement •by a ,l ecture on Jan Hus in Zurich, Srwitzerl•a nd. After Benes succeeded in escaping J.irom Austria, the Czech Foreign Committee issued its public manifesto for Czechoslovak independence in Pans on !November 14, 1915. This manifesto had previously been agreed upon by the leaders at home and by the leaders of Czech and Slovak colonies In America, England, and France a point on wihich !Masaryk insisted" (p. 53). 'W ho were those leaders "alt home" and in the Czech and Slovak colonies in America, England, and France? The record tells us that the leaders of the Czechs and Slovalks at home ikinew practically nothing of Masaryk's plans at that time; and the leaders of their respective colonies in various countries still less! • "This Committee (the Czech Foreign Committee) led to the creation of the •Czechoslovak Nation-al Council in 1916., which under Masaryk, Benes, and ~tefanlk gradually assumed the functions of goverJlllilent" (pg. 153-54) . . . "The Czechoslovak National Council, which was leading the struggle abroad, had not been disavowed by the nation at home" (p. 56). 1t is quite clear, rt:hen, that the Czech Committee is credited with the creation of the "Czechoslovak" Council, which Masaryk headed. But it is not in accord with fact that the Council "had not been disruvowed 1b y the nation at home." Masaryk was the leader of the Czech (Progressive Party, which he alone represented in the .Austrian ,parliament. When he left Austria, late .in 1914, Miasaryk went abroad with a ipr.ogram of his own. As far as is !known, he had not consulited wii.th Ozech and Siovalk leaders a:t home and had no authorization f.ram the Czechs or the Slovaks at home ito represent their politioal will. Of course, wherever Masaryk went, he did pose as a competent representative of the Czechs at home. When President. Wilson, .late in Decemlber 1916, requested an lb;elligerents to state their war aims, the Allied reply of January 1'2, 1917, included the following demand: "Lilberation of Italians, Riumaniains, Slaws,. and Czeciio- �56 SLOVAKIA Slovaks from foreign rule." Please note the "Slavs and Czecho-Slovaks" part, lbecaUJSe thaJt tells us 'j ust how well the Allies were informed on the sUJbjoot. Since Slovruks and Czechs spoke different languages, occupied different territories, and never in history had been united, rbhe appelation "Ozecho-1Slorvruk,s " was real new. At that time, when the British government was asked, in ithe Commons, ,w hethmit could indicate the territory inhabited iby "Czecho-1Slo-· vakis," the ra nswer was "no." The Czechs at home resented being mentioned as a nation under "foreign rule." One of their leading ipaipers, the NARODNE I.1IiSTY, had this tto say aJbout it: 1 "It is amazing how indefatigably Masaryk endeavors to defile the honor of the CZECH nation. The enemies have learnt that the love of all Austrian peoples for their inherited dynasty and their fatherland is firm and unshakable. The enemies have realized that those who make contradictory statements abroad are liars and impostors." In Norvem!ber, 1916, all the Czech parties in the Austrian rparliament, without a single exception, had issued a solemn declaration, stating thrat "the basis and guaranty of the national existence of the Czech people are the dynasty, called to the throne centuries ago, and the indivisibly constituted Monarchy." In the declaration they demanded foderafozation. And oin December 30, 191.6, all the Czech party leaders attended ttihe emiperor's coronation as king of Hungary as "guesrts of honor." After the Afli.ed reply to, Wilson became !known, the society of Czech memlbers of parliament sent the following letter (J,a nuary 23, 1'917) to the foreign minister of AustroHtrogary: "In view of the Alli-ed runswer to President ,W ilson in which the liberation of the Czechs figures as a war ,a im, we reject this insinuation whiClh is based on entirely erroneous assumptions. We declare emphatically that the Czech people, as always in the past, is convinced that it can be assured of a prosperous development only under the Habsburg scepter and within the Habsburg Monarchy" (Ingrim: "After Hitler Stalin?" p. 75). The very same Czech members of parliament requested Prime M:in.istffi' C1am....Martinic, a Czech, to arrange an audience with the emperor for them. Why? !Because :they said: "We want to tell His Majesty that we shall always stand by him and his successors; that our demands will always be compatible �SLOVAKIA 57 with the interests of the Habsburg dyansty and of the realm; that we are loyal servants of the king and the country; that our complaints have never shaken our belief that after victory the claims of the ,Czech people will find satisfaction within the framework of the realm and under the Habsburg crown." It is quite obvious, then, thaJt the representatirves of the Czech people did not want separation - independence but federalization. Furthermore, Masaryk ,a nd his Council were hiit from another quarter. At the conference of the Sociiailist International in 1Stockho1m, June 1:917, the Czech delegates vociferously demanded "an independent Czech State within a federated Austria-Hungary." Is it possible that professor Kerner, an expert on Czecho-SloiValkia, is ignorant of what w:as going on even m Czech lands while !Masaryk a.nd Benes were calling for the destruction of Austria? I cannot ·believe it •a nd, therefore, say that iKerner delilberately did not tell the truth when he said that Mas•a ry'k's Council "had not been disavowed by the nation at home." Masarylk :himself admits it in his work "Svetowa RevoJuce" (pp. 1150-il.52; 253-254 ; 32,1 ). When 'Kerneir wr1tes aJbo.ut the organimtion of the "Czechoslovak Legions," the work a,ccomplished lby Masarylk and iBenes in ,E ngland, France, Russia allld America for the esta;blishment of the "Ozechosloivalk Reipulblic," he completely ignores the effort put forth by Gen&al Milan R. Stefanik, the !Slovak who, did much in France, the U.S. A., Italy and Russi.a for the realization of the Republic. fu the twenty pages of this cltaJpter, Kerner mentiom; the name of this great Slovak only once, but does not tell us a single thing aJbo,ut the ,w ork he did so tha,t Czecho-,Slova'l da might become a reality. If Ma,s aryk himself was not loath to give credit to •S tefanik for his accompl.isihmen,ts, why should Kerner ibe? Furthermore, Kerner devotes. several pages to the "OzechoslavaJk" Legion in Siiberia - "the ,a rmy which had fought vicitorio'll.Sly at !Kiev, Zhitamir, and Baikhmach, and which yearned to leave Russia in peace in order to continue the conflict ,a gainst the Germans in the West." He almost outdoes Masaryk himself on the ·" Siberian anabasis" legend. �58 SLOVAKIA The fact is, however, that the legion was offered a short route home via Murmansk and Archangel whence British sh1ps were to transport it to the battle front in France. But the legion, afraid of German sulbmarines and not too eager to fight, preferred ithe long way home via Siberia to Viadfuvostok. AB a result, Masarylk's a:xmy reached Europe long after the smoke of the war had lifted, without haJVing contributed ,to the defeat of Germany and Austria. The IStberian anabas:is made greait propagand a for Masaryk's cause, as he himself atlmitted, and without it, in fact, the "calli:!e" m1ght haive 'been lost. '.I recommend that Kerner and other students •o f history, read pp. 81-83 of fugrim's "After Hlitler !Stalin?" - and, ibut carefully, even Masaryik's "Svetava. Revoluce." • "In the ,a ims publicized as the objectives of peace, the Czechosl ovaks were promised their independence on the basis of the selfdetermination of the Czechoslovak nation. It is a fum:l.amentaJ question just what "self-deteirmi natlon of the nations" meant a.t tihat time. It s eems most probrul>le that when it ,was first uttered it meant the determinatio n of a n entire nation to choo.se whether it wished to be jndependent or live under another, and not self-determination of small parts of it" (p. 62). Here, Kerner quite naively would have us :b elieve that he iis be.fuddled lby the meaning of "self-determ ination." Of course, he could have given credit ,to Masaryk and especially Benes for his 1pretended quandary. I say "pretended ," /because he himself tells us on the page following: " In many regions the populations were thoroughly mixed in composition . . . . As far as the Czechoslovak s were concerned, the matter was complicated by the fact that their claims in the Czech regions rested on historic rights, the Lands of the Bohemian Crown (Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia), which they as a nation had created and maintained in history, rund on the rights of nationality for the ,Slovaks in Hungary, wihere the Magyars cJ.almed 'historic rights of the Lands of tihe Hungarian Crown" (p. 63) . So, what is this business "the Czechoslov aks were promised their independen ce on the ,basis of the self-determ ination of the Czechoslovak nation"? !Kerner purt:s himse1f in a ivery ludicrous situation: he admits the existence of the Czech naition, Czech regions, etc., does not admit directly the existence of the Slovak counterpar ts, but still insists on having a "Orechoslovak" nation! �SLOVAKIA 69 AP, mentioned earlier, one of the aims of the Allies was the "lilberaition of Iltalians, Rumanians, Slavs and Cze- choslovaks from foreign r.ule." The Czechs and Slova;ks got i'lllto the picture also as "Ozech~ova ks," and not only as Slavs, at the persistent insistence of Dr. Edward Benes to support the fiction promoted by M'aJSaryik and himself that "Czechs and Slovaks were the same." The truth, however, remains that the SlovaJks are an individual nation in the great family of Slovanic nations, as are the Poles, Byelorussians , Ukrainians, Russians, C.zec'hs, Bulg,aria:ns, .S erbs, ISlO!Veni•a ns, Croatians, Macedonians, Montenegrins, a,nd Lusatia,n tSerbs, whatever Kerner and other "historians" of his type might have to say to the contrary notwithstandi ng. If Kerner does not be1ieve that t:he right of self-dete:nmination applies equally to the Czechs and /Slovaks, let him .say so outright and be done wi~h it. Kerner should know, as we certainly lmow, that the magic formula that druzzled. and charmed. President Wilson was "national determination," which meant that every ethnic group be conceded the right to decide to which state it wished to belong. More dmpo:ntrunt than what it meanit, of course, was what it implied: the notion that the id68.l state would be one inhabited only by one ethnic entity, one nation. The tenth of WiliSion's "1Fo!Urteen Points" reads as follows: ''!The peoples of Austria-iHu111gary , whose place among the nations we wish to see s·afeguaro€d and •a ssured, should be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous development." What does "the peoples of Austria-Hung ary" mean to professor Kerner? Does it mean all the peoples, except the Slova1k people? If Masaryik used his charms to maJk:e Wilson •b elieve the fiction that the "Czechs and the Slovaiks were the same," and so to deceive him does that alter the .truth that the Ozechs a.nd the Slov~ are not one people, one nation? Why should Kenner want us to believe otheIWise? • "The !Peace Conference chose to give the Czechos-lovaks the hiatoric boundaries in the Czech regions of Austri•a and ethnic bound•a rles In the Slovak districts of Hungary. Furthermore, it •a ddoo, under cond,l tlons of autonomy, Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia. It thmi created a state in Wlhlch 34 per cent of the population was non-Czech0- �60 SLOVAKIA slovak, ,a nd this element included a German .population of over three millimi.s, livin,g chiefly in the outer rim of Bohemia, in a state of less than fifteen millions" (p. 63). But this is 111ot quite the whole ,s tory. The Peace Conference decided as it did, 'becaJUOO it relied on the "expert" information supplied iby Masaryk and Benes, !both Czechs, who presumed to represent iboth the Czechs and also the Slova!ks. In the state created, the non-Czech population was in the majority, and this included some three and a half million Germams, in a state of "less than fifteen millions" (how much less?). The Conference ga;ve the "Czechoslovaks" nothing, lbuit it did allow the boundaries for the "new" state that was -created, as Kerner states, "on the -g round that rune or ten million Czechoslovaks should be favored •w ith independence oiver three million Germans" (p. 65) - the argument Oif Masaryk and Benes! They needed the almost three million Slovaiks of Hrung,ary to m.aJce "nine or ten n:rlllion Czechoslovaks," but the Czechs and the ISloivaJks, were "the same"! • "The Duchy of TesC'hen was ,w,hat was left of Silesia, one of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, after Frederiick the Great had seized fourte en-fifteeruths of that territory in 1740. The historic rights of the Czechs went •back to t!he fourteenth century. Before that the Duchy had been ,Polish {p. r66) . . . It was, however, Poland's diss·a tisfaction with this decision which led her diplomacy into d.e manding a.nd acquiring Czech Teschen on the occasion of the Conference of Mu· nlch (October, 1938). This blow from the rear really made it impossible for Czechoslovakia to fight after she was abandoned by her Western allies" (p. 68) . It is ,olbvious that Kerner either laoks knowledge about Teschen or is deli'berately attemptilllg to confuse the readers of his "Ozechoslova:kia." Just lilke Miasaryik and Benes, iit seems that Kerner does not want students oif history to know the whole tmth about Ozecho-Sloivaki,a. Furthermore, the ,allegation that Ozecho,...Slov,rukia was "forced" to :su,r render to iHitler !Without firing a shot, because her "Western allies" had abandoned her, OT because IDngland ·a nd France asked her to, is purely fictitious. Benes surrendered Czecho-Slovaki.a to Hitler without the approval of parliament. The Benes Czechs knew fully well that Czeoho-SlovaJkia could not be saved, because her non-Czech majority was not wiling to fight for her. They �SLOVAKIA 61 chose to urrender "at the behest of their faithless friends," because an attempt to fight would have revealed to the world that the Germa~lovak-Magyar~Rutib.en.ian-iPolish majority of her population was not ready to die for a tate that had treated them as second-rate citizens for ome thirty years. And let us not forget that even the Czech,s, who considered themselves t he "State-nation," did not fire a single shot in defense of Czecho-JSlovrukia. Furthermore, it is no secret ,t hat Benes did not cultivate friendshiip with Poland and other neigh'boring states : his pro Soviet policy over decades of years is proof of that. Already in 1929 Viscount D'Abernon prophesied: "The treaty between Czecbo S lovakia and Poland is thought a triumph of French m ilitarism . o it m a y be, but the duration w ill b e te mpo rary . . . the Czech satellite will revert to the orbit of the Moscow planet as soon as disturbing forces cease to operate quite as powerfully as today." • "Germ an propaganda l ater s ought to spread the view that the bou ndaries of Czeoho slovakia, a s well as t hose of P ol and, wer e drawn by the Peace Conferene e in ignorance and that they repres e nted a failure to understand the problems of central Europe. N ot hing could be far th er from tJh e facts . The deleg ates o f the Peace Cont rence had access to and used the best available information and considered these problems from all possible angles" (p. 6 ). After reviewing the events that followed World Wa.r I Mld led to World War IiI, I believe it is safe to say that Kerner's statement is "farther from the facts" than even the "German propaganda" he alludes to. The fact rernains t hat World War I not only failed to solive Europe's problems, ,b ut even ,a ccentuated them and led t o World War II. At Paris there was a meeting of two continents which were quite ignorant of each other. The peacemakers blundered when they accepted interested parties as experts wit hout having them chedked 'by the opposition. When Lloyd George asked Benes how many Ma.gyam would fall undeT Ozech rule, Benes replied that their number would lbe 350,000 ('D. H. Miller: "My Diary at the Conference in Paris"; in reality it was more ibhan one million. Benes, plead.., ing fOT a "natural frontier," described a little ~oolk as a nasvigalble river. Repudiation of Kerner's claim may also be found in A . J. P. Taylor's "The HaJbsbu.rg Monarchy," C. A . Ma- �62 SLOVAKIA cartney's "Problems of the Danubiam Basin," Lloyd George's "The Tr.urth About the Peace Treaties," J. M. Keynes "The Economic Consequences of the Peace." Winston Churchill's "Afternnath and World Crises,." Robert fugrim's "After Hitler :Stalin?" and even T. G. Masa;ryk's "Svet<Jva Revoluce." But Kerner himself does that quite effecti:vely with the last three sentences - especially the last sentence - of the ivery same par.aJgraph, ,whi.oh reads: "Another ,s olution of the Czechoslovak problem might indeed be sought •by some future .p eace conference, if the poignant problem of the German nation is solved, for example, on the model of Switzerla:nd rather than that permitting a rampant totalitarian racialism. U.nti,l then it may be said that the work of t!he Peace Conference was a reasonable solution for its time. Common sense and Intelligence and a few minor boundary rectifications might have aecured a durable settlement" (p. 69). Of course, Professor Kerner, could hardly have intended it that way, but this is quite an admission from a mem. her of the "EXPERT STAFF, Colonel House Inquiry and American Commission to Negotiate Peace"! We know today that Kerner was not the only "exipert" who la'o ked sufficient "common sense and intelligence" at that time. (More coming) WHO SAID IT? "In 1868 the Ozeoh initel,lectuails and the Bohemian aristocrats renewed filleir allegi1ance. . . The eighty Bohemian a<bsentees from the Reicllsrat made a declaration of their aims: they asked for equal na:tional rights for the Czechs in Bohemia, and for a refornn of the electoral system; they demanded also the unity of the lands of St. We:nceslaus and the same independence for this "grea,t Bohemia" a;s HUlllgary possessed. The Ozech leaders were bewitched by the Hungarian example. '1'1hey saw, quite rightly, that the Magyars had achieved their nation'al freedom by associating it with historic rilghts, and they supposed that the way to achieve the national freed~m of the Czechs was to claim the historic rights of Bohemia. They did not see that the historic rights of Hungary were real, the historic rights of Bohemia imaginary. . . " - (A. J. P. Taylor, TH1E HABSIBURG MONA'ROHY, London, 1948; p. 142). � 38 SLOVAKIA HISTORY OR PROPAGANDA? P. A. HIROBAK In 1'9149, the Uniiversity of California Press, ipulblished the "third printing" of the !book "CZEOHOSW VAKIA" (504 pages) which was edited iby Rolbert J. Kerner, Sather professor of history in the Unilversity :of California. 'Dhe book was made ipossilble, ,p rofessor Kerner states in his preface, iby "the oolla!boration of twenty distinguished and alble scholiars and writers" and that, concludes Mir. Kerner, "has made it ;possiible to present a vo1ume ,which is an honest, unprejudiced:, and frank appraisal of the important contrilbution which the Czechoslovak nation made to the history of our time in its two short decades of independence between two world wars." Just how honest, unprejudiced and frank that aipp:r,aisal of the "important" contribution is, the ireader may be a;ble to g,ather from what follows here and arrive at the condusion, stated so aiptly iby professor Kerner, that, indeed, "few nations, if any can show such a record" or, possibly, go a bit .farther and state cate.gorically that, indeed, no niation can show .such a record! But how honest and unprejudiced are "distinguished and able scholars" who set out to do a job beyond their competency? Can a distinguished historian write a true history of CZIDCH0-1SUOVAKITA without a thorough lmowledge of the SlovaJks and the land they 'haive occupied during the past 1500 years? And yet that is exaotly what the "twenty distinguished and aJble scholars and writers" of Kerner's "Ozechoslovaikia" did to ,produce something which, in his opinion, was "hQlrulst, unprejudiced" ! Kerner's "Ozechoslovikia' is dirvided into six parts, but the tendency in all parts is much the same: strictly Czech. Kerner should haive named the 1b ook "Czechia," t'hen the wonk might ibe called, by a stretch of the imagination, a semlblance of something "hlOlll.est and unprejudiced." Otherwise, informed readers know rthat it definitely is not, and the uninformed axe cruelly deceived. The s~gniificance of this may be !better understood when we glance at the remarkaible selection of books in the sug- �SLOVAKIA 39 geeted bibliog,r aphy at the end of each cha;pter. The list is rema.r.kaJble not only for the !books and literary woi,ks included, but for the 1bodks and literary works omitted. The impression created is that the Slovruks had no ,w riters of a!lly impor-t and that no sourees of informatiO!ll on their history are availruble. iBut that i.'S not so. '.Dhis proves that the "twenty distinguished a:nd able scholars and writers," who collalborated with Kerner .cm his "Czechoslovakia" were little or not at all concerned with the history of the Sl01Vak people and their land. To magnify and glorify the history of the Ozechs and minimize, practically ignore, the history of the Slavruks, certainly cannot be the aim of an honest, UDJprejudiced and abjecti;ve writer of Ozecho~lovak history. Ozecho-Blovakia, as presented ,b y Kerner and his "twenty distinguished and aJble .s cholars and writers," does not give us a true picture of Czech-0-1Slovakia; it is not a true history of the Ozechs and SlOIV'aJks and their lands; it is definitely more propaga:nda than history - in line with other .such wm,ks which were promoted by the propaganda apparatus of Prag,ue. !Students of history should not 'be exposed to faJsifications and distortions of history, su<!h as that exemplified ·b y Kerner's "Ozechoslovakia," because. that does not make for the truth, or for better relations ibetween the Ozechs and the Slovalks, or for a ·pr.oper understanding of those nations. I do not want to say unequirvocally that the writers who collaborated to produce Kerner's "Ozechoslovrukia" were knowingly dishonest ,a nd prejudiced, but their work co.n,vinced me definitely that ,w ittingly or uniwitti.ngly they did ibeoome Ozech propa:gandists. The writers have an undu:ly high regard for the chairacter and accomplishments of T. G. Masaryk amd Benes and the Ozechs in general, without an equa:lJy high reg,aro for facts, and little or no regard for the Slorvaks and their history. ,M ost writers of Ozeolio..Slovaik history and "Ozecho..slovak" democracy (IS. Harrison Thomson, Joseph S. Roucek, Herbert AdolJphus ,Miller, Brackett Lewis, among them), follow the Ozech line of T. G. Masaryik and Ed- �40 SLOVAKIA ward Benes and their governmeints ,w ho ,c ontrolled the entire propaganda apparatus• o;f ,Czecho-1Slov8Jkia. This Masaryk~enes line was and e;ve:n now is adhered to iby exchange students and iprofessors, heads of official and unofficial information !bureaus, the America.n Institute in Prague, the YMCA and YWCA of 0zecho-Slovrukia and other countries, the "OzechoslQIViruk N ationa,1- Ohurch" (strictly a Czech enteriprise) and most other religious sects, and practically all "eminent" writers, scholars and correspondents. And today the governments of all countries of the ,w orld still lbase their knowledge 'Of OzechoSlovakia and the vario:us nations that comprise it on the information supplied by the state propaganda apparatUJS of T. G. iMasaryk and Edward Benes. The import Ol:f this will undouibtedly be appreciated iby students of history, and even historians themselves, if they rememlber that this line has been followed and ipvopagaJted for ·a t least the past thirty-seven years. Accordirrrgly, the Czechs are a "historical" nation, while the SlovaJks are oruy a •~branch" of it and their language just a "dialect" orf the Czech. Ridiculous attempts are made to trace the histo,r y of the non-.existent "Ozechoslovruk" nation to the times of the Great Moravian Empire ,a nd Sts. Cyril and [Methodius. The "CzechoslOW!Jks" are supposed to 1b e the nation of Hus, Masaryk, and Benes, but also the nation of Sts. Cyril and Methoilius, WenceslaUJS and Ludlmila. The Ozechs, however, are ",p rogressive" Catholics and the 1Slovruks "reactionary" Catholics. ,F rom officiail statistics we learn how many Poles, Germruns, Jews, 'Magyars and Uikrainians there Weir'e iin Czecho-1Slovakia at any ,g iven time,. but not how many ,SlQIVlaks. That is explained ruway by the s1Jateme.nt th:at the Slovaks were not considered a tminority, hence, they were included under the category of "0zechosloivaiks." The latter term, however, is terr1bly l<_?ng, so the shorter "Czech" is used in many in,stainces as an "aJbbreviation." The term "Slovalk" could not •b e us.ed, I suppose, because it has O'Ile more letter than "Czech"! When statistics do, however, mention Czechs and .Slovaks se,pairately, the figures are in- �SLOVAKIA 41 variably magnified on bhe Ozech side and minim1zed on the Slovak side. The !Magyars were experts at this sort of "mathematics" long before Ozecho-iSlova!kia was !born. The tendency is too olbviou.s. Many distinguished and aJble scholars and writers of the tyipe mentioned lby Kerner, can tell us exactly wh&e and albout when the Czechs, Poles, Russians, Slovenians, Croatians, rSe11bs, etc., fust settled in their respective territories, lbut, it seems, they cannot even venture a.in honest guess when it comes to the Slovaks. I say again: the tendency is dl:wious. They tell us that the Great Moraivian Empilre was the prede•cessor of the Czecho-Slol\TaJk RepU!blic, a Czech venttl!re, when in fact it was not. The Slova:ks, their predecesors that is, occupied both sides of the Morawa River at that time (whence, the name of :the empire) aind, hence, formed the very heart of the shor-Uived emipire, which was destroyed by the GermaJI1s with the aid of the Ozechs who had settled in, Bohemia, the land of the Boii. And we used to hear and read aJboot the "Crown lands of Bohemia," lbut now it seems to be the mode in "1p rogress,ive" historical ch'cles, to use the expression "Crech crown lands." I repeat : the tendency is only too. ohvio.us. The Czechs are not and do, not ,wa,,nt to be Slovaks a,nd, co,ruversely, the Slorva'ks are not and do not want to be Czechs. The SlovaJks .a nd the Ozechs did not have a common history, language, culture and tradition du.ring the past 1500 years, ~ause they did not occupy the same territQry. In a word, the Cizechs 0JI1d the Sl01Vaks developed sepaJTa tely and are, therefore, two distinct ethnic nations. 'l'he Slovaks never were, nor are they now, a "part" of the Czech nation. This simple truth, recognized 'by fille Czechs and SlOIVaJks themselves for many centuries ;past, should also be recognized lby "distinguished and alble scholars ood writers" of our time. It is tiiue that the SlovaJks formed a common political State with the Czechs in 19'.18, but only on certain conditions, the most important of which was that they would be a completely autonomous unit of the Ozecho-SlovaJk �42 SLOV.AKIA federatio.n, that is, that they would en~oy full states' rights. The condition not obeiirrg fulfilled, spelled the end of OrechoSlovaJkia. Because Benes insisted that the Czechs be the "stat~ation," Czecho-Slo1vaJk ia was doomed to perdition. Today the Slovaks do not want to be contained in any common State wti.th the Czechs or any other foreign nation. They can be kept so temporarily only lby force. !But that is not what the "distinguished and aJble sch~lars and writers" who oo1lalboraJted with professor Kerner tell us in the book "CzechoslovaJkia." Propaganda oa.- history? Let us anailyize Kerner's ''Czechoslovakia" chapter by chapter to prove our contentions. But let me note first t!hat on page xvii, at the end of the "contents," professor Kerner tells us how to pronounce "Czech" (not "Czechoslovak," mind you) letters; and on p. xxi, the poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay is entitled "Ozecho-iSlovakia" (:not "Czechoslovalkia") , which b,rings uip the question of hyphenization of the 1political state of tihe 1SlovaJks and the Czechs which was 'b orn iln 1918. The treaty 1b y which Czecho--Slova1kia came into being spelled ithe name with a hyphen to indicate that two indiividual ethnic entities, two distinct nations, 'had formed one political state. The hyiphen was dropped lby Masaryk and Ben-es and their followers. Whether the hyphen was J.eft in the title of the ipoem because of the author's insistence, or prof. Kerner's "careless" editing, I do not know, but it is singular that the hyphen should a;ppear in a book liike "Ozechoslova;lcia" at all! 1 • "C~ECHOSLOVA:KIA, Part I: BACKGROUND Chapter I-"The Czechoslovaiks-Anthropol ogical Notes . .." By Ales Hrdlfclka, M.D., Sc.D., Gura.tor, Division of Physical Anthropology, United States National Museum; Huxley 'Medal Lecturer, London (1927) ; memlber, National Academy of Scien-ces; honorary Doctor of 1S cience (Prague, Br.no)," etc., etc. Please not.e: The underscoring here and in the following is mine. "The term Czechoslovak ,i,s o! r ecen t coinage, dating from 1918, l\·hen the united Cze chs and Slovaks proclaimed. thei r independence of the Dual Mon,archy and th eir est abHshmi:mt of the Czeohoslovak �SLOVAKIA 43 Republic. . . . 'Illie name Czech (pronounced Chekh) ls derived, accord Ing to an old tradition, from the chiefta&n of the main Slav tribe who brought them some time during the dawn, of ihistory probably in tihe fifth cent\.U'ly A.!D. - to the heart of the land (IP, 3) . . . In fact, the hLstoTY of the Czechoslovak tribes, from the dawn of written ,r ecords to the present day, has •be.en one of ever.Jiasting struggles ·a.galns,t dnvooers (PP. 4.-5) . . . Tihe Slovaks, who u.p to 1029 formed a unit with Moravia, were then torn away by the Ma• gya,rs, isolated from the west, for,c ed .away from the best grounds iu the warm •lolwland,s, and eventuaUy repressed. in every way" (p. 6). It is evident that even Dr. Ales Hrrdli6ka, distinguished ,anthropologist of ~ech origin, :seems to be a bit confused about when the "Czechslovruks" came into being. Whether the Ozechs -are descendants ,of the "main. 'Slav trilbe" is open to ·question. The 'SlO!Vaks fo:nrned a "unit" with Moravia up to. 1029, according to Hrdlicka, 1but who the people were who settled in Morruvia is Jeft to the reader. Mora,via, of ooUTse, came under the influence of the Ozechs in time, at least the western portion of it, :b ut was not settled lby the Ozechs when the .Slovruks formed a unit with it, for the simple reason, it seems, that the for~ fathers of ithe Slovaiks settled on iboth sides of the river Morava, w'hile the Ozechs settled in fue J.and of the Boii, which was a distinot geographical unit, ,prolbaJbly a/bout the size of present-day Bohemia . • "The Czechoslovaks to 1620'' - ,b y S. Harrison Thomson, Ph ..D., BLitt. - Professor of Medieval History, Unirversity of Co-lorado; Ph.D., Charles Uni'Vers,ty, Prague; B.Litt., Omord University; Ewtor, Magistri Johannis Hus Tractatus Res-ponsivus; Johannis Wyclif Summa de Ente (1930) ;" etc., etc. CI:I\A.PrIDR III - "Led ,b y a travelln,g IFI'lankish merchant, Samo, tihe Slavic tribes freed themselves ,from the Av,a r rule, and chose Samo for their •k ing (623-624) . . . This ,e arly kingdom, which would appea,r to !have been pr.emature, iw,as ,neither Czech nor Slovak. It would have to be called Western ·s1av, ,b y .reason or a large intermixture of Slavic tribes which became gra.dua:l!y differentiated as they settled in different local!tes . . . The names of the princess Llbuiie and the peasant Premysl whom she cih ose to be her husband are in all proba• bility tJhe names of real persons. At any rate ,t he male descendants or this ,s-emilegendaxy .Pfemysl were to rule over ,Bohemia and neighboring regions until 1306 . . . It is not certain whether tihe Slavic chi,eftalne. enga,ged at this time to pay .tribute to the Fr,alllk.is~ emperor or not" (P. 9). �SLOVAKIA 44 Id: Samo, the "traveling 1F ranlkish merchant," established a kingdom, he necessarily must hruve stopped traveling somewhere, and that "somewhere" ,w as on territory occupied 'by "S1'arvic" tr.i!bes, out of which later a certain nation, or certain nations, arose. ,s amo's kingdom was not on the territory settled by the Czechs or other Sla-vonic peoples, 1b ut Olll the terri1lory settled by the "Slavs" who were later oalled ISlorvaks. Fredegar's Chronicles seem to indicate as much (THIE ISI.JOV~S AND !UNG SAMO'S EMiP]RE, by iDr. Henrich Bartelk, SU)VA.KIA, June 1954). The "Slavic trilbes" whioh ibecame gradually differentiated as they settled in "different localities" could not be identical witll the "Slruvic tribes" which remained on the territory of ISrum<>'s kingdom and, later, came to ~ ca1led the SlovaJks. As far ,as, the Ozech "Llbuse and Pfemysl" are concerned, let us talke the word Olf learned Czechs that they were legendary characters ("Ottuv SLOVN1K NAUONY," Vol.. XV, p. 1038; Vol. XX, rp. 625). We might a.loo concede, without offending historical truth, t!hat all "1S1'avic" chieftains, including the forefathers of the 'Czechs, paid tribute to the Frankish emperor, when he was strong enough to exact it. Why should the 'Slavs of Bohemia" be an exception? II t seems that professor Harrison is interested in building up a case for the Czechs to prove that they were completely independent during the time of Charlemagne (8th-9th cenrtury). Why? 1 • "Later in the ,c entury (846) !Louis the German su,bju,g-ated Mora. 11ia, •b ut suffered defeat wihen he ,a ttacked the Slavs of Bohemia. Th1s ,a ttack of tLouis the German n,vas directed ,against the empire of the Moravian prince Mojmir, who had shown rem arkable abllity in consolidating his rule south, east •a nd west to include southern Poland, Silesia, Bohemia, Moravia, and the valleys of the middle Danube and Theiss rivers a,s far as the northern boundaries of the Byzantine Empil'e . .. After the death of Svato,pluk (894) the Moravian Empire rapidly broke up into its component parts. The Czech princes of the Pi'emyslide line .gained independence for Bohemia, and the Magyars, new arrivals dn. t,he east, -extended llieir power over n~rthern Pannonia. German's and Slavs, united for the moment, were de• feated by the Ma,gyars in 907 neax (Bratislava (Pressburg), and the ruin of the Moravian state was complete" (P. 10). Louis subjugaited iMoravia, but was defeated by the "Slavs of Bohemia," which means that the latter were not �SLOVAKIA 45 identioal with the Slavs of Moravia, who were ruled by Mojmir. !Professor !Harrison also tells us that Mojmir, the Moravian prince, consolidated his rule by consolidating various ISlmrianic ('Slavic) trilbes, including those of Bohemia. This Mojmir did by force. It is significant that Harrison does not refer to Mojmir as a "Slovak" ,p rince, though he does not hesitate to say that 'Czech" princes gained independence fur Bohemia. He also omits to say that the Czechs, not the ",Slavs of Bohemia," mind you, gained their independence by !breaking ·a way from ,t he !MO!'aJVian Empire in 895, :aJfter the death of S,v atopluk. The Czechs, then, heliped to destro¥ the integrity of the Grea,t Moravian ffimpire, the heart of which ,was in Slovak country, the country of the Slavs of Moravia and Pannonia. In 900 the Czechs, the Slavs of Bohemia, together with the Germans, invaded the territory of the Sl01VaJks, the Slavs of Great Moravia, aJild after a terrific /battle forced !Mojmir II to sue for peace. Svatoplulk's three sons, ruling various areas of the Empire and constantly •a t each others throats, contributed greatly to the dissolution of Great Moravia. When the !Magyars moved into northern IPannonia, they met with little resistance, lbut professor Harriso n neglects to say what people settled in northern Pannonia, even though history tells us that the forefathers of the Slovaks occu'Pied tha.t territooy at the time. And where professor Harrison found the legend that "Germans and Slavs, uni.ted for the moment,." tried to save t!he Great Morawian Empire from falling into the hands of the Magyars in 907, he does !IlOt say. As mentioned rubove, the Germans, and the 'Slavs of Bohemia" (the Coochs) contributed to the downfall of Great Morawia. It is not, I thinlk, unreasonaJble to say that if the Germans and Slavs were really united to sruve the Moravian Em'Pire from falling into the hands of the Magyars, the latter would hardly have taken what was left of it in 907. Careless reporting of history? Probably, ·b ut to me it seems to be tendencious and puTposeful. Professor Harrison, it seems, was doing a jolb for the Brague regime and �46 SLOVAKIA the Ozechs. This is all the more obvious in his !book "Czechoslovakia in EmQpean H!istory" (Princeton Uniiversity Press, 1943, 1195'3), for which Harrison was ·aJWarded the "Czechoslovak State Prize for Literature" in 1944, when the Ozecho-1Slova'k State factually did not exist for five years. 'Dhe award was made iby Dr. Benes's ·g overnmentin.J..ondon at the Uni:versity Clulb in New Yorik, Decem.lber 30, 1944. • •~remysl Otaka.r [ (1197-1230:) was able to use circumstances for the •b enefit of his dynrusty and the Czech kingdom . . . iHe shifted his allegiance four times. eadh time gaining conoession:s or confirmation of eonc-essions .previously granted ,b y another claimant to the throne . . . . But to Pfomysl must be assigned the responsibility for inviting tJhe German immig,r ation. Encouraged by the court, many Czech nobles. had married Germ,a;n ,w omen; some of the best positions of the ·churoh in ,Bohemia and Moravia were occupied by German clerics; ·German mf.nnesin,g ers ,w,ere in high favor at the royal court and at the courts of the Ticher nobles" (P. 13). Here professor !Harrison tells us tJhat 1P rem.ysl Otakar was quite a "shifity" ruler, using circumstances for the benefit of his dynasty and the "Czech" kingdom, not the "Boh,emian" ikingdom, but favored German immigration, and "Czech" (not Bohemian) ndbles married: German women, and some of the best ;positions of ,t he Church in Bohemia and Moravia were held lby German clerics, etc. It is evident here rthat professor Harrison cannot make up his mind whether the Bohemians were Ozechs or GelUllans, or both! It is quite clear, however, that the Slovaiks, the Slavs of Moravia and Pannonia, did not .fit into the picture of the "Cz,ech" ikingdom at that ,t ime. The twenty ipa,ges of Kerner's "OzechosloivaJlda" taken up iby Harrison's "'IJhe Czechoolovaks to 1620" use the word Slovak(ia) some seven times and, therefore, repudiate the idea, insinuation or implication, that .there were any "Czechoslovaks" up ,t o 1620. Not only that, but for Harrison, it seems, the ISlo.vaJks - the Slavs of Moravia and Pannonia - simply do not exist at all after the fall of the Great iMoraivian Empire, except for the mention (p. 17) of "a consideraJble number of (Hussiite) adherents 1? Sfovalkia," which is quite a stretch of the imagination. The Hussite !business was strictly Cezch; the Hussites did �SLOVAKIA 47 more damage than good for the Czechs themselves, and aibsolutely no good for the Slovaks, whose lands they invaded, pillaging and !burning their homes, and murdering their population. Furthermore, !Harri.son oreaites the impression that the !Battle of White !Mountain (1620) was ,a; nationalistic affair, W1aJged lby the Ozechs against the Genmans. That is the legend fabricated 'Mld propagated by some Protestant Czechs. The White 1MoU1DJtain affair, however, was definitely a religious and dynastic aifafir. After Tilly, the emperor's general, defeated Frederiok and the Bohemian (111ot Czech!) maignates, some 27 of the leading "rebels" were beheaded: one a Catholic; six were Germans. Not one, however, was executed becaJUse of his nationality. Not without interest is Harrison's mention (p. 11) that the Premyslide iprinces di'Vided the country, in .t he tenth century, "into administrative distrfots (zupy) with a royal representative (zupan) at the head of each distTiot." wf the Czech Premys.lides actually used the terms "zupa, zupan," I wonder if professor Harrison mi,g ht enlighten us from whom they might have acquired those words, since they are rarely used !by the Czechs . • CHA!PTER III - "The Czechoslovaks from the Battle of White ,Mountain to the World War" - by RO'bert J. Kerner, Ph. D ., i.lL.D., /Litt.D. - Sather Professor of History, Uni'Versity of California; LL.D., Omaha University; Litt.iD., Paiik College; foreign memlber, Royal Bohemian Society of Letters and Sciences (Prague); foreign member, Safarik Learned Society (Bratislava); commander, Order of the Whlite Lion (Ozecho~SlovaJkia); memlber, Expert Staff, Colonel House Inquiry and American Commission to Negotiate Peace (!Paris); etc., etc. "The dlsa,strous battle of W•h ite Mountain on November 8, 1620, uslhered lin a period of three centur.les in which the Klngdom of Bohemia was reduced to .three provinces, Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, in ,t he Habs,b urg MOIIlarchy. During the first centUTY of •t his period the nation lost three-fourths of its native nobility, its most eminent and wealthy citizens, its schools and noted scholara, and its national independen-ce. A remarkable national renaissance took place in the second century. In the remainder of the period, the Czecho• slovak nation, after tlailin.g to bring •about a reorganization of the �48 SLOVAKIA Ha;bsburg Monarchy on ,a federal -basis, or to secure the same dg,h ts as tfue Magyars, ,c arried out a ,s uccessful revolution a,nd obtained its independence" (P. 29). !Referring to the underscored words, I ask professor Kerner: 1. What nation, the Czech or Bohemian? 2. What "Czechoslovak." nraition, when there was none? 3. What Magyars, ,o r does iKerner mean Hungarians? 4. What revolution 1by the "Ozechoslovaik" nation?. Kerner used the title he did for this chapter delilberately, because he must haJVe known there were no "CzechoslO'V8Jks," ethnically spooking, ,b efore or after the battle of White Mol.l.[ltain, to the World War, except in the minds of dreamers and chauvinistic, imperialistic Creohs. He could easily haJVe ,o mitted the d:ew references to Slovaks and the m8Jny to "Orechos}ovaiks" in the 211 1pages of the chrupter and had ,a rpretty good ,s tory on the "Czechs'' from the Battle of White Mountain to the World War." Practically everything in the chapter is "Czech" - language, literature, nation, historians, pe3Jsants noblemen, renaissance, Catholics, Pr.otestants, opera, national anthem, Lutherans, journalists - lbut Kerner still makes pretense at writing aJbout "Czechoslovaks." Is there any good ,r eason why an honest, Ulliprejudiced, objective historian should try to fool even himself? Surely, Kerner musrt !know that the ~echs devel01ped in the Austrian ,p art, ,w hile the Slova!ks developed in ,t he Hungarirun prurt of the Dual Monarchy. What Kerner means to imply when he says that the "Czechoslovak nafilon . . . . . . carried out a successful revolution" and db.tamed its independence is at least questionaJble. We know that there was not even a revolution in Prague. !Robert Ingrim tells us: "All that J:J.a;ppened ,was tJhat Emperor-King Charles, seeing that Wilson :a:bandoned his former program in the hour of victory, dropped tJhe fed,ema;listic idea and ordered his minds.tern and lieutenant-governors to surrend,e r the admi'llistration to coonmittees of the various nationalities. Thi,s explains among other things why Masaryk, as the first president of Czecho-Slovakia, had to decree which date was to be regarded as the beginning of the Czech re· volution. It simply had not taken place. All bhe successor states, including little. Austria, needed the legal fiction of a ,r evolution, because as• new states they repudiated the idea of continuity and based �SLOVAKIA 49 their la/\V,s upon a revolutionary origin. For the Czechs this was very important. When, in 1921, .the .Sudeten Germans complained to the League of Nations t:hat they had not been allowed to take par.t in the making of the constitution of the new State, the Czecho-Siov•a k government replied. that 'the Cz~ho./Slovak State was the work and product of the revolution, made solely by the Czecho-Slovak nation,' which was, therefore, 'the only constitutional factor.' Hence, 'the Natiooru Revolutionary Assembly was alone authorized to set up the constitution' by W1h1ch Germans, \Hungarians, Ruthenians, and Poles had •b een made second-class citizens" (After Hitler Sta11n? P. 107). To complete the above piotu.re, '.I might add that the Slovak memlbers of the "Na,tional Revolutioaiary Assembly" were lhand-'I)icked lby Masaryk and Benes and, included firve Czechs, hence, were not truly representa.tirve of the political will of the 1S101Vaik nation. The constitution that resulted, therefore, was strictly a Czech product, j'llSt as was Ozecho-lSlovak domestic iand foreign policy. In referring to the development that took ipla.ce during the Reformation and ICoU!Ilter-lReformation in Ozech rund Slovak territories, Kerner says that "in general the same development took place in the ISloivaJk counties od' Hungary as in Bohemia, /Moravia and \S ilesia." If a person did not know !better, he might be led to 1believe that Kerner did not use the express-ion "Ozech counties" in his comparison, because Bohemia, Moria.via and !Silesia were supposedly solidly Czech. We know that they were not. And we know, too, that Bohemia was not the only country that suffered during the Thirty Yea.rs' War; that war "ravaged Bohemia with the same fury it unleashed all over the Germanies. . . There was no, difference and certainly no national ,pll!'.pose" (I.n,g rim, op. cit., ,p. 57). Kerner, furthermore, writes ab.9-ut "Magyar'' magnates and "Magyar" nolbility, rwhen he really means "Hungarian" magnates and noibility. There is a difference: the Magyars were not the only inhabitants of Hungary before or aft-er the 17th century. The same applies .to the terms "Czech" and "Bohemian." Of course, we might say that the tenns today - af.ter the expulsion of over three million Germans - are mo.re or less synonymous. Let us, however, remember that they were not even in ,t he recent past: the Czechs were not the only inhabitants of Bohemia. �50 SLOVAKIA "A new period in .the history of the Czechoslovak nation was inaJugurated" (p. 32), when 1Fredericik the Great seirzed Silesia in 1740, Kerner states oaitegorically and, fartiher down on the same page, that "the reforms of Maria '.Dheresa and Joseph JiI . . . not only culminated in the completion of the evolution ,which tra.nsf.ormed the Kingdom of Bohemia into three provinces and hence virtual amalg,amaJtion of 1!he Austrian Hereditary Lands with the Lands of the (Bohemim Crown into a single administrative unit, but they threatened the Czechoslovaks with loss of identity as a nation 'by the process• of Germanization in schools, government, ,and church." Here, it is obvious that Kerner w-..s a 1b it ~fuddled and •a )pparently forgot, in his zeal to promot.e the concept of a "Czoohoslovaik nation," that ,t he SkwaJks lived in HU!Ilg,ary and,. hence, !by no stretch of t'he imaigination, even in this "enlightened" and "iprogres.sive" era, could have had any connection with the "Austrian Hereditary Lands" and the "Lamds of the Bohemi,a n Crown." It w.as the existent Czechs and not the nJOn-existent "OzechoslwaJks" who were threatened with the loss of identity as a nation iby the process of ~a.n:rzatiorn, in Austria. We can concede that the policy of Joseph ll "of trying to denationalize" Magyars, Italians, Poles, and Rumaniians "aroused them to activity" (p. 34), as it did the ~echs, SlovaJks, Croats, Slovenes, and Serbians, ibut why does Kerner lump the latter nations together as "Czeichoslovaiks" and "Jugoslavs" when he knows that such did not exist either in Joseph !I's time or even later? 'I'he reason fur this is only too obvious. On page 3Q,. the "Czechoslovaks" we.re threatened "w1t'h Joss of identity as a nation," but three pages later, according to Kerner, "at the same time the situation of the Slovaks in HWigary was somewhat improved by the reforms of Maria Theresa and Joseph II" (p. 35). The same reforms even led "to a great national revival (p. 32) . . . the Czech renaissance develo ped momentum step by step as decree after decree of Maria Theresa and Joseph II sought to a'bolish the use of the Czech language. When Joseph II completed t!he official demise of the Czech Ian1 �SLOVAKIA 51 guage in school, government, allld church in 1790, the Czech nation revwed. 1So mysterious was this development that its exact oauses have been a su:bject: of dispute among the best ·scholars" (1p. 34). Then on t:he following pa;ge (35) Kerner states: "The Ohurch feared that it would lose its ,g rip on the Czech nation i:f its priests spolke only German. These and other indications led to the establishment by Leoipold rnr of a chair in the Czech language at the University of ,Praigue in 1791." What, then, is this business ,th,a,t the reforms of Maria Theresa and Joseph JiI ''threatened the Czechoslovaks with loss of identity as a nation"? And what is so mysterious about <the reviival of the Czech nation in 1790? Kerner certainly must ha,ve ,h eard a;bouit the principle of action and reaction! If the iMa~rs, and laiter the Ozechs, had not tried to suppress the Slovak lang,uage and oppressed the Slovaks, they would have rprobaibly .perished as a nation in time . .Js it not olbtvious what ha,ppens to languages and peo~ ples in America rwhere freedom abounds? [n America peoples of every color, .race and creed enjoy freedom of the press, freedom of religion and freedom of asoomibly; they are d':ree to !build their own churches, schools, liibraries, 'beneficial organi:zations and ipubHsh new.s,pa,pers and books in their respective languages. Yet, there is no doufbt in. my mind that in time non-®nglish iperiodioa1s and 1books, published in America, will /be a rarity. Certainly, this must be just as olbvious - ,a nd not myst.erious - even to professor Kerner. • "A Protestant sc hool, -witJh a c hair in the Czech language a.nd literature, was founded in Brati,s.lava, and this inst:i,tution counted amQ/Ilg its s,t udents the future Czech his torian !FrantAse'k Palacky from Moravia and tlhe Slovaks Jan Kolla r ia.n.d Pave.I Josef i:lafaiik. The Protestant Slovaks followed closely the d·e velopment or the Czechs, Wlhereas the Catholic Slovaks under Antonin Bernolak tried to create, with indlff-erent success at the time, a. written Slovak dialect, which W'<IS s-eparate from .but closely akin to the Czech because a western dialect of spoken ,Slovak was used. The course of poli• tical events could not cheok the national revival of Czechoslovaks" (p. 36) . ,P rofessor Kerner does not relate the whole story, but only the part that s'l.lits his ipUTpOSe and, hence, sins by �52 SLOVAKIA omi-ssion. The Catholic Slcwa!ks oonstituted rut least 75 per cent of the Sl()IVaik nation, while the Protestant Slovaks only aibout ill per cent. Koillar and Safarik cultivated ,a "dead" 1amgiuage, a langu,a;ge tha;t was used iby a small part of tile Slovak nation, the Lutherans. And the latter used that language - "biblical" Czech, therefore, not the "live" language of the vast masses of the Czech people - mostly for and during religious functions, while at home they used Sloiv•aik. Anton, not Antonin (the Czech equivalent), Bernolwk not only "tried" to create a Slo.va!k literary language, but actually did estaibLish such a literary medium of Slorvak which was u:sed :some fifty years b,y S[ovak writers. There was no need :for iBernolaik to. create "a written Slovak dialect," ;b ecause various 'Slova!k dialects already were existent at that time. And iBernola:k definitely did 111ot choose the western dialect because it was "closely alkin" to Czech. Kerner, however, is quite right when he says that "the comse of political events could not check the nationa:I revival of the Ozechoslovalks," lbecaJuse they were non--existenrt. Those events could not check the national rerv:wal of either the Ozechs or the :S'1ov0iks . 1 • "Caug,h t between their sympathies with the Czechs and their fears of their .Magyar ov•erlord:s, Slovak patri'ots saw their security, not in coalescing at once with their Czech brethren, but in iworking to create a separate Slovak national movement by taking up once more the unsuccessful jdea of Bernolak that of developing a separate written Slovak language. Ludevit Stur, Michal Hodza, and Jo.:,ef Hurban, fearing the reproaches of the Magyars if they continued to use the Czech language, and hoping to attract the Slovak peasant masses, chooe in 184-5 to make. a dialect spoiken. in tlle central Slovak counties the '!lew literary language. The Czechs wa,r ned in v,a in against this departure from t.he practice of a thousand years. ·T hey argued that dts r esults would only be. to the >benefit of the Germans and Magy,ar.i" (p. 38). This statement is not based on 'hone.sit, hi:sitorical research. ilt is a fabrication pure and simple. Slova!k patriots ,t hen, even as now, fully realized that they could not safegu,,ard their nation.al existence !by playing second-, fiddle to other nations in the political coTIJCert. They did not fear the 'Maigyiars who sought to Magy.arme them any more than they feared the Czechs who sought to Ozechize �SLOVAKIA 53 the:rn. True Slovak ·p atriots never let their sympathies for the Ozechs or other oppressed nations interfere with their ultimate natioo.a.1 aim: freedom and rpolitioal independence - to become masters of their own household, of their own destiny. '.Dhey rebelled against the Magyars and, later, eiven against the Czechs, just as the Magyars and the Ozechs had rebelled ag,ainst the HlaJbsburgs. Stur, Hodza, Hurban (Jozef, not Josef) a,nd other Slova,k patriots developed the literary SlovaJk medilllIIl estrublished by iBen1i0laJk and his followers - the "lilve" language used lby the vast masses of the Slovalk people, both O~tholic and also Lutheran. They wrote in Czech for the Cze.ohs and in Slovak for the Slov,aks. Kerner does not say so directly, ibut the implication is ,t here that Stur, Hod.fa •a nd Hurb-an did use the Czech language exclusively in rtheir writings. The fact is thaJt; they did not and they did not fear the "reproaches of the Magyairs" for using Czech at ,any time they desired to do so. As int.elligent men they knew fully well they ieould not rouse their people nationally by using a language that was foreign to them, a language they did not consider their own. Why, then, the 'balderdash a:bout the Czechs warning Slo;vak paitriots against their depa;rture "from the practice of a thousand years"? '.Dhe vast majority of .the IS1ovruk natiO!Il, i!he Catholic Slovaiks, used their own Slovak language in their churches, homes and in their Hterary worlks, b;ut 'Professorr Kerner wO'Uld hruve students of history "Czechoslovak" history - believe that they used the Czech language forr a "thousand years" prior t,o 1845. Why does Kerner resort to outright falsehoods and aJbsurrd falbrications? Czech was brought into Siovakia, it is true, by Czech exiles during i!he Coun.ter..R.eformation to strengthen Lutheranism, ibut it never 'became the predominant literary medium of the ,vast masses of the Slovak people and their ,w riters. 1 • "The Magyar large landholder, the Catholic clergyman, and the Jewish merchant, screened, ,b ehind a blatant Magyar propaganda, worked to denaclonalize the Slovak peasant by falsifying his history and •by asserting tihat his language had no orelation to the Czech and did not belong to the languages of western Europe" (p. 44). �54 SLOVAKIA It is significant that Kerner should put the finger on "Catholic clergymen" - without mentioning names - and omit Protestant "progressilve" preachers and Jewish R3Jb.. bis who were equally interested in "denationiali ~ng" the Slovalk peasant, practically always woTking aigainst :the national interests of the ISlovalk nation. Of course, this is nothing new in history. T. G. iMasaryik and Benes, who should have learned the lesson of :A.ustr1a:-Hungary, denied the existence of it.he !Slovak nation as an individual ethnic entity, declaring the ISlovia!ks were only a "branch" of the Czech nation and their language only ,a "dialect" of the Ozech. (Falsifying history seems to be a specialty of the followem of Masaryk and Benes. And Kerner proves it! 1 • I "Whereas Kr-amai' became, so to ~,peak, the symbol of the economic u,psm1ge of the Czech lboUTgeoisie, Masaryk became the intellectual and spiritual head of the entire nation, including the Slovaks . • • . He (~·a saryk) became a Protestant, a modern Czech Puritan. Influenced by his reading af Czech history, he ,b elieved that h-e found. !ts plhilosophy 1n the religious ideal of il:he Hussites and the Ozeoh !Brethren" (pp. 47-48). The truth, however, is that T. G. Masaryk never was the "intellectual and spiritual head" of the 1Slov•lrlLs. If the Ozechs wish to consider Masaryk :as such, they are free to do so. The o.vel'IWhelming Catholic majority oif the Slovak people could not. Hlas Kerner forgotten Masaryk's blatant cries "away from !R;ome!" and "Rcxme must (be put on trial and condemned!"? Czech history is not Slovak history; the philosophy of Slova:k history does not rest on the "religious ideal of the Hussites and the Czech Brethren." Catholic Czechs form ibhe majority of the Czech nation, hence, we have good reason to doulbt Kerner's evaluation of Masaryik -as far as •t hey ,a re concerned, lbecaJuse Masaryk never did represent or COlllcern himself !With their spiritual interests, in fact, put them in jeopardy. Masaryik, according to Kerner, "viewed the problem of the small oppressed n.a:tiO'IlS ,as the polilticai and international phase of the social question - the exploit,aitdon of one nation by anot!her, for political exploitation meant cheap lalbor to the laboring drasse.s." 'But what happened after Czeoho-!Slovakiia was lborn and Masaryk !became he:r first president? He denied staites' rights to Slovakia and �SLOVAKIA 55 thought nothing of the OLechs exploiting the ,S lovaks and their national wealth! CHA[PTER [V - Peace Conference" - • "The World War, Revolution and iby RO{'bert J. Kern.er. '10n July 4 (191,5), Masaryk publicly in,a ugurated the revolutionary movement •by a ,l ecture on Jan Hus in Zurich, Srwitzerl•a nd. After Benes succeeded in escaping J.irom Austria, the Czech Foreign Committee issued its public manifesto for Czechoslovak independence in Pans on !November 14, 1915. This manifesto had previously been agreed upon by the leaders at home and by the leaders of Czech and Slovak colonies In America, England, and France a point on wihich !Masaryk insisted" (p. 53). 'W ho were those leaders "alt home" and in the Czech and Slovak colonies in America, England, and France? The record tells us that the leaders of the Czechs and Slovalks at home ikinew practically nothing of Masaryk's plans at that time; and the leaders of their respective colonies in various countries still less! • "This Committee (the Czech Foreign Committee) led to the creation of the •Czechoslovak Nation-al Council in 1916., which under Masaryk, Benes, and ~tefanlk gradually assumed the functions of goverJlllilent" (pg. 153-54) . . . "The Czechoslovak National Council, which was leading the struggle abroad, had not been disavowed by the nation at home" (p. 56). 1t is quite clear, rt:hen, that the Czech Committee is credited with the creation of the "Czechoslovak" Council, which Masaryk headed. But it is not in accord with fact that the Council "had not been disruvowed 1b y the nation at home." Masaryk was the leader of the Czech (Progressive Party, which he alone represented in the .Austrian ,parliament. When he left Austria, late .in 1914, Miasaryk went abroad with a ipr.ogram of his own. As far as is !known, he had not consulited wii.th Ozech and Siovalk leaders a:t home and had no authorization f.ram the Czechs or the Slovaks at home ito represent their politioal will. Of course, wherever Masaryk went, he did pose as a competent representative of the Czechs at home. When President. Wilson, .late in Decemlber 1916, requested an lb;elligerents to state their war aims, the Allied reply of January 1'2, 1917, included the following demand: "Lilberation of Italians, Riumaniains, Slaws,. and Czeciio- �56 SLOVAKIA Slovaks from foreign rule." Please note the "Slavs and Czecho-Slovaks" part, lbecaUJSe thaJt tells us 'j ust how well the Allies were informed on the sUJbjoot. Since Slovruks and Czechs spoke different languages, occupied different territories, and never in history had been united, rbhe appelation "Ozecho-1Slorvruk,s " was real new. At that time, when the British government was asked, in ithe Commons, ,w hethmit could indicate the territory inhabited iby "Czecho-1Slo-· vakis," the ra nswer was "no." The Czechs at home resented being mentioned as a nation under "foreign rule." One of their leading ipaipers, the NARODNE I.1IiSTY, had this tto say aJbout it: 1 "It is amazing how indefatigably Masaryk endeavors to defile the honor of the CZECH nation. The enemies have learnt that the love of all Austrian peoples for their inherited dynasty and their fatherland is firm and unshakable. The enemies have realized that those who make contradictory statements abroad are liars and impostors." In Norvem!ber, 1916, all the Czech parties in the Austrian rparliament, without a single exception, had issued a solemn declaration, stating thrat "the basis and guaranty of the national existence of the Czech people are the dynasty, called to the throne centuries ago, and the indivisibly constituted Monarchy." In the declaration they demanded foderafozation. And oin December 30, 191.6, all the Czech party leaders attended ttihe emiperor's coronation as king of Hungary as "guesrts of honor." After the Afli.ed reply to, Wilson became !known, the society of Czech memlbers of parliament sent the following letter (J,a nuary 23, 1'917) to the foreign minister of AustroHtrogary: "In view of the Alli-ed runswer to President ,W ilson in which the liberation of the Czechs figures as a war ,a im, we reject this insinuation whiClh is based on entirely erroneous assumptions. We declare emphatically that the Czech people, as always in the past, is convinced that it can be assured of a prosperous development only under the Habsburg scepter and within the Habsburg Monarchy" (Ingrim: "After Hitler Stalin?" p. 75). The very same Czech members of parliament requested Prime M:in.istffi' C1am....Martinic, a Czech, to arrange an audience with the emperor for them. Why? !Because :they said: "We want to tell His Majesty that we shall always stand by him and his successors; that our demands will always be compatible �SLOVAKIA 57 with the interests of the Habsburg dyansty and of the realm; that we are loyal servants of the king and the country; that our complaints have never shaken our belief that after victory the claims of the ,Czech people will find satisfaction within the framework of the realm and under the Habsburg crown." It is quite obvious, then, thaJt the representatirves of the Czech people did not want separation - independence but federalization. Furthermore, Masaryk ,a nd his Council were hiit from another quarter. At the conference of the Sociiailist International in 1Stockho1m, June 1:917, the Czech delegates vociferously demanded "an independent Czech State within a federated Austria-Hungary." Is it possible that professor Kerner, an expert on Czecho-SloiValkia, is ignorant of what w:as going on even m Czech lands while !Masaryk a.nd Benes were calling for the destruction of Austria? I cannot ·believe it •a nd, therefore, say that iKerner delilberately did not tell the truth when he said that Mas•a ry'k's Council "had not been disavowed by the nation at home." Masarylk :himself admits it in his work "Svetowa RevoJuce" (pp. 1150-il.52; 253-254 ; 32,1 ). When 'Kerneir wr1tes aJbo.ut the organimtion of the "Czechoslovak Legions," the work a,ccomplished lby Masarylk and iBenes in ,E ngland, France, Russia allld America for the esta;blishment of the "Ozechosloivalk Reipulblic," he completely ignores the effort put forth by Gen&al Milan R. Stefanik, the !Slovak who, did much in France, the U.S. A., Italy and Russi.a for the realization of the Republic. fu the twenty pages of this cltaJpter, Kerner mentiom; the name of this great Slovak only once, but does not tell us a single thing aJbo,ut the ,w ork he did so tha,t Czecho-,Slova'l da might become a reality. If Ma,s aryk himself was not loath to give credit to •S tefanik for his accompl.isihmen,ts, why should Kerner ibe? Furthermore, Kerner devotes. several pages to the "OzechoslavaJk" Legion in Siiberia - "the ,a rmy which had fought vicitorio'll.Sly at !Kiev, Zhitamir, and Baikhmach, and which yearned to leave Russia in peace in order to continue the conflict ,a gainst the Germans in the West." He almost outdoes Masaryk himself on the ·" Siberian anabasis" legend. �58 SLOVAKIA The fact is, however, that the legion was offered a short route home via Murmansk and Archangel whence British sh1ps were to transport it to the battle front in France. But the legion, afraid of German sulbmarines and not too eager to fight, preferred ithe long way home via Siberia to Viadfuvostok. AB a result, Masarylk's a:xmy reached Europe long after the smoke of the war had lifted, without haJVing contributed ,to the defeat of Germany and Austria. The IStberian anabas:is made greait propagand a for Masaryk's cause, as he himself atlmitted, and without it, in fact, the "calli:!e" m1ght haive 'been lost. '.I recommend that Kerner and other students •o f history, read pp. 81-83 of fugrim's "After Hlitler !Stalin?" - and, ibut carefully, even Masaryik's "Svetava. Revoluce." • "In the ,a ims publicized as the objectives of peace, the Czechosl ovaks were promised their independence on the basis of the selfdetermination of the Czechoslovak nation. It is a fum:l.amentaJ question just what "self-deteirmi natlon of the nations" meant a.t tihat time. It s eems most probrul>le that when it ,was first uttered it meant the determinatio n of a n entire nation to choo.se whether it wished to be jndependent or live under another, and not self-determination of small parts of it" (p. 62). Here, Kerner quite naively would have us :b elieve that he iis be.fuddled lby the meaning of "self-determ ination." Of course, he could have given credit ,to Masaryk and especially Benes for his 1pretended quandary. I say "pretended ," /because he himself tells us on the page following: " In many regions the populations were thoroughly mixed in composition . . . . As far as the Czechoslovak s were concerned, the matter was complicated by the fact that their claims in the Czech regions rested on historic rights, the Lands of the Bohemian Crown (Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia), which they as a nation had created and maintained in history, rund on the rights of nationality for the ,Slovaks in Hungary, wihere the Magyars cJ.almed 'historic rights of the Lands of tihe Hungarian Crown" (p. 63) . So, what is this business "the Czechoslov aks were promised their independen ce on the ,basis of the self-determ ination of the Czechoslovak nation"? !Kerner purt:s himse1f in a ivery ludicrous situation: he admits the existence of the Czech naition, Czech regions, etc., does not admit directly the existence of the Slovak counterpar ts, but still insists on having a "Orechoslovak" nation! �SLOVAKIA 69 AP, mentioned earlier, one of the aims of the Allies was the "lilberaition of Iltalians, Rumanians, Slavs and Cze- choslovaks from foreign r.ule." The Czechs and Slova;ks got i'lllto the picture also as "Ozech~ova ks," and not only as Slavs, at the persistent insistence of Dr. Edward Benes to support the fiction promoted by M'aJSaryik and himself that "Czechs and Slovaks were the same." The truth, however, remains that the SlovaJks are an individual nation in the great family of Slovanic nations, as are the Poles, Byelorussians , Ukrainians, Russians, C.zec'hs, Bulg,aria:ns, .S erbs, ISlO!Veni•a ns, Croatians, Macedonians, Montenegrins, a,nd Lusatia,n tSerbs, whatever Kerner and other "historians" of his type might have to say to the contrary notwithstandi ng. If Kerner does not be1ieve that t:he right of self-dete:nmination applies equally to the Czechs and /Slovaks, let him .say so outright and be done wi~h it. Kerner should know, as we certainly lmow, that the magic formula that druzzled. and charmed. President Wilson was "national determination," which meant that every ethnic group be conceded the right to decide to which state it wished to belong. More dmpo:ntrunt than what it meanit, of course, was what it implied: the notion that the id68.l state would be one inhabited only by one ethnic entity, one nation. The tenth of WiliSion's "1Fo!Urteen Points" reads as follows: ''!The peoples of Austria-iHu111gary , whose place among the nations we wish to see s·afeguaro€d and •a ssured, should be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous development." What does "the peoples of Austria-Hung ary" mean to professor Kerner? Does it mean all the peoples, except the Slova1k people? If Masaryik used his charms to maJk:e Wilson •b elieve the fiction that the "Czechs and the Slovaiks were the same," and so to deceive him does that alter the .truth that the Ozechs a.nd the Slov~ are not one people, one nation? Why should Kenner want us to believe otheIWise? • "The !Peace Conference chose to give the Czechos-lovaks the hiatoric boundaries in the Czech regions of Austri•a and ethnic bound•a rles In the Slovak districts of Hungary. Furthermore, it •a ddoo, under cond,l tlons of autonomy, Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia. It thmi created a state in Wlhlch 34 per cent of the population was non-Czech0- �60 SLOVAKIA slovak, ,a nd this element included a German .population of over three millimi.s, livin,g chiefly in the outer rim of Bohemia, in a state of less than fifteen millions" (p. 63). But this is 111ot quite the whole ,s tory. The Peace Conference decided as it did, 'becaJUOO it relied on the "expert" information supplied iby Masaryk and Benes, !both Czechs, who presumed to represent iboth the Czechs and also the Slova!ks. In the state created, the non-Czech population was in the majority, and this included some three and a half million Germams, in a state of "less than fifteen millions" (how much less?). The Conference ga;ve the "Czechoslovaks" nothing, lbuit it did allow the boundaries for the "new" state that was -created, as Kerner states, "on the -g round that rune or ten million Czechoslovaks should be favored •w ith independence oiver three million Germans" (p. 65) - the argument Oif Masaryk and Benes! They needed the almost three million Slovaiks of Hrung,ary to m.aJce "nine or ten n:rlllion Czechoslovaks," but the Czechs and the ISloivaJks, were "the same"! • "The Duchy of TesC'hen was ,w,hat was left of Silesia, one of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, after Frederiick the Great had seized fourte en-fifteeruths of that territory in 1740. The historic rights of the Czechs went •back to t!he fourteenth century. Before that the Duchy had been ,Polish {p. r66) . . . It was, however, Poland's diss·a tisfaction with this decision which led her diplomacy into d.e manding a.nd acquiring Czech Teschen on the occasion of the Conference of Mu· nlch (October, 1938). This blow from the rear really made it impossible for Czechoslovakia to fight after she was abandoned by her Western allies" (p. 68) . It is ,olbvious that Kerner either laoks knowledge about Teschen or is deli'berately attemptilllg to confuse the readers of his "Ozechoslova:kia." Just lilke Miasaryik and Benes, iit seems that Kerner does not want students oif history to know the whole tmth about Ozecho-Sloivaki,a. Furthermore, the ,allegation that Ozecho,...Slov,rukia was "forced" to :su,r render to iHitler !Without firing a shot, because her "Western allies" had abandoned her, OT because IDngland ·a nd France asked her to, is purely fictitious. Benes surrendered Czecho-Slovaki.a to Hitler without the approval of parliament. The Benes Czechs knew fully well that Czeoho-SlovaJkia could not be saved, because her non-Czech majority was not wiling to fight for her. They �SLOVAKIA 61 chose to urrender "at the behest of their faithless friends," because an attempt to fight would have revealed to the world that the Germa~lovak-Magyar~Rutib.en.ian-iPolish majority of her population was not ready to die for a tate that had treated them as second-rate citizens for ome thirty years. And let us not forget that even the Czech,s, who considered themselves t he "State-nation," did not fire a single shot in defense of Czecho-JSlovrukia. Furthermore, it is no secret ,t hat Benes did not cultivate friendshiip with Poland and other neigh'boring states : his pro Soviet policy over decades of years is proof of that. Already in 1929 Viscount D'Abernon prophesied: "The treaty between Czecbo S lovakia and Poland is thought a triumph of French m ilitarism . o it m a y be, but the duration w ill b e te mpo rary . . . the Czech satellite will revert to the orbit of the Moscow planet as soon as disturbing forces cease to operate quite as powerfully as today." • "Germ an propaganda l ater s ought to spread the view that the bou ndaries of Czeoho slovakia, a s well as t hose of P ol and, wer e drawn by the Peace Conferene e in ignorance and that they repres e nted a failure to understand the problems of central Europe. N ot hing could be far th er from tJh e facts . The deleg ates o f the Peace Cont rence had access to and used the best available information and considered these problems from all possible angles" (p. 6 ). After reviewing the events that followed World Wa.r I Mld led to World War IiI, I believe it is safe to say that Kerner's statement is "farther from the facts" than even the "German propaganda" he alludes to. The fact rernains t hat World War I not only failed to solive Europe's problems, ,b ut even ,a ccentuated them and led t o World War II. At Paris there was a meeting of two continents which were quite ignorant of each other. The peacemakers blundered when they accepted interested parties as experts wit hout having them chedked 'by the opposition. When Lloyd George asked Benes how many Ma.gyam would fall undeT Ozech rule, Benes replied that their number would lbe 350,000 ('D. H. Miller: "My Diary at the Conference in Paris"; in reality it was more ibhan one million. Benes, plead.., ing fOT a "natural frontier," described a little ~oolk as a nasvigalble river. Repudiation of Kerner's claim may also be found in A . J. P. Taylor's "The HaJbsbu.rg Monarchy," C. A . Ma- �62 SLOVAKIA cartney's "Problems of the Danubiam Basin," Lloyd George's "The Tr.urth About the Peace Treaties," J. M. Keynes "The Economic Consequences of the Peace." Winston Churchill's "Afternnath and World Crises,." Robert fugrim's "After Hitler :Stalin?" and even T. G. Masa;ryk's "Svet<Jva Revoluce." But Kerner himself does that quite effecti:vely with the last three sentences - especially the last sentence - of the ivery same par.aJgraph, ,whi.oh reads: "Another ,s olution of the Czechoslovak problem might indeed be sought •by some future .p eace conference, if the poignant problem of the German nation is solved, for example, on the model of Switzerla:nd rather than that permitting a rampant totalitarian racialism. U.nti,l then it may be said that the work of t!he Peace Conference was a reasonable solution for its time. Common sense and Intelligence and a few minor boundary rectifications might have aecured a durable settlement" (p. 69). Of course, Professor Kerner, could hardly have intended it that way, but this is quite an admission from a mem. her of the "EXPERT STAFF, Colonel House Inquiry and American Commission to Negotiate Peace"! We know today that Kerner was not the only "exipert" who la'o ked sufficient "common sense and intelligence" at that time. (More coming) WHO SAID IT? "In 1868 the Ozeoh initel,lectuails and the Bohemian aristocrats renewed filleir allegi1ance. . . The eighty Bohemian a<bsentees from the Reicllsrat made a declaration of their aims: they asked for equal na:tional rights for the Czechs in Bohemia, and for a refornn of the electoral system; they demanded also the unity of the lands of St. We:nceslaus and the same independence for this "grea,t Bohemia" a;s HUlllgary possessed. The Ozech leaders were bewitched by the Hungarian example. '1'1hey saw, quite rightly, that the Magyars had achieved their nation'al freedom by associating it with historic rilghts, and they supposed that the way to achieve the national freed~m of the Czechs was to claim the historic rights of Bohemia. They did not see that the historic rights of Hungary were real, the historic rights of Bohemia imaginary. . . " - (A. J. P. Taylor, TH1E HABSIBURG MONA'ROHY, London, 1948; p. 142). � 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 1955, Vol. 5 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 1 (No. 14), March 1955.</li> <li>Issue 2-3 (No. 15-16), June-September 1955.</li> <li>Issue 4 (No. 17), December 1955.</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 1955 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 38 SLOVAKIA HISTORY OR PROPAGANDA? P. A. HIROBAK In 1'9149, the Uniiversity of California Press, ipulblished the "third printing" of the !book "CZEOHOSW VAKIA" (504 pages) which was edited iby Rolbert J. Kerner, Sather professor of history in the Unilversity :of California. 'Dhe book was made ipossilble, ,p rofessor Kerner states in his preface, iby "the oolla!boration of twenty distinguished and alble scholiars and writers" and that, concludes Mir. Kerner, "has made it ;possiible to present a vo1ume ,which is an honest, unprejudiced:, and frank appraisal of the important contrilbution which the Czechoslovak nation made to the history of our time in its two short decades of independence between two world wars." Just how honest, unprejudiced and frank that aipp:r,aisal of the "important" contribution is, the ireader may be a;ble to g,ather from what follows here and arrive at the condusion, stated so aiptly iby professor Kerner, that, indeed, "few nations, if any can show such a record" or, possibly, go a bit .farther and state cate.gorically that, indeed, no niation can show .such a record! But how honest and unprejudiced are "distinguished and able scholars" who set out to do a job beyond their competency? Can a distinguished historian write a true history of CZIDCH0-1SUOVAKITA without a thorough lmowledge of the SlovaJks and the land they 'haive occupied during the past 1500 years? And yet that is exaotly what the "twenty distinguished and aJble scholars and writers" of Kerner's "Ozechoslovaikia" did to ,produce something which, in his opinion, was "hQlrulst, unprejudiced" ! Kerner's "Ozechoslovikia' is dirvided into six parts, but the tendency in all parts is much the same: strictly Czech. Kerner should haive named the 1b ook "Czechia," t'hen the wonk might ibe called, by a stretch of the imagination, a semlblance of something "hlOlll.est and unprejudiced." Otherwise, informed readers know rthat it definitely is not, and the uninformed axe cruelly deceived. The s~gniificance of this may be !better understood when we glance at the remarkaible selection of books in the sug- SLOVAKIA 39 geeted bibliog,r aphy at the end of each cha;pter. The list is rema.r.kaJble not only for the !books and literary woi,ks included, but for the 1bodks and literary works omitted. The impression created is that the Slovruks had no ,w riters of a!lly impor-t and that no sourees of informatiO!ll on their history are availruble. iBut that i.'S not so. '.Dhis proves that the "twenty distinguished a:nd able scholars and writers," who collalborated with Kerner .cm his "Czechoslovakia" were little or not at all concerned with the history of the Sl01Vak people and their land. To magnify and glorify the history of the Ozechs and minimize, practically ignore, the history of the Slavruks, certainly cannot be the aim of an honest, UDJprejudiced and abjecti;ve writer of Ozecho~lovak history. Ozecho-Blovakia, as presented ,b y Kerner and his "twenty distinguished and aJble .s cholars and writers," does not give us a true picture of Czech-0-1Slovakia; it is not a true history of the Ozechs and SlOIV'aJks and their lands; it is definitely more propaga:nda than history - in line with other .such wm,ks which were promoted by the propaganda apparatus of Prag,ue. !Students of history should not 'be exposed to faJsifications and distortions of history, su<!h as that exemplified ·b y Kerner's "Ozechoslovakia," because. that does not make for the truth, or for better relations ibetween the Ozechs and the Slovalks, or for a ·pr.oper understanding of those nations. I do not want to say unequirvocally that the writers who collaborated to produce Kerner's "Ozechoslovrukia" were knowingly dishonest ,a nd prejudiced, but their work co.n,vinced me definitely that ,w ittingly or uniwitti.ngly they did ibeoome Ozech propa:gandists. The writers have an undu:ly high regard for the chairacter and accomplishments of T. G. Masaryk amd Benes and the Ozechs in general, without an equa:lJy high reg,aro for facts, and little or no regard for the Slorvaks and their history. ,M ost writers of Ozeolio..Slovaik history and "Ozecho..slovak" democracy (IS. Harrison Thomson, Joseph S. Roucek, Herbert AdolJphus ,Miller, Brackett Lewis, among them), follow the Ozech line of T. G. Masaryik and Ed- 40 SLOVAKIA ward Benes and their governmeints ,w ho ,c ontrolled the entire propaganda apparatus• o;f ,Czecho-1Slov8Jkia. This Masaryk~enes line was and e;ve:n now is adhered to iby exchange students and iprofessors, heads of official and unofficial information !bureaus, the America.n Institute in Prague, the YMCA and YWCA of 0zecho-Slovrukia and other countries, the "OzechoslQIViruk N ationa,1- Ohurch" (strictly a Czech enteriprise) and most other religious sects, and practically all "eminent" writers, scholars and correspondents. And today the governments of all countries of the ,w orld still lbase their knowledge 'Of OzechoSlovakia and the vario:us nations that comprise it on the information supplied by the state propaganda apparatUJS of T. G. iMasaryk and Edward Benes. The import Ol:f this will undouibtedly be appreciated iby students of history, and even historians themselves, if they rememlber that this line has been followed and ipvopagaJted for ·a t least the past thirty-seven years. Accordirrrgly, the Czechs are a "historical" nation, while the SlovaJks are oruy a •~branch" of it and their language just a "dialect" orf the Czech. Ridiculous attempts are made to trace the histo,r y of the non-.existent "Ozechoslovruk" nation to the times of the Great Moravian Empire ,a nd Sts. Cyril and [Methodius. The "CzechoslOW!Jks" are supposed to 1b e the nation of Hus, Masaryk, and Benes, but also the nation of Sts. Cyril and Methoilius, WenceslaUJS and Ludlmila. The Ozechs, however, are ",p rogressive" Catholics and the 1Slovruks "reactionary" Catholics. ,F rom officiail statistics we learn how many Poles, Germruns, Jews, 'Magyars and Uikrainians there Weir'e iin Czecho-1Slovakia at any ,g iven time,. but not how many ,SlQIVlaks. That is explained ruway by the s1Jateme.nt th:at the Slovaks were not considered a tminority, hence, they were included under the category of "0zechosloivaiks." The latter term, however, is terr1bly l<_?ng, so the shorter "Czech" is used in many in,stainces as an "aJbbreviation." The term "Slovalk" could not •b e us.ed, I suppose, because it has O'Ile more letter than "Czech"! When statistics do, however, mention Czechs and .Slovaks se,pairately, the figures are in- SLOVAKIA 41 variably magnified on bhe Ozech side and minim1zed on the Slovak side. The !Magyars were experts at this sort of "mathematics" long before Ozecho-iSlova!kia was !born. The tendency is too olbviou.s. Many distinguished and aJble scholars and writers of the tyipe mentioned lby Kerner, can tell us exactly wh&e and albout when the Czechs, Poles, Russians, Slovenians, Croatians, rSe11bs, etc., fust settled in their respective territories, lbut, it seems, they cannot even venture a.in honest guess when it comes to the Slovaks. I say again: the tendency is dl:wious. They tell us that the Great Moraivian Empilre was the prede•cessor of the Czecho-Slol\TaJk RepU!blic, a Czech venttl!re, when in fact it was not. The Slova:ks, their predecesors that is, occupied both sides of the Morawa River at that time (whence, the name of :the empire) aind, hence, formed the very heart of the shor-Uived emipire, which was destroyed by the GermaJI1s with the aid of the Ozechs who had settled in, Bohemia, the land of the Boii. And we used to hear and read aJboot the "Crown lands of Bohemia," lbut now it seems to be the mode in "1p rogress,ive" historical ch'cles, to use the expression "Crech crown lands." I repeat : the tendency is only too. ohvio.us. The Czechs are not and do, not ,wa,,nt to be Slovaks a,nd, co,ruversely, the Slorva'ks are not and do not want to be Czechs. The SlovaJks .a nd the Ozechs did not have a common history, language, culture and tradition du.ring the past 1500 years, ~ause they did not occupy the same territQry. In a word, the Cizechs 0JI1d the Sl01Vaks developed sepaJTa tely and are, therefore, two distinct ethnic nations. 'l'he Slovaks never were, nor are they now, a "part" of the Czech nation. This simple truth, recognized 'by fille Czechs and SlOIVaJks themselves for many centuries ;past, should also be recognized lby "distinguished and alble scholars ood writers" of our time. It is tiiue that the SlovaJks formed a common political State with the Czechs in 19'.18, but only on certain conditions, the most important of which was that they would be a completely autonomous unit of the Ozecho-SlovaJk 42 SLOV.AKIA federatio.n, that is, that they would en~oy full states' rights. The condition not obeiirrg fulfilled, spelled the end of OrechoSlovaJkia. Because Benes insisted that the Czechs be the "stat~ation," Czecho-Slo1vaJk ia was doomed to perdition. Today the Slovaks do not want to be contained in any common State wti.th the Czechs or any other foreign nation. They can be kept so temporarily only lby force. !But that is not what the "distinguished and aJble sch~lars and writers" who oo1lalboraJted with professor Kerner tell us in the book "CzechoslovaJkia." Propaganda oa.- history? Let us anailyize Kerner's ''Czechoslovakia" chapter by chapter to prove our contentions. But let me note first t!hat on page xvii, at the end of the "contents," professor Kerner tells us how to pronounce "Czech" (not "Czechoslovak," mind you) letters; and on p. xxi, the poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay is entitled "Ozecho-iSlovakia" (:not "Czechoslovalkia") , which b,rings uip the question of hyphenization of the 1political state of tihe 1SlovaJks and the Czechs which was 'b orn iln 1918. The treaty 1b y which Czecho--Slova1kia came into being spelled ithe name with a hyphen to indicate that two indiividual ethnic entities, two distinct nations, 'had formed one political state. The hyiphen was dropped lby Masaryk and Ben-es and their followers. Whether the hyphen was J.eft in the title of the ipoem because of the author's insistence, or prof. Kerner's "careless" editing, I do not know, but it is singular that the hyphen should a;ppear in a book liike "Ozechoslova;lcia" at all! 1 • "C~ECHOSLOVA:KIA, Part I: BACKGROUND Chapter I-"The Czechoslovaiks-Anthropol ogical Notes . .." By Ales Hrdlfclka, M.D., Sc.D., Gura.tor, Division of Physical Anthropology, United States National Museum; Huxley 'Medal Lecturer, London (1927) ; memlber, National Academy of Scien-ces; honorary Doctor of 1S cience (Prague, Br.no)," etc., etc. Please not.e: The underscoring here and in the following is mine. "The term Czechoslovak ,i,s o! r ecen t coinage, dating from 1918, l\·hen the united Cze chs and Slovaks proclaimed. thei r independence of the Dual Mon,archy and th eir est abHshmi:mt of the Czeohoslovak SLOVAKIA 43 Republic. . . . 'Illie name Czech (pronounced Chekh) ls derived, accord Ing to an old tradition, from the chiefta&n of the main Slav tribe who brought them some time during the dawn, of ihistory probably in tihe fifth cent\.U'ly A.!D. - to the heart of the land (IP, 3) . . . In fact, the hLstoTY of the Czechoslovak tribes, from the dawn of written ,r ecords to the present day, has •be.en one of ever.Jiasting struggles ·a.galns,t dnvooers (PP. 4.-5) . . . Tihe Slovaks, who u.p to 1029 formed a unit with Moravia, were then torn away by the Ma• gya,rs, isolated from the west, for,c ed .away from the best grounds iu the warm •lolwland,s, and eventuaUy repressed. in every way" (p. 6). It is evident that even Dr. Ales Hrrdli6ka, distinguished ,anthropologist of ~ech origin, :seems to be a bit confused about when the "Czechslovruks" came into being. Whether the Ozechs -are descendants ,of the "main. 'Slav trilbe" is open to ·question. The 'SlO!Vaks fo:nrned a "unit" with Moravia up to. 1029, according to Hrdlicka, 1but who the people were who settled in Morruvia is Jeft to the reader. Mora,via, of ooUTse, came under the influence of the Ozechs in time, at least the western portion of it, :b ut was not settled lby the Ozechs when the .Slovruks formed a unit with it, for the simple reason, it seems, that the for~ fathers of ithe Slovaiks settled on iboth sides of the river Morava, w'hile the Ozechs settled in fue J.and of the Boii, which was a distinot geographical unit, ,prolbaJbly a/bout the size of present-day Bohemia . • "The Czechoslovaks to 1620'' - ,b y S. Harrison Thomson, Ph ..D., BLitt. - Professor of Medieval History, Unirversity of Co-lorado; Ph.D., Charles Uni'Vers,ty, Prague; B.Litt., Omord University; Ewtor, Magistri Johannis Hus Tractatus Res-ponsivus; Johannis Wyclif Summa de Ente (1930) ;" etc., etc. CI:I\A.PrIDR III - "Led ,b y a travelln,g IFI'lankish merchant, Samo, tihe Slavic tribes freed themselves ,from the Av,a r rule, and chose Samo for their •k ing (623-624) . . . This ,e arly kingdom, which would appea,r to !have been pr.emature, iw,as ,neither Czech nor Slovak. It would have to be called Western ·s1av, ,b y .reason or a large intermixture of Slavic tribes which became gra.dua:l!y differentiated as they settled in different local!tes . . . The names of the princess Llbuiie and the peasant Premysl whom she cih ose to be her husband are in all proba• bility tJhe names of real persons. At any rate ,t he male descendants or this ,s-emilegendaxy .Pfemysl were to rule over ,Bohemia and neighboring regions until 1306 . . . It is not certain whether tihe Slavic chi,eftalne. enga,ged at this time to pay .tribute to the Fr,alllk.is~ emperor or not" (P. 9). SLOVAKIA 44 Id: Samo, the "traveling 1F ranlkish merchant," established a kingdom, he necessarily must hruve stopped traveling somewhere, and that "somewhere" ,w as on territory occupied 'by "S1'arvic" tr.i!bes, out of which later a certain nation, or certain nations, arose. ,s amo's kingdom was not on the territory settled by the Czechs or other Sla-vonic peoples, 1b ut Olll the terri1lory settled by the "Slavs" who were later oalled ISlorvaks. Fredegar's Chronicles seem to indicate as much (THIE ISI.JOV~S AND !UNG SAMO'S EMiP]RE, by iDr. Henrich Bartelk, SU)VA.KIA, June 1954). The "Slavic trilbes" whioh ibecame gradually differentiated as they settled in "different localities" could not be identical witll the "Slruvic tribes" which remained on the territory of ISrum<>'s kingdom and, later, came to ~ ca1led the SlovaJks. As far ,as, the Ozech "Llbuse and Pfemysl" are concerned, let us talke the word Olf learned Czechs that they were legendary characters ("Ottuv SLOVN1K NAUONY," Vol.. XV, p. 1038; Vol. XX, rp. 625). We might a.loo concede, without offending historical truth, t!hat all "1S1'avic" chieftains, including the forefathers of the 'Czechs, paid tribute to the Frankish emperor, when he was strong enough to exact it. Why should the 'Slavs of Bohemia" be an exception? II t seems that professor Harrison is interested in building up a case for the Czechs to prove that they were completely independent during the time of Charlemagne (8th-9th cenrtury). Why? 1 • "Later in the ,c entury (846) !Louis the German su,bju,g-ated Mora. 11ia, •b ut suffered defeat wihen he ,a ttacked the Slavs of Bohemia. Th1s ,a ttack of tLouis the German n,vas directed ,against the empire of the Moravian prince Mojmir, who had shown rem arkable abllity in consolidating his rule south, east •a nd west to include southern Poland, Silesia, Bohemia, Moravia, and the valleys of the middle Danube and Theiss rivers a,s far as the northern boundaries of the Byzantine Empil'e . .. After the death of Svato,pluk (894) the Moravian Empire rapidly broke up into its component parts. The Czech princes of the Pi'emyslide line .gained independence for Bohemia, and the Magyars, new arrivals dn. t,he east, -extended llieir power over n~rthern Pannonia. German's and Slavs, united for the moment, were de• feated by the Ma,gyars in 907 neax (Bratislava (Pressburg), and the ruin of the Moravian state was complete" (P. 10). Louis subjugaited iMoravia, but was defeated by the "Slavs of Bohemia," which means that the latter were not SLOVAKIA 45 identioal with the Slavs of Moravia, who were ruled by Mojmir. !Professor !Harrison also tells us that Mojmir, the Moravian prince, consolidated his rule by consolidating various ISlmrianic ('Slavic) trilbes, including those of Bohemia. This Mojmir did by force. It is significant that Harrison does not refer to Mojmir as a "Slovak" ,p rince, though he does not hesitate to say that 'Czech" princes gained independence fur Bohemia. He also omits to say that the Czechs, not the ",Slavs of Bohemia," mind you, gained their independence by !breaking ·a way from ,t he !MO!'aJVian Empire in 895, :aJfter the death of S,v atopluk. The Czechs, then, heliped to destro¥ the integrity of the Grea,t Moravian ffimpire, the heart of which ,was in Slovak country, the country of the Slavs of Moravia and Pannonia. In 900 the Czechs, the Slavs of Bohemia, together with the Germans, invaded the territory of the Sl01VaJks, the Slavs of Great Moravia, aJild after a terrific /battle forced !Mojmir II to sue for peace. Svatoplulk's three sons, ruling various areas of the Empire and constantly •a t each others throats, contributed greatly to the dissolution of Great Moravia. When the !Magyars moved into northern IPannonia, they met with little resistance, lbut professor Harriso n neglects to say what people settled in northern Pannonia, even though history tells us that the forefathers of the Slovaks occu'Pied tha.t territooy at the time. And where professor Harrison found the legend that "Germans and Slavs, uni.ted for the moment,." tried to save t!he Great Morawian Empire from falling into the hands of the Magyars in 907, he does !IlOt say. As mentioned rubove, the Germans, and the 'Slavs of Bohemia" (the Coochs) contributed to the downfall of Great Morawia. It is not, I thinlk, unreasonaJble to say that if the Germans and Slavs were really united to sruve the Moravian Em'Pire from falling into the hands of the Magyars, the latter would hardly have taken what was left of it in 907. Careless reporting of history? Probably, ·b ut to me it seems to be tendencious and puTposeful. Professor Harrison, it seems, was doing a jolb for the Brague regime and 46 SLOVAKIA the Ozechs. This is all the more obvious in his !book "Czechoslovakia in EmQpean H!istory" (Princeton Uniiversity Press, 1943, 1195'3), for which Harrison was ·aJWarded the "Czechoslovak State Prize for Literature" in 1944, when the Ozecho-1Slova'k State factually did not exist for five years. 'Dhe award was made iby Dr. Benes's ·g overnmentin.J..ondon at the Uni:versity Clulb in New Yorik, Decem.lber 30, 1944. • •~remysl Otaka.r [ (1197-1230:) was able to use circumstances for the •b enefit of his dynrusty and the Czech kingdom . . . iHe shifted his allegiance four times. eadh time gaining conoession:s or confirmation of eonc-essions .previously granted ,b y another claimant to the throne . . . . But to Pfomysl must be assigned the responsibility for inviting tJhe German immig,r ation. Encouraged by the court, many Czech nobles. had married Germ,a;n ,w omen; some of the best positions of the ·churoh in ,Bohemia and Moravia were occupied by German clerics; ·German mf.nnesin,g ers ,w,ere in high favor at the royal court and at the courts of the Ticher nobles" (P. 13). Here professor !Harrison tells us tJhat 1P rem.ysl Otakar was quite a "shifity" ruler, using circumstances for the benefit of his dynasty and the "Czech" kingdom, not the "Boh,emian" ikingdom, but favored German immigration, and "Czech" (not Bohemian) ndbles married: German women, and some of the best ;positions of ,t he Church in Bohemia and Moravia were held lby German clerics, etc. It is evident here rthat professor Harrison cannot make up his mind whether the Bohemians were Ozechs or GelUllans, or both! It is quite clear, however, that the Slovaiks, the Slavs of Moravia and Pannonia, did not .fit into the picture of the "Cz,ech" ikingdom at that ,t ime. The twenty ipa,ges of Kerner's "OzechosloivaJlda" taken up iby Harrison's "'IJhe Czechoolovaks to 1620" use the word Slovak(ia) some seven times and, therefore, repudiate the idea, insinuation or implication, that .there were any "Czechoslovaks" up ,t o 1620. Not only that, but for Harrison, it seems, the ISlo.vaJks - the Slavs of Moravia and Pannonia - simply do not exist at all after the fall of the Great iMoraivian Empire, except for the mention (p. 17) of "a consideraJble number of (Hussiite) adherents 1? Sfovalkia," which is quite a stretch of the imagination. The Hussite !business was strictly Cezch; the Hussites did SLOVAKIA 47 more damage than good for the Czechs themselves, and aibsolutely no good for the Slovaks, whose lands they invaded, pillaging and !burning their homes, and murdering their population. Furthermore, !Harri.son oreaites the impression that the !Battle of White !Mountain (1620) was ,a; nationalistic affair, W1aJged lby the Ozechs against the Genmans. That is the legend fabricated 'Mld propagated by some Protestant Czechs. The White 1MoU1DJtain affair, however, was definitely a religious and dynastic aifafir. After Tilly, the emperor's general, defeated Frederiok and the Bohemian (111ot Czech!) maignates, some 27 of the leading "rebels" were beheaded: one a Catholic; six were Germans. Not one, however, was executed becaJUse of his nationality. Not without interest is Harrison's mention (p. 11) that the Premyslide iprinces di'Vided the country, in .t he tenth century, "into administrative distrfots (zupy) with a royal representative (zupan) at the head of each distTiot." wf the Czech Premys.lides actually used the terms "zupa, zupan," I wonder if professor Harrison mi,g ht enlighten us from whom they might have acquired those words, since they are rarely used !by the Czechs . • CHA!PTER III - "The Czechoslovaks from the Battle of White ,Mountain to the World War" - by RO'bert J. Kerner, Ph. D ., i.lL.D., /Litt.D. - Sather Professor of History, Uni'Versity of California; LL.D., Omaha University; Litt.iD., Paiik College; foreign memlber, Royal Bohemian Society of Letters and Sciences (Prague); foreign member, Safarik Learned Society (Bratislava); commander, Order of the Whlite Lion (Ozecho~SlovaJkia); memlber, Expert Staff, Colonel House Inquiry and American Commission to Negotiate Peace (!Paris); etc., etc. "The dlsa,strous battle of W•h ite Mountain on November 8, 1620, uslhered lin a period of three centur.les in which the Klngdom of Bohemia was reduced to .three provinces, Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, in ,t he Habs,b urg MOIIlarchy. During the first centUTY of •t his period the nation lost three-fourths of its native nobility, its most eminent and wealthy citizens, its schools and noted scholara, and its national independen-ce. A remarkable national renaissance took place in the second century. In the remainder of the period, the Czecho• slovak nation, after tlailin.g to bring •about a reorganization of the 48 SLOVAKIA Ha;bsburg Monarchy on ,a federal -basis, or to secure the same dg,h ts as tfue Magyars, ,c arried out a ,s uccessful revolution a,nd obtained its independence" (P. 29). !Referring to the underscored words, I ask professor Kerner: 1. What nation, the Czech or Bohemian? 2. What "Czechoslovak." nraition, when there was none? 3. What Magyars, ,o r does iKerner mean Hungarians? 4. What revolution 1by the "Ozechoslovaik" nation?. Kerner used the title he did for this chapter delilberately, because he must haJVe known there were no "CzechoslO'V8Jks," ethnically spooking, ,b efore or after the battle of White Mol.l.[ltain, to the World War, except in the minds of dreamers and chauvinistic, imperialistic Creohs. He could easily haJVe ,o mitted the d:ew references to Slovaks and the m8Jny to "Orechos}ovaiks" in the 211 1pages of the chrupter and had ,a rpretty good ,s tory on the "Czechs'' from the Battle of White Mountain to the World War." Practically everything in the chapter is "Czech" - language, literature, nation, historians, pe3Jsants noblemen, renaissance, Catholics, Pr.otestants, opera, national anthem, Lutherans, journalists - lbut Kerner still makes pretense at writing aJbout "Czechoslovaks." Is there any good ,r eason why an honest, Ulliprejudiced, objective historian should try to fool even himself? Surely, Kerner musrt !know that the ~echs devel01ped in the Austrian ,p art, ,w hile the Slova!ks developed in ,t he Hungarirun prurt of the Dual Monarchy. What Kerner means to imply when he says that the "Czechoslovak nafilon . . . . . . carried out a successful revolution" and db.tamed its independence is at least questionaJble. We know that there was not even a revolution in Prague. !Robert Ingrim tells us: "All that J:J.a;ppened ,was tJhat Emperor-King Charles, seeing that Wilson :a:bandoned his former program in the hour of victory, dropped tJhe fed,ema;listic idea and ordered his minds.tern and lieutenant-governors to surrend,e r the admi'llistration to coonmittees of the various nationalities. Thi,s explains among other things why Masaryk, as the first president of Czecho-Slovakia, had to decree which date was to be regarded as the beginning of the Czech re· volution. It simply had not taken place. All bhe successor states, including little. Austria, needed the legal fiction of a ,r evolution, because as• new states they repudiated the idea of continuity and based SLOVAKIA 49 their la/\V,s upon a revolutionary origin. For the Czechs this was very important. When, in 1921, .the .Sudeten Germans complained to the League of Nations t:hat they had not been allowed to take par.t in the making of the constitution of the new State, the Czecho-Siov•a k government replied. that 'the Cz~ho./Slovak State was the work and product of the revolution, made solely by the Czecho-Slovak nation,' which was, therefore, 'the only constitutional factor.' Hence, 'the Natiooru Revolutionary Assembly was alone authorized to set up the constitution' by W1h1ch Germans, \Hungarians, Ruthenians, and Poles had •b een made second-class citizens" (After Hitler Sta11n? P. 107). To complete the above piotu.re, '.I might add that the Slovak memlbers of the "Na,tional Revolutioaiary Assembly" were lhand-'I)icked lby Masaryk and Benes and, included firve Czechs, hence, were not truly representa.tirve of the political will of the 1S101Vaik nation. The constitution that resulted, therefore, was strictly a Czech product, j'llSt as was Ozecho-lSlovak domestic iand foreign policy. In referring to the development that took ipla.ce during the Reformation and ICoU!Ilter-lReformation in Ozech rund Slovak territories, Kerner says that "in general the same development took place in the ISloivaJk counties od' Hungary as in Bohemia, /Moravia and \S ilesia." If a person did not know !better, he might be led to 1believe that Kerner did not use the express-ion "Ozech counties" in his comparison, because Bohemia, Moria.via and !Silesia were supposedly solidly Czech. We know that they were not. And we know, too, that Bohemia was not the only country that suffered during the Thirty Yea.rs' War; that war "ravaged Bohemia with the same fury it unleashed all over the Germanies. . . There was no, difference and certainly no national ,pll!'.pose" (I.n,g rim, op. cit., ,p. 57). Kerner, furthermore, writes ab.9-ut "Magyar'' magnates and "Magyar" nolbility, rwhen he really means "Hungarian" magnates and noibility. There is a difference: the Magyars were not the only inhabitants of Hungary before or aft-er the 17th century. The same applies .to the terms "Czech" and "Bohemian." Of course, we might say that the tenns today - af.ter the expulsion of over three million Germans - are mo.re or less synonymous. Let us, however, remember that they were not even in ,t he recent past: the Czechs were not the only inhabitants of Bohemia. 50 SLOVAKIA "A new period in .the history of the Czechoslovak nation was inaJugurated" (p. 32), when 1Fredericik the Great seirzed Silesia in 1740, Kerner states oaitegorically and, fartiher down on the same page, that "the reforms of Maria '.Dheresa and Joseph JiI . . . not only culminated in the completion of the evolution ,which tra.nsf.ormed the Kingdom of Bohemia into three provinces and hence virtual amalg,amaJtion of 1!he Austrian Hereditary Lands with the Lands of the (Bohemim Crown into a single administrative unit, but they threatened the Czechoslovaks with loss of identity as a nation 'by the process• of Germanization in schools, government, ,and church." Here, it is obvious that Kerner w-..s a 1b it ~fuddled and •a )pparently forgot, in his zeal to promot.e the concept of a "Czoohoslovaik nation," that ,t he SkwaJks lived in HU!Ilg,ary and,. hence, !by no stretch of t'he imaigination, even in this "enlightened" and "iprogres.sive" era, could have had any connection with the "Austrian Hereditary Lands" and the "Lamds of the Bohemi,a n Crown." It w.as the existent Czechs and not the nJOn-existent "OzechoslwaJks" who were threatened with the loss of identity as a nation iby the process of ~a.n:rzatiorn, in Austria. We can concede that the policy of Joseph ll "of trying to denationalize" Magyars, Italians, Poles, and Rumaniians "aroused them to activity" (p. 34), as it did the ~echs, SlovaJks, Croats, Slovenes, and Serbians, ibut why does Kerner lump the latter nations together as "Czeichoslovaiks" and "Jugoslavs" when he knows that such did not exist either in Joseph !I's time or even later? 'I'he reason fur this is only too obvious. On page 3Q,. the "Czechoslovaks" we.re threatened "w1t'h Joss of identity as a nation," but three pages later, according to Kerner, "at the same time the situation of the Slovaks in HWigary was somewhat improved by the reforms of Maria Theresa and Joseph II" (p. 35). The same reforms even led "to a great national revival (p. 32) . . . the Czech renaissance develo ped momentum step by step as decree after decree of Maria Theresa and Joseph II sought to a'bolish the use of the Czech language. When Joseph II completed t!he official demise of the Czech Ian1 SLOVAKIA 51 guage in school, government, allld church in 1790, the Czech nation revwed. 1So mysterious was this development that its exact oauses have been a su:bject: of dispute among the best ·scholars" (1p. 34). Then on t:he following pa;ge (35) Kerner states: "The Ohurch feared that it would lose its ,g rip on the Czech nation i:f its priests spolke only German. These and other indications led to the establishment by Leoipold rnr of a chair in the Czech language at the University of ,Praigue in 1791." What, then, is this business ,th,a,t the reforms of Maria Theresa and Joseph JiI ''threatened the Czechoslovaks with loss of identity as a nation"? And what is so mysterious about <the reviival of the Czech nation in 1790? Kerner certainly must ha,ve ,h eard a;bouit the principle of action and reaction! If the iMa~rs, and laiter the Ozechs, had not tried to suppress the Slovak lang,uage and oppressed the Slovaks, they would have rprobaibly .perished as a nation in time . .Js it not olbtvious what ha,ppens to languages and peo~ ples in America rwhere freedom abounds? [n America peoples of every color, .race and creed enjoy freedom of the press, freedom of religion and freedom of asoomibly; they are d':ree to !build their own churches, schools, liibraries, 'beneficial organi:zations and ipubHsh new.s,pa,pers and books in their respective languages. Yet, there is no doufbt in. my mind that in time non-®nglish iperiodioa1s and 1books, published in America, will /be a rarity. Certainly, this must be just as olbvious - ,a nd not myst.erious - even to professor Kerner. • "A Protestant sc hool, -witJh a c hair in the Czech language a.nd literature, was founded in Brati,s.lava, and this inst:i,tution counted amQ/Ilg its s,t udents the future Czech his torian !FrantAse'k Palacky from Moravia and tlhe Slovaks Jan Kolla r ia.n.d Pave.I Josef i:lafaiik. The Protestant Slovaks followed closely the d·e velopment or the Czechs, Wlhereas the Catholic Slovaks under Antonin Bernolak tried to create, with indlff-erent success at the time, a. written Slovak dialect, which W'<IS s-eparate from .but closely akin to the Czech because a western dialect of spoken ,Slovak was used. The course of poli• tical events could not cheok the national revival of Czechoslovaks" (p. 36) . ,P rofessor Kerner does not relate the whole story, but only the part that s'l.lits his ipUTpOSe and, hence, sins by 52 SLOVAKIA omi-ssion. The Catholic Slcwa!ks oonstituted rut least 75 per cent of the Sl()IVaik nation, while the Protestant Slovaks only aibout ill per cent. Koillar and Safarik cultivated ,a "dead" 1amgiuage, a langu,a;ge tha;t was used iby a small part of tile Slovak nation, the Lutherans. And the latter used that language - "biblical" Czech, therefore, not the "live" language of the vast masses of the Czech people - mostly for and during religious functions, while at home they used Sloiv•aik. Anton, not Antonin (the Czech equivalent), Bernolwk not only "tried" to create a Slo.va!k literary language, but actually did estaibLish such a literary medium of Slorvak which was u:sed :some fifty years b,y S[ovak writers. There was no need :for iBernolaik to. create "a written Slovak dialect," ;b ecause various 'Slova!k dialects already were existent at that time. And iBernola:k definitely did 111ot choose the western dialect because it was "closely alkin" to Czech. Kerner, however, is quite right when he says that "the comse of political events could not check the nationa:I revival of the Ozechoslovalks," lbecaJuse they were non--existenrt. Those events could not check the national rerv:wal of either the Ozechs or the :S'1ov0iks . 1 • "Caug,h t between their sympathies with the Czechs and their fears of their .Magyar ov•erlord:s, Slovak patri'ots saw their security, not in coalescing at once with their Czech brethren, but in iworking to create a separate Slovak national movement by taking up once more the unsuccessful jdea of Bernolak that of developing a separate written Slovak language. Ludevit Stur, Michal Hodza, and Jo.:,ef Hurban, fearing the reproaches of the Magyars if they continued to use the Czech language, and hoping to attract the Slovak peasant masses, chooe in 184-5 to make. a dialect spoiken. in tlle central Slovak counties the '!lew literary language. The Czechs wa,r ned in v,a in against this departure from t.he practice of a thousand years. ·T hey argued that dts r esults would only be. to the >benefit of the Germans and Magy,ar.i" (p. 38). This statement is not based on 'hone.sit, hi:sitorical research. ilt is a fabrication pure and simple. Slova!k patriots ,t hen, even as now, fully realized that they could not safegu,,ard their nation.al existence !by playing second-, fiddle to other nations in the political coTIJCert. They did not fear the 'Maigyiars who sought to Magy.arme them any more than they feared the Czechs who sought to Ozechize SLOVAKIA 53 the:rn. True Slovak ·p atriots never let their sympathies for the Ozechs or other oppressed nations interfere with their ultimate natioo.a.1 aim: freedom and rpolitioal independence - to become masters of their own household, of their own destiny. '.Dhey rebelled against the Magyars and, later, eiven against the Czechs, just as the Magyars and the Ozechs had rebelled ag,ainst the HlaJbsburgs. Stur, Hodza, Hurban (Jozef, not Josef) a,nd other Slova,k patriots developed the literary SlovaJk medilllIIl estrublished by iBen1i0laJk and his followers - the "lilve" language used lby the vast masses of the Slovalk people, both O~tholic and also Lutheran. They wrote in Czech for the Cze.ohs and in Slovak for the Slov,aks. Kerner does not say so directly, ibut the implication is ,t here that Stur, Hod.fa •a nd Hurb-an did use the Czech language exclusively in rtheir writings. The fact is thaJt; they did not and they did not fear the "reproaches of the Magyairs" for using Czech at ,any time they desired to do so. As int.elligent men they knew fully well they ieould not rouse their people nationally by using a language that was foreign to them, a language they did not consider their own. Why, then, the 'balderdash a:bout the Czechs warning Slo;vak paitriots against their depa;rture "from the practice of a thousand years"? '.Dhe vast majority of .the IS1ovruk natiO!Il, i!he Catholic Slovaiks, used their own Slovak language in their churches, homes and in their Hterary worlks, b;ut 'Professorr Kerner wO'Uld hruve students of history "Czechoslovak" history - believe that they used the Czech language forr a "thousand years" prior t,o 1845. Why does Kerner resort to outright falsehoods and aJbsurrd falbrications? Czech was brought into Siovakia, it is true, by Czech exiles during i!he Coun.ter..R.eformation to strengthen Lutheranism, ibut it never 'became the predominant literary medium of the ,vast masses of the Slovak people and their ,w riters. 1 • "The Magyar large landholder, the Catholic clergyman, and the Jewish merchant, screened, ,b ehind a blatant Magyar propaganda, worked to denaclonalize the Slovak peasant by falsifying his history and •by asserting tihat his language had no orelation to the Czech and did not belong to the languages of western Europe" (p. 44). 54 SLOVAKIA It is significant that Kerner should put the finger on "Catholic clergymen" - without mentioning names - and omit Protestant "progressilve" preachers and Jewish R3Jb.. bis who were equally interested in "denationiali ~ng" the Slovalk peasant, practically always woTking aigainst :the national interests of the ISlovalk nation. Of course, this is nothing new in history. T. G. iMasaryik and Benes, who should have learned the lesson of :A.ustr1a:-Hungary, denied the existence of it.he !Slovak nation as an individual ethnic entity, declaring the ISlovia!ks were only a "branch" of the Czech nation and their language only ,a "dialect" of the Ozech. (Falsifying history seems to be a specialty of the followem of Masaryk and Benes. And Kerner proves it! 1 • I "Whereas Kr-amai' became, so to ~,peak, the symbol of the economic u,psm1ge of the Czech lboUTgeoisie, Masaryk became the intellectual and spiritual head of the entire nation, including the Slovaks . • • . He (~·a saryk) became a Protestant, a modern Czech Puritan. Influenced by his reading af Czech history, he ,b elieved that h-e found. !ts plhilosophy 1n the religious ideal of il:he Hussites and the Ozeoh !Brethren" (pp. 47-48). The truth, however, is that T. G. Masaryk never was the "intellectual and spiritual head" of the 1Slov•lrlLs. If the Ozechs wish to consider Masaryk :as such, they are free to do so. The o.vel'IWhelming Catholic majority oif the Slovak people could not. Hlas Kerner forgotten Masaryk's blatant cries "away from !R;ome!" and "Rcxme must (be put on trial and condemned!"? Czech history is not Slovak history; the philosophy of Slova:k history does not rest on the "religious ideal of the Hussites and the Czech Brethren." Catholic Czechs form ibhe majority of the Czech nation, hence, we have good reason to doulbt Kerner's evaluation of Masaryik -as far as •t hey ,a re concerned, lbecaJuse Masaryk never did represent or COlllcern himself !With their spiritual interests, in fact, put them in jeopardy. Masaryik, according to Kerner, "viewed the problem of the small oppressed n.a:tiO'IlS ,as the polilticai and international phase of the social question - the exploit,aitdon of one nation by anot!her, for political exploitation meant cheap lalbor to the laboring drasse.s." 'But what happened after Czeoho-!Slovakiia was lborn and Masaryk !became he:r first president? He denied staites' rights to Slovakia and SLOVAKIA 55 thought nothing of the OLechs exploiting the ,S lovaks and their national wealth! CHA[PTER [V - Peace Conference" - • "The World War, Revolution and iby RO{'bert J. Kern.er. '10n July 4 (191,5), Masaryk publicly in,a ugurated the revolutionary movement •by a ,l ecture on Jan Hus in Zurich, Srwitzerl•a nd. After Benes succeeded in escaping J.irom Austria, the Czech Foreign Committee issued its public manifesto for Czechoslovak independence in Pans on !November 14, 1915. This manifesto had previously been agreed upon by the leaders at home and by the leaders of Czech and Slovak colonies In America, England, and France a point on wihich !Masaryk insisted" (p. 53). 'W ho were those leaders "alt home" and in the Czech and Slovak colonies in America, England, and France? The record tells us that the leaders of the Czechs and Slovalks at home ikinew practically nothing of Masaryk's plans at that time; and the leaders of their respective colonies in various countries still less! • "This Committee (the Czech Foreign Committee) led to the creation of the •Czechoslovak Nation-al Council in 1916., which under Masaryk, Benes, and ~tefanlk gradually assumed the functions of goverJlllilent" (pg. 153-54) . . . "The Czechoslovak National Council, which was leading the struggle abroad, had not been disavowed by the nation at home" (p. 56). 1t is quite clear, rt:hen, that the Czech Committee is credited with the creation of the "Czechoslovak" Council, which Masaryk headed. But it is not in accord with fact that the Council "had not been disruvowed 1b y the nation at home." Masaryk was the leader of the Czech (Progressive Party, which he alone represented in the .Austrian ,parliament. When he left Austria, late .in 1914, Miasaryk went abroad with a ipr.ogram of his own. As far as is !known, he had not consulited wii.th Ozech and Siovalk leaders a:t home and had no authorization f.ram the Czechs or the Slovaks at home ito represent their politioal will. Of course, wherever Masaryk went, he did pose as a competent representative of the Czechs at home. When President. Wilson, .late in Decemlber 1916, requested an lb;elligerents to state their war aims, the Allied reply of January 1'2, 1917, included the following demand: "Lilberation of Italians, Riumaniains, Slaws,. and Czeciio- 56 SLOVAKIA Slovaks from foreign rule." Please note the "Slavs and Czecho-Slovaks" part, lbecaUJSe thaJt tells us 'j ust how well the Allies were informed on the sUJbjoot. Since Slovruks and Czechs spoke different languages, occupied different territories, and never in history had been united, rbhe appelation "Ozecho-1Slorvruk,s " was real new. At that time, when the British government was asked, in ithe Commons, ,w hethmit could indicate the territory inhabited iby "Czecho-1Slo-· vakis," the ra nswer was "no." The Czechs at home resented being mentioned as a nation under "foreign rule." One of their leading ipaipers, the NARODNE I.1IiSTY, had this tto say aJbout it: 1 "It is amazing how indefatigably Masaryk endeavors to defile the honor of the CZECH nation. The enemies have learnt that the love of all Austrian peoples for their inherited dynasty and their fatherland is firm and unshakable. The enemies have realized that those who make contradictory statements abroad are liars and impostors." In Norvem!ber, 1916, all the Czech parties in the Austrian rparliament, without a single exception, had issued a solemn declaration, stating thrat "the basis and guaranty of the national existence of the Czech people are the dynasty, called to the throne centuries ago, and the indivisibly constituted Monarchy." In the declaration they demanded foderafozation. And oin December 30, 191.6, all the Czech party leaders attended ttihe emiperor's coronation as king of Hungary as "guesrts of honor." After the Afli.ed reply to, Wilson became !known, the society of Czech memlbers of parliament sent the following letter (J,a nuary 23, 1'917) to the foreign minister of AustroHtrogary: "In view of the Alli-ed runswer to President ,W ilson in which the liberation of the Czechs figures as a war ,a im, we reject this insinuation whiClh is based on entirely erroneous assumptions. We declare emphatically that the Czech people, as always in the past, is convinced that it can be assured of a prosperous development only under the Habsburg scepter and within the Habsburg Monarchy" (Ingrim: "After Hitler Stalin?" p. 75). The very same Czech members of parliament requested Prime M:in.istffi' C1am....Martinic, a Czech, to arrange an audience with the emperor for them. Why? !Because :they said: "We want to tell His Majesty that we shall always stand by him and his successors; that our demands will always be compatible SLOVAKIA 57 with the interests of the Habsburg dyansty and of the realm; that we are loyal servants of the king and the country; that our complaints have never shaken our belief that after victory the claims of the ,Czech people will find satisfaction within the framework of the realm and under the Habsburg crown." It is quite obvious, then, thaJt the representatirves of the Czech people did not want separation - independence but federalization. Furthermore, Masaryk ,a nd his Council were hiit from another quarter. At the conference of the Sociiailist International in 1Stockho1m, June 1:917, the Czech delegates vociferously demanded "an independent Czech State within a federated Austria-Hungary." Is it possible that professor Kerner, an expert on Czecho-SloiValkia, is ignorant of what w:as going on even m Czech lands while !Masaryk a.nd Benes were calling for the destruction of Austria? I cannot ·believe it •a nd, therefore, say that iKerner delilberately did not tell the truth when he said that Mas•a ry'k's Council "had not been disavowed by the nation at home." Masarylk :himself admits it in his work "Svetowa RevoJuce" (pp. 1150-il.52; 253-254 ; 32,1 ). When 'Kerneir wr1tes aJbo.ut the organimtion of the "Czechoslovak Legions," the work a,ccomplished lby Masarylk and iBenes in ,E ngland, France, Russia allld America for the esta;blishment of the "Ozechosloivalk Reipulblic," he completely ignores the effort put forth by Gen&al Milan R. Stefanik, the !Slovak who, did much in France, the U.S. A., Italy and Russi.a for the realization of the Republic. fu the twenty pages of this cltaJpter, Kerner mentiom; the name of this great Slovak only once, but does not tell us a single thing aJbo,ut the ,w ork he did so tha,t Czecho-,Slova'l da might become a reality. If Ma,s aryk himself was not loath to give credit to •S tefanik for his accompl.isihmen,ts, why should Kerner ibe? Furthermore, Kerner devotes. several pages to the "OzechoslavaJk" Legion in Siiberia - "the ,a rmy which had fought vicitorio'll.Sly at !Kiev, Zhitamir, and Baikhmach, and which yearned to leave Russia in peace in order to continue the conflict ,a gainst the Germans in the West." He almost outdoes Masaryk himself on the ·" Siberian anabasis" legend. 58 SLOVAKIA The fact is, however, that the legion was offered a short route home via Murmansk and Archangel whence British sh1ps were to transport it to the battle front in France. But the legion, afraid of German sulbmarines and not too eager to fight, preferred ithe long way home via Siberia to Viadfuvostok. AB a result, Masarylk's a:xmy reached Europe long after the smoke of the war had lifted, without haJVing contributed ,to the defeat of Germany and Austria. The IStberian anabas:is made greait propagand a for Masaryk's cause, as he himself atlmitted, and without it, in fact, the "calli:!e" m1ght haive 'been lost. '.I recommend that Kerner and other students •o f history, read pp. 81-83 of fugrim's "After Hlitler !Stalin?" - and, ibut carefully, even Masaryik's "Svetava. Revoluce." • "In the ,a ims publicized as the objectives of peace, the Czechosl ovaks were promised their independence on the basis of the selfdetermination of the Czechoslovak nation. It is a fum:l.amentaJ question just what "self-deteirmi natlon of the nations" meant a.t tihat time. It s eems most probrul>le that when it ,was first uttered it meant the determinatio n of a n entire nation to choo.se whether it wished to be jndependent or live under another, and not self-determination of small parts of it" (p. 62). Here, Kerner quite naively would have us :b elieve that he iis be.fuddled lby the meaning of "self-determ ination." Of course, he could have given credit ,to Masaryk and especially Benes for his 1pretended quandary. I say "pretended ," /because he himself tells us on the page following: " In many regions the populations were thoroughly mixed in composition . . . . As far as the Czechoslovak s were concerned, the matter was complicated by the fact that their claims in the Czech regions rested on historic rights, the Lands of the Bohemian Crown (Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia), which they as a nation had created and maintained in history, rund on the rights of nationality for the ,Slovaks in Hungary, wihere the Magyars cJ.almed 'historic rights of the Lands of tihe Hungarian Crown" (p. 63) . So, what is this business "the Czechoslov aks were promised their independen ce on the ,basis of the self-determ ination of the Czechoslovak nation"? !Kerner purt:s himse1f in a ivery ludicrous situation: he admits the existence of the Czech naition, Czech regions, etc., does not admit directly the existence of the Slovak counterpar ts, but still insists on having a "Orechoslovak" nation! SLOVAKIA 69 AP, mentioned earlier, one of the aims of the Allies was the "lilberaition of Iltalians, Rumanians, Slavs and Cze- choslovaks from foreign r.ule." The Czechs and Slova;ks got i'lllto the picture also as "Ozech~ova ks," and not only as Slavs, at the persistent insistence of Dr. Edward Benes to support the fiction promoted by M'aJSaryik and himself that "Czechs and Slovaks were the same." The truth, however, remains that the SlovaJks are an individual nation in the great family of Slovanic nations, as are the Poles, Byelorussians , Ukrainians, Russians, C.zec'hs, Bulg,aria:ns, .S erbs, ISlO!Veni•a ns, Croatians, Macedonians, Montenegrins, a,nd Lusatia,n tSerbs, whatever Kerner and other "historians" of his type might have to say to the contrary notwithstandi ng. If Kerner does not be1ieve that t:he right of self-dete:nmination applies equally to the Czechs and /Slovaks, let him .say so outright and be done wi~h it. Kerner should know, as we certainly lmow, that the magic formula that druzzled. and charmed. President Wilson was "national determination," which meant that every ethnic group be conceded the right to decide to which state it wished to belong. More dmpo:ntrunt than what it meanit, of course, was what it implied: the notion that the id68.l state would be one inhabited only by one ethnic entity, one nation. The tenth of WiliSion's "1Fo!Urteen Points" reads as follows: ''!The peoples of Austria-iHu111gary , whose place among the nations we wish to see s·afeguaro€d and •a ssured, should be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous development." What does "the peoples of Austria-Hung ary" mean to professor Kerner? Does it mean all the peoples, except the Slova1k people? If Masaryik used his charms to maJk:e Wilson •b elieve the fiction that the "Czechs and the Slovaiks were the same," and so to deceive him does that alter the .truth that the Ozechs a.nd the Slov~ are not one people, one nation? Why should Kenner want us to believe otheIWise? • "The !Peace Conference chose to give the Czechos-lovaks the hiatoric boundaries in the Czech regions of Austri•a and ethnic bound•a rles In the Slovak districts of Hungary. Furthermore, it •a ddoo, under cond,l tlons of autonomy, Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia. It thmi created a state in Wlhlch 34 per cent of the population was non-Czech0- 60 SLOVAKIA slovak, ,a nd this element included a German .population of over three millimi.s, livin,g chiefly in the outer rim of Bohemia, in a state of less than fifteen millions" (p. 63). But this is 111ot quite the whole ,s tory. The Peace Conference decided as it did, 'becaJUOO it relied on the "expert" information supplied iby Masaryk and Benes, !both Czechs, who presumed to represent iboth the Czechs and also the Slova!ks. In the state created, the non-Czech population was in the majority, and this included some three and a half million Germams, in a state of "less than fifteen millions" (how much less?). The Conference ga;ve the "Czechoslovaks" nothing, lbuit it did allow the boundaries for the "new" state that was -created, as Kerner states, "on the -g round that rune or ten million Czechoslovaks should be favored •w ith independence oiver three million Germans" (p. 65) - the argument Oif Masaryk and Benes! They needed the almost three million Slovaiks of Hrung,ary to m.aJce "nine or ten n:rlllion Czechoslovaks," but the Czechs and the ISloivaJks, were "the same"! • "The Duchy of TesC'hen was ,w,hat was left of Silesia, one of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, after Frederiick the Great had seized fourte en-fifteeruths of that territory in 1740. The historic rights of the Czechs went •back to t!he fourteenth century. Before that the Duchy had been ,Polish {p. r66) . . . It was, however, Poland's diss·a tisfaction with this decision which led her diplomacy into d.e manding a.nd acquiring Czech Teschen on the occasion of the Conference of Mu· nlch (October, 1938). This blow from the rear really made it impossible for Czechoslovakia to fight after she was abandoned by her Western allies" (p. 68) . It is ,olbvious that Kerner either laoks knowledge about Teschen or is deli'berately attemptilllg to confuse the readers of his "Ozechoslova:kia." Just lilke Miasaryik and Benes, iit seems that Kerner does not want students oif history to know the whole tmth about Ozecho-Sloivaki,a. Furthermore, the ,allegation that Ozecho,...Slov,rukia was "forced" to :su,r render to iHitler !Without firing a shot, because her "Western allies" had abandoned her, OT because IDngland ·a nd France asked her to, is purely fictitious. Benes surrendered Czecho-Slovaki.a to Hitler without the approval of parliament. The Benes Czechs knew fully well that Czeoho-SlovaJkia could not be saved, because her non-Czech majority was not wiling to fight for her. They SLOVAKIA 61 chose to urrender "at the behest of their faithless friends," because an attempt to fight would have revealed to the world that the Germa~lovak-Magyar~Rutib.en.ian-iPolish majority of her population was not ready to die for a tate that had treated them as second-rate citizens for ome thirty years. And let us not forget that even the Czech,s, who considered themselves t he "State-nation," did not fire a single shot in defense of Czecho-JSlovrukia. Furthermore, it is no secret ,t hat Benes did not cultivate friendshiip with Poland and other neigh'boring states : his pro Soviet policy over decades of years is proof of that. Already in 1929 Viscount D'Abernon prophesied: "The treaty between Czecbo S lovakia and Poland is thought a triumph of French m ilitarism . o it m a y be, but the duration w ill b e te mpo rary . . . the Czech satellite will revert to the orbit of the Moscow planet as soon as disturbing forces cease to operate quite as powerfully as today." • "Germ an propaganda l ater s ought to spread the view that the bou ndaries of Czeoho slovakia, a s well as t hose of P ol and, wer e drawn by the Peace Conferene e in ignorance and that they repres e nted a failure to understand the problems of central Europe. N ot hing could be far th er from tJh e facts . The deleg ates o f the Peace Cont rence had access to and used the best available information and considered these problems from all possible angles" (p. 6 ). After reviewing the events that followed World Wa.r I Mld led to World War IiI, I believe it is safe to say that Kerner's statement is "farther from the facts" than even the "German propaganda" he alludes to. The fact rernains t hat World War I not only failed to solive Europe's problems, ,b ut even ,a ccentuated them and led t o World War II. At Paris there was a meeting of two continents which were quite ignorant of each other. The peacemakers blundered when they accepted interested parties as experts wit hout having them chedked 'by the opposition. When Lloyd George asked Benes how many Ma.gyam would fall undeT Ozech rule, Benes replied that their number would lbe 350,000 ('D. H. Miller: "My Diary at the Conference in Paris"; in reality it was more ibhan one million. Benes, plead.., ing fOT a "natural frontier," described a little ~oolk as a nasvigalble river. Repudiation of Kerner's claim may also be found in A . J. P. Taylor's "The HaJbsbu.rg Monarchy," C. A . Ma- 62 SLOVAKIA cartney's "Problems of the Danubiam Basin," Lloyd George's "The Tr.urth About the Peace Treaties," J. M. Keynes "The Economic Consequences of the Peace." Winston Churchill's "Afternnath and World Crises,." Robert fugrim's "After Hitler :Stalin?" and even T. G. Masa;ryk's "Svet<Jva Revoluce." But Kerner himself does that quite effecti:vely with the last three sentences - especially the last sentence - of the ivery same par.aJgraph, ,whi.oh reads: "Another ,s olution of the Czechoslovak problem might indeed be sought •by some future .p eace conference, if the poignant problem of the German nation is solved, for example, on the model of Switzerla:nd rather than that permitting a rampant totalitarian racialism. U.nti,l then it may be said that the work of t!he Peace Conference was a reasonable solution for its time. Common sense and Intelligence and a few minor boundary rectifications might have aecured a durable settlement" (p. 69). Of course, Professor Kerner, could hardly have intended it that way, but this is quite an admission from a mem. her of the "EXPERT STAFF, Colonel House Inquiry and American Commission to Negotiate Peace"! We know today that Kerner was not the only "exipert" who la'o ked sufficient "common sense and intelligence" at that time. (More coming) WHO SAID IT? "In 1868 the Ozeoh initel,lectuails and the Bohemian aristocrats renewed filleir allegi1ance. . . The eighty Bohemian a<bsentees from the Reicllsrat made a declaration of their aims: they asked for equal na:tional rights for the Czechs in Bohemia, and for a refornn of the electoral system; they demanded also the unity of the lands of St. We:nceslaus and the same independence for this "grea,t Bohemia" a;s HUlllgary possessed. The Ozech leaders were bewitched by the Hungarian example. '1'1hey saw, quite rightly, that the Magyars had achieved their nation'al freedom by associating it with historic rilghts, and they supposed that the way to achieve the national freed~m of the Czechs was to claim the historic rights of Bohemia. They did not see that the historic rights of Hungary were real, the historic rights of Bohemia imaginary. . . " - (A. J. P. Taylor, TH1E HABSIBURG MONA'ROHY, London, 1948; p. 142).  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 Professor Kerner's "CZECHOSLOVAKIA": History or Propaganda? (1/8) Description An account of the resource P. A. Hrobak Slovakia, Vol. 5, No. 2-3 (15-16), June-September 1955 pp. 38-62 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hrobak, Philip Anthony, 1904-1964 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource June-September 1955 Relation A related resource continues in <a href="/items/show/176">Vol. 5, No. 4 (17), pp. 55-62</a> LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/108886e603427dc15d464e5d907bb6dc.pdf e015e64f1ff9a2b6b9129d0ca848f992 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 55 Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" (Cont'd.) HISTORY OR PROPAGANDA? P.A. HROBAK ORAPTER V - "What Woodrow Wilson and America Meant to Czechoslovakia" - rb y Her:bert Adolphus Miller, .Ph.D., "Lecturer on Social Economy, Bryn Mawr College; Professor of Sociology; Oberlin College (1'914-1925), and Ohio State Universi,ty (1924-,1931) ; chief, Division of Immigrant !Heritages, Carnegie Cor,poration; director, MidEuropean Union; president, Masaryk Institut,e," etc. •~in the year 1914 the number of non-Czech and non-Slovak Americans who had intimate know,l edge of the Czechoslova,ks and their aspirations could almost 1h,ave been counted on the fingers or one hMlld. ,E ven up to 1M,ay, 1918, iwhen Thomas Garrigue !Masaryk came to Amer.lea, the New York Times •h ad not carried a single serious editorial on the Czec•hoslov,aks. When he left in December of that year, he was one of the acknowledged g;reat men of the war period and also president-e,l ect of a country soon to become of recognized importance in the family of nations" (p. 71). "lln the face of such ,a complete la,ck of information it waa imposs.ilble for the Ameri= people to give any help to a nationa:l cause. There w,as a traditional predisposition for Americans to be interested in ,freedom but it was necessary for the Czechs and Slovaks in the United States to estahlish their rigiht to freedom" (p. 72). This chapter confirms the story that "Czecho-Slovakia" was a state 'born out of propaganda. Masaryk, the un. known "even up to May 1918," became a celebrated rpoJitical figure 1by DecemJber 1918. it all happened !because Masaryk got to know the "right" people, who in turn got the U. 1S. Army, the YlMCA and the YWCA, the New York 'l'imes, Woodrow Wilson, the ivarious sectarian churches, etc., to push the estrublishment of the state proposed by Masaryk ,a nd Benes. lgnorance of the facts, as usual in such cases, ,p layed a very, if not the most important role. "As often hruppens in such cases, the less knowledge, the greater the enthusioom," M:asary,k himself wrote in his "The M81king of a 1State" (rS vetova revoluce). Professor Miller unlblu:.shingly describes the role he played to put Masaryk's ideas across to the American pulblic and the American Government. �56 SLOVAKIA This chapter should have been titled "What Woodro,w Wilson and America Meant to· Masaryk, Benes and the Czechs." True, without Wilson and America Ozecho-Sloivakia would not have been born, lbut the fact nevertheless is that Ozecho-Slo,vaikia served the interests of the Masaryik and Benes Ozechs more than it did the interests of the vast mrujority of the population of that Republic. When MajooGenera1 E. F. Glenn, commander of the iDivision invited Mr. iMiHer "again to discuss what oould be done rubout reestablishing an eastern front through revolutionary activity," Mr. Miller arranged 1a meeting of the "leaders of the various g;roups of central Europe' (p. 76). And who, do you suppose, represented the .Slovaiks? '.Dwo Ozechs to whom Mr. 'Miller does not refer as Czechs, lbut simply states: "Charles Pergler and Professor Pisecky reipresented the Czecho-1Slovaik1s." With Miller, much like most of the other writers on Czecho-:Slovakia, just albout everything is "Czech," and "Slovak" is only casually mentioned. An illustration: "Att·ention then was turn-ed to the education of public opinion. The story was told to the !Committee on 'Public ,Information, and immediately the national aspirations of the Czechs, Poles, and Jugoslavs began to get space in the new,s,papers. . . Americ,a n public opiruion wa;s stimulated, first, by what the Czechs themselves did in America fr.om the very beginning of the war, ,a nd then later in Europe; and, secondly, through the immediate acceptance of Professor Masaryk (pp. 76-77) . . . . The ,Czech colonies in Chicago, Cle~land, Cedar Rap'ids, and many other pl:aces had Jon,g b een organized and respected. At the outbreak of the war they got into action. The Czech National Alliance w,as formed on August 18, 1914, with the purpos-e of informing the people of America and Europe of the just demands of the Czech nation for independence. Very soon the conflicting elements of ,Oa;tholics and anti-Catholics that had long divided the Czechs wer,e ,brought together, and soon afterwards the Slovaks came in" (p. 73). The :Slovak League of America, which rp layed just as active, if not a more active part than the Czech organizations for the estaJblishment of the Ozecho-SloivaJk (Republic, simply was ignored by 'M;r. Miller. Slovak colonies and the Slovak organi,z ations a:fifiliated with the iSlovak Lea,gue of America meant nothing to Mr. Miller. The tendency is only too obvious. Then, too,. Mr. Miller would have us believe that Masaryk was spontaneously a:cclaimed and "immediaite1y �57 SLOVAKIA accepted" 1by Slovaks and Czechs everywhere in America. The fact is that he was not. Czech and Slovruk Catholic leader~ in America knew how Masaryk felt aibout Catholicism (Rome must lbe tried and convicted! Away f:rom Rome!) and <killed him at length about the status of religion in the !proposed Czecho-:Slovak Republic. The Slovaks were not satisfied with Masarylk's oral picture of the status of ·Slovakia within the iRepulblic ; to win them over he met with them, drafted and signed the Pittsburgh Agreement, !May 30, 1918, which ,g uaranteed the SlOIVaks autonomy (IState.s' rights) ,w ithin the framework o,f OzechoSlova!kia. The artificial sibate, created by ipropaganda, fell apart li:ke a house .o f cards when it faced its fkst crisis. Miller and others, who rpushed the principles. of self-<letermination for the Ozechs, did not follow through to apply the principle to other nations. What followed was inevitable. OH.APTER VI - "The Historical Roots of Czech Democracy" - /by Hans Kohn, J.D. , "professo;z- of Modern European History, Smith College; J.D., German University of Prague; visiting Lecturer on Internationia;l Relations, Harvard University (19317-1938) ; Guggenheim ·F ellow (19401941); author of numerous 'boo~s and articles, among them: A History of NaJtionalisim in the East (192,9); Na-tiona:lism and Imperialism in the Hither East (1932); Na-, tionalism in the !Soviet Union (1933) ; Orient and Occident (1934); West(ern Civilization in the Near East (1936); iForce of Reason (1937); Revolutions and -DictaJtorships (1939) ." This is strictly another Czech chapter. In it Professor Kohn does not concern himself with the "historical roots of 'SlovaJk [)emocracy." How this cha,pter lbecaime a 1part of the history of Ozecho-Slovakia, without a corresponding Slovak cha!pter might best be expf.ained by Kerner, who sought out the authors of the chapters of the lbook he edited and published. Kerner ,p robably could not find a Czech to do it. The whole narrative rrevol,ves around 1F rantisek P,a l,a cky, "who was much more than the first great Czech historian." PalMky, "the father of modern Czech nationalism," gave to the Czechs the "sense of a mission, a raison d'etre 1 �58 SLOVAKIA for the aspiration to take anew their place o,n the field of history"; his interpretat ion of the Czech i)ast "created the secure foundation for Czech democracy " and became a "living intellectual tradition, ,v italizing all manifestati ons. of Czech life." 'Palaoky "deeply steeped in the moral philosoiphy of Kant," set himself to the task of "reinterpre ting" Czech history, so that he might make "the Czech Reformatio n the culminatio n and the meaning of Czech history, the decisive .period of which ,b egan with Jan Hus and the Hussite movement and experience d its last and most sUJblime flowering on the Czech Brethren." T. G. Masaryk, Palacky's "great disciple," Mr. Kohn tells us, "saw rightly not only that Palacky had educated the Czech people .to democracy , but that he had established in the eyes of Europe the Hussite refonnatio n as the most valid Czech title to recognition" (p. 104). But he tells us that "T. G. Masaryk points out rightly in his Palackeho idea naroda ceskeho (Prague, 1926; pp. 42 f.) 'the conviction that the Czech people cannot become politically independent is one of the fundament al political conceptions of Palacky'." The Palacky-Ma sary;k conception of Czech history is adhered to lby Mr. Kohn, even though it was criticized by the eminent Czech historian, Josef 'Pekar, as a falsificatio n of Czech history. The chapter by Mr. Kohn he1ps prove that Czecho-Slo vakia was a political mon_, strosity. OHA!PTER V!III - "Constitutional and Political Structure" - By iMalbone W. Graham, Ph.D., "Professor of Political :Science, University of California, Los Angeles; member, Advisory Committee, Institute of Czechoslovak Studies, Columbia University (1925); member, European Con• ference of American tProfessors of Internation al Law and Relations (1926); member of numecrous American learned societies; author of New Governmen ts of Central :Eiurope (1924) ; New Governmen ts of Eastern Europe (1927) ; The Soviet 1S ecurity System (1929); The League of Nations and the Recognitio n of States (1933); In Quest of a Law of Recognitio n (1933); The Soviet Union and Peace (1935) ," etc. �SLOVAKIA 59 "The medieval Bohemian State, whose overthrow at the hands of the iHabsburgs closed a long chapter in Czechoslovak national development and opened a darker one of subjugation, was, if only by (p. 106). its historical origins, essenti-ally a feudal structure" - The very first sentence of Mr. Graham's chapter reveals what is coming. What is the connection !between the "Bohemian" State and the ISlava:ks? 1Since there is none, how could the destruction o,f the "Bohemian" !State close "a long ,c hapter in CZECHOSLOVAK national development"? ·F or what purpo,s e did Mr. Graham resort to this falsification of history? To us it is quite obvious that here "Czechoslova k" means "Czech." 'But, Mr. Graham, apparently was more interested in building up the "antiquity" of the "Czechoslovak " business of chauvinistic ~echs (political reconstruction of the Czechoslo:vak State) than he was in relating historical facts. "In its ent from its strument of constituent • genesis, the Constitution of Czochoslovakia was differcompeers of the postwar period. Whereas every other ingovernment was the -product of a democratically elected assembly, the Czechoslovak Constitution was brought into being without elections, by a strictly national assembly created through a distinctive cooperative process. This apparently anti-democratic procedure was occasioned by the necessity of having availab le for the country from the outset a body with plen,a ry authority and full responsibility for its actions. At the moment the future boundaries of the new state were undecided, and elections could not be held lawfully in unassigned territory. Moreover, the institutional flux accompanying the wholesale liquidation of the Habsburg Monarchy ,c alled for the prompt creation of _a. substitute authority - stable, definite and unchallenged. This the Czechoslovak National Assembly supplied. It was a unicameral ·body made up of the Reichsrat representatives from the Bohemian, Moravian, and .Silesian Crown Lands, ai;; .el ected in 1911. Taking this prewar standard of political normalcy as a point of departure, in accordance with the prescriptions of Emperor Oharles's Federalization Manifesto of October 10, 1938, the Czech leaders awaited the formal adhesion of the Slovaks to tire new state, by the [)oclaration of Turciansky Sv. Martin of October 31, 1918, then coopted a bloc of fifty-five Slovaks into the body to give fundamental represe<ntation to that part of the Czechoslovak nation which, under Hungarian rule, had been deprived of virtually all means of political self-exvression. Later, when the definite boundaries of the country had been laid down in the draft treaty of Trianon with Hungary, addit'ional representatives were allotted to Slovakia" - (p. 109). Simple was it not? The "democracy" of Masaryk and Benes was given a Constitution about which the peoples of �60 SLOVAKIA Czecho ..Slova:kia had nothing to say. The new "democratic" State was just ,b orn and already "undemocratic" methods were resorted to. It is significant .that Professor Graham should try to excuse it or act as an apologist for it. That is not the task of a true historian. What does he mean by saying that the Czecho-1Slova:k Constitution was brought into being "by a strictly natlonal assembly created through a distinctive cooperative process"? I,f Mr. Graham did not know the details of how the Czecho-SlovaJk Constitution was brought into 1b eing, why did he attempt to write about it? Who were the Slovaks coopted by the Czech leaders into the "Czechoslovak National Assembly" to give fundamental representation TO THE PART OF THE CZECHOSLOVAK Nation ... m:ider Hungarian rule"? Did not Mr. G:mhaim 1know that Benes and other Czechs presumed to represent the Slovaks? It should ibe significant, too, that the Slovaks declared their "formal adhesion to the new State" on October 31, 1918, that is, three days after the independence of Czecho-Slovakia was proclaimed, by the Czech •Mruffia in Prague. There was no "Czechoslo,vaik nation" - ethnically or politically s:peaking - before the b.irth of Ozecho-:Slorvaikia, so how could the Slo,va!ks be a part of it? The implication seems to be that the run.democratic "Czechoslo1vaJk Constitution" created such a nation. "AH formal aspects aside, however," continues Mr. Graham (,p. 11), "the assemlbly which adopted lboth the provisional and deifinibve constitutions for the Czechoslovak StaJte was decidedly national, that is, fully representative of the political currents at work in the prewar life of the nation . .." But the historical fact is that the "lawful" represen. tatives, who prepared. and voted the Czecho-'Slova:k Constitution, were anything but lawful. We know that the members of the National Assembly, the first Czecho-Slovak Parliament, were not elected, but handpicked by the political clique headed lby Masaryk and Benes, who came into po:wer only with the help of the AHies. When the Constitution of Czecho ..SlovaJkia was approved on February 29, 1920, Slovakia was occupied by the Czech army and Andrew HJinka, leader of the Slovaks in their fight for freedom and inde- �SLOVAKIA 61 pendence, was still in a Czech prison at Mirov in -Moraivia. The Germans and Hungarians, as well as people of other nations in the new Czecho-!Slovak State, did not haive a single representative in this ',undemocratic" National Assemlbly, the Masaryk and Benes Ozechs ignoring all claims on their ibehalf. Furthermore, so that no aimendrments might be made to the Constitution against the will o.f the Ozechs, it was decreed that a two-thirds majority would be required to amend it. After the National Assemfbly, picked lby Masaryk and Benes, ,r atified the Constitution, the .A!ssembly was <lissolved, ,a nd four weeks Jater new parliaimentary elections were held. Hlinka was elected while he was stiH in prison; after his election he was released. At the first session Hilir.uka and other Slovaik members of Parliament de-· mantled the implemtcntation of the Pittsburgh Pact, but were told that it was contrary to the Ozecho-S'lovak Constitution. Masaryk and Benes had control of everything. The few !Slovaks who went along with them - called Judas Slovaks ~v 'Slova;k patriots - were given highly paid po-· sitions in the !State administration, and the fiction of "Czechoslovak" unity was 1pushed in all corners of the earth . • Stating that "it is unnecessary to recount the details of the actual enactment of the Constitution," because today its temporary or transitional stipulations have lost their significance and do not require consideration," !Mr. Gra-· ham says (p. 114) : "Rather is it of interest to discern how the basic ideolo,gy underlying the repubHcan. regime was translated into fundamental law." And that ideology, continues Mr. Graham, "is admirably eX!pressed in the preamble of the Constitution, whose phraseology, strongly redolent of that of the .A!rnerican Constitution, is also in itself a synthesis of the political philosophy of Masaryk and Benes." Be that as- Mr. Graham says it is, hut it certainly is not a synthesis of the ,political philosophy of the Czech and 'Slovak nations. The preamble to the OzechoSlova'k Constitution reads: "We, the Czechoslovak nation, desiring to consolidate the perfect unity of our people, to establish t,he reign of justi ce in the Republic, �SLOVAKIA 62 to assure the peac,e ful development of our native Czechoslovak land, to con tribute to the common welfare of all citizens of this State, and to secure the blessings of. freedom to coming generations, have in our National A,ssembly adopted the following Cons titution for the Czechoslovak Republic and in doing so we decla.re that it will be our endeavor to s ee that this Constitution, to·g et•h er with all the laiws of our land, be carried out in the spirit of our history, as well as in the spkit of those modern principles embodied in the idea of selfdetermination, for we desir.e to take our place in the Family of Nations as a member at once cultured, peace-loving, democratic and progressive." To compare the "eX!act degree of American influence on the ideology," expressed in the foggy, intellectual tripe above, Mr. Graham footnotes the American preamble, which reads as follows: "WE THE PEOPLE of the United States, i n order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, -insure domestic tranquility, p:rovide for the common Defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the blessirngs of Liberty to ourselves ·a nd our Posterity, do ordain and establish this ,Constitution for the United States of America." Now, the American preamble makes sense and reads like a song, but not so the Czecho-Slovak preamible. What is "perfect unity" if not perfect consolidation? And why should "We, the Czechoslovak nation" mean anything lbut "our people"? Or did the handpicked National Asse:mibly presume its.elf, and not "our people," to be the "Czechoslovalk nation"? It is significant that the Masaryk-B~nes constitution makers did not start the preamlble with "'WE THE PEOBLE oif the Czech0-:Sio,v ak 'State," or with "We the 1people of the Bohemian Crown Lands and 1Slo'Vakia," instead of with :the fiction "We, the OzechosloJVak nation"! Mr. Graham explains the Czecho-'Slovak preamlble in this manner: "The primorcliat principle enunciated is that of the unity of the nation, not as a goal to be attained, and therefore executory, but, so far as the Czechs ,and Slovaks were concerned, as an achievement to be consolidated. W•hat is important in this affirmation o.f achieved constitutional ml'ity is not only its validation of the acts of th€ October revolution . . . but particularly its absolute rejection of all separatist tendencies (,p. 115) __ . '1t w,a s not the, intent of the Czechoslovak founding fathers to create legal pediments for future racist or separatist movements by conceding to the inha:bitants of various p.rurts of the country dlifferential status" (p. 116). Mr. Graham somehow conveniently forgot that Cze- �SLOVAKIA 63 cho--Slovia;kia was supposed to be a federation, patterned after the United States or Switzerland. Nevertheless, he knew the "intent" of the "Czechoslorvak" founding fathers! Mr. Graham fouled UJP on the false premise of "unity" of the "Ozechoslovak" nation, which his fertile imagination traced all the way ibaok to the "medieval Bohemian State." (More Coming) • • • CASTLES OF SLOVAKIIA THE NEW CASTLE OF LIPTOV Beneath the Slovak Tatras, under the ibowed head of Krivaii, in the valley of the serpentine Vah river, lies the hidden town of Liiptovsky Hradok (the Little Castle of Lipto,v) . :Lt is oompletely encircled by mountains and the red roofs of the dwellings are shariply contrasted iby the fresh green of the surrounding forests. The town has its name from the castle there which today is in ruins, its walls increasing the romanticism of the reigion. The fortress, situated on a plain and surrounded 1by a moat, was built by Magistrate Done, son of iDominic, at the ibeginning of the 14th century. It took twenty years to build. Novy Hrad (New Castle), as Liptovsky Hradok is called, is near the river Bela and behind it rises the cliff Skalka. The vicinity of Hradok was once an ancient forest; even today many forests exist there, the source of much of the wood which can be seen on rafts ,p lying the Vah during most of the year. The castle itself was a twowinged affair with a small courtyard with a well. The center of the northern wall is ,completely demolished; the western part resembles a wide bastion in which is pre~ served a vaulted room. Done, the original occwpant of the castle, did not enjoy it very long; he was followed hy many others. In 1398, the Moravian warrior Procopius s'eiized it and held it for a · short time; in 143·3 L:iiptovs:ky Hradok was ta:ken by the Hussites and held several months. When they were evicted in 141,1, the management of the castle was taken over 'by magistrate Ladislaus z .u:baie Riikolf; the latter had � SLOVAKIA 55 Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" (Cont'd.) HISTORY OR PROPAGANDA? P.A. HROBAK ORAPTER V - "What Woodrow Wilson and America Meant to Czechoslovakia" - rb y Her:bert Adolphus Miller, .Ph.D., "Lecturer on Social Economy, Bryn Mawr College; Professor of Sociology; Oberlin College (1'914-1925), and Ohio State Universi,ty (1924-,1931) ; chief, Division of Immigrant !Heritages, Carnegie Cor,poration; director, MidEuropean Union; president, Masaryk Institut,e," etc. •~in the year 1914 the number of non-Czech and non-Slovak Americans who had intimate know,l edge of the Czechoslova,ks and their aspirations could almost 1h,ave been counted on the fingers or one hMlld. ,E ven up to 1M,ay, 1918, iwhen Thomas Garrigue !Masaryk came to Amer.lea, the New York Times •h ad not carried a single serious editorial on the Czec•hoslov,aks. When he left in December of that year, he was one of the acknowledged g;reat men of the war period and also president-e,l ect of a country soon to become of recognized importance in the family of nations" (p. 71). "lln the face of such ,a complete la,ck of information it waa imposs.ilble for the Ameri= people to give any help to a nationa:l cause. There w,as a traditional predisposition for Americans to be interested in ,freedom but it was necessary for the Czechs and Slovaks in the United States to estahlish their rigiht to freedom" (p. 72). This chapter confirms the story that "Czecho-Slovakia" was a state 'born out of propaganda. Masaryk, the un. known "even up to May 1918," became a celebrated rpoJitical figure 1by DecemJber 1918. it all happened !because Masaryk got to know the "right" people, who in turn got the U. 1S. Army, the YlMCA and the YWCA, the New York 'l'imes, Woodrow Wilson, the ivarious sectarian churches, etc., to push the estrublishment of the state proposed by Masaryk ,a nd Benes. lgnorance of the facts, as usual in such cases, ,p layed a very, if not the most important role. "As often hruppens in such cases, the less knowledge, the greater the enthusioom," M:asary,k himself wrote in his "The M81king of a 1State" (rS vetova revoluce). Professor Miller unlblu:.shingly describes the role he played to put Masaryk's ideas across to the American pulblic and the American Government. �56 SLOVAKIA This chapter should have been titled "What Woodro,w Wilson and America Meant to· Masaryk, Benes and the Czechs." True, without Wilson and America Ozecho-Sloivakia would not have been born, lbut the fact nevertheless is that Ozecho-Slo,vaikia served the interests of the Masaryik and Benes Ozechs more than it did the interests of the vast mrujority of the population of that Republic. When MajooGenera1 E. F. Glenn, commander of the iDivision invited Mr. iMiHer "again to discuss what oould be done rubout reestablishing an eastern front through revolutionary activity," Mr. Miller arranged 1a meeting of the "leaders of the various g;roups of central Europe' (p. 76). And who, do you suppose, represented the .Slovaiks? '.Dwo Ozechs to whom Mr. 'Miller does not refer as Czechs, lbut simply states: "Charles Pergler and Professor Pisecky reipresented the Czecho-1Slovaik1s." With Miller, much like most of the other writers on Czecho-:Slovakia, just albout everything is "Czech," and "Slovak" is only casually mentioned. An illustration: "Att·ention then was turn-ed to the education of public opinion. The story was told to the !Committee on 'Public ,Information, and immediately the national aspirations of the Czechs, Poles, and Jugoslavs began to get space in the new,s,papers. . . Americ,a n public opiruion wa;s stimulated, first, by what the Czechs themselves did in America fr.om the very beginning of the war, ,a nd then later in Europe; and, secondly, through the immediate acceptance of Professor Masaryk (pp. 76-77) . . . . The ,Czech colonies in Chicago, Cle~land, Cedar Rap'ids, and many other pl:aces had Jon,g b een organized and respected. At the outbreak of the war they got into action. The Czech National Alliance w,as formed on August 18, 1914, with the purpos-e of informing the people of America and Europe of the just demands of the Czech nation for independence. Very soon the conflicting elements of ,Oa;tholics and anti-Catholics that had long divided the Czechs wer,e ,brought together, and soon afterwards the Slovaks came in" (p. 73). The :Slovak League of America, which rp layed just as active, if not a more active part than the Czech organizations for the estaJblishment of the Ozecho-SloivaJk (Republic, simply was ignored by 'M;r. Miller. Slovak colonies and the Slovak organi,z ations a:fifiliated with the iSlovak Lea,gue of America meant nothing to Mr. Miller. The tendency is only too obvious. Then, too,. Mr. Miller would have us believe that Masaryk was spontaneously a:cclaimed and "immediaite1y �57 SLOVAKIA accepted" 1by Slovaks and Czechs everywhere in America. The fact is that he was not. Czech and Slovruk Catholic leader~ in America knew how Masaryk felt aibout Catholicism (Rome must lbe tried and convicted! Away f:rom Rome!) and <killed him at length about the status of religion in the !proposed Czecho-:Slovak Republic. The Slovaks were not satisfied with Masarylk's oral picture of the status of ·Slovakia within the iRepulblic ; to win them over he met with them, drafted and signed the Pittsburgh Agreement, !May 30, 1918, which ,g uaranteed the SlOIVaks autonomy (IState.s' rights) ,w ithin the framework o,f OzechoSlova!kia. The artificial sibate, created by ipropaganda, fell apart li:ke a house .o f cards when it faced its fkst crisis. Miller and others, who rpushed the principles. of self-<letermination for the Ozechs, did not follow through to apply the principle to other nations. What followed was inevitable. OH.APTER VI - "The Historical Roots of Czech Democracy" - /by Hans Kohn, J.D. , "professo;z- of Modern European History, Smith College; J.D., German University of Prague; visiting Lecturer on Internationia;l Relations, Harvard University (19317-1938) ; Guggenheim ·F ellow (19401941); author of numerous 'boo~s and articles, among them: A History of NaJtionalisim in the East (192,9); Na-tiona:lism and Imperialism in the Hither East (1932); Na-, tionalism in the !Soviet Union (1933) ; Orient and Occident (1934); West(ern Civilization in the Near East (1936); iForce of Reason (1937); Revolutions and -DictaJtorships (1939) ." This is strictly another Czech chapter. In it Professor Kohn does not concern himself with the "historical roots of 'SlovaJk [)emocracy." How this cha,pter lbecaime a 1part of the history of Ozecho-Slovakia, without a corresponding Slovak cha!pter might best be expf.ained by Kerner, who sought out the authors of the chapters of the lbook he edited and published. Kerner ,p robably could not find a Czech to do it. The whole narrative rrevol,ves around 1F rantisek P,a l,a cky, "who was much more than the first great Czech historian." PalMky, "the father of modern Czech nationalism," gave to the Czechs the "sense of a mission, a raison d'etre 1 �58 SLOVAKIA for the aspiration to take anew their place o,n the field of history"; his interpretat ion of the Czech i)ast "created the secure foundation for Czech democracy " and became a "living intellectual tradition, ,v italizing all manifestati ons. of Czech life." 'Palaoky "deeply steeped in the moral philosoiphy of Kant," set himself to the task of "reinterpre ting" Czech history, so that he might make "the Czech Reformatio n the culminatio n and the meaning of Czech history, the decisive .period of which ,b egan with Jan Hus and the Hussite movement and experience d its last and most sUJblime flowering on the Czech Brethren." T. G. Masaryk, Palacky's "great disciple," Mr. Kohn tells us, "saw rightly not only that Palacky had educated the Czech people .to democracy , but that he had established in the eyes of Europe the Hussite refonnatio n as the most valid Czech title to recognition" (p. 104). But he tells us that "T. G. Masaryk points out rightly in his Palackeho idea naroda ceskeho (Prague, 1926; pp. 42 f.) 'the conviction that the Czech people cannot become politically independent is one of the fundament al political conceptions of Palacky'." The Palacky-Ma sary;k conception of Czech history is adhered to lby Mr. Kohn, even though it was criticized by the eminent Czech historian, Josef 'Pekar, as a falsificatio n of Czech history. The chapter by Mr. Kohn he1ps prove that Czecho-Slo vakia was a political mon_, strosity. OHA!PTER V!III - "Constitutional and Political Structure" - By iMalbone W. Graham, Ph.D., "Professor of Political :Science, University of California, Los Angeles; member, Advisory Committee, Institute of Czechoslovak Studies, Columbia University (1925); member, European Con• ference of American tProfessors of Internation al Law and Relations (1926); member of numecrous American learned societies; author of New Governmen ts of Central :Eiurope (1924) ; New Governmen ts of Eastern Europe (1927) ; The Soviet 1S ecurity System (1929); The League of Nations and the Recognitio n of States (1933); In Quest of a Law of Recognitio n (1933); The Soviet Union and Peace (1935) ," etc. �SLOVAKIA 59 "The medieval Bohemian State, whose overthrow at the hands of the iHabsburgs closed a long chapter in Czechoslovak national development and opened a darker one of subjugation, was, if only by (p. 106). its historical origins, essenti-ally a feudal structure" - The very first sentence of Mr. Graham's chapter reveals what is coming. What is the connection !between the "Bohemian" State and the ISlava:ks? 1Since there is none, how could the destruction o,f the "Bohemian" !State close "a long ,c hapter in CZECHOSLOVAK national development"? ·F or what purpo,s e did Mr. Graham resort to this falsification of history? To us it is quite obvious that here "Czechoslova k" means "Czech." 'But, Mr. Graham, apparently was more interested in building up the "antiquity" of the "Czechoslovak " business of chauvinistic ~echs (political reconstruction of the Czechoslo:vak State) than he was in relating historical facts. "In its ent from its strument of constituent • genesis, the Constitution of Czochoslovakia was differcompeers of the postwar period. Whereas every other ingovernment was the -product of a democratically elected assembly, the Czechoslovak Constitution was brought into being without elections, by a strictly national assembly created through a distinctive cooperative process. This apparently anti-democratic procedure was occasioned by the necessity of having availab le for the country from the outset a body with plen,a ry authority and full responsibility for its actions. At the moment the future boundaries of the new state were undecided, and elections could not be held lawfully in unassigned territory. Moreover, the institutional flux accompanying the wholesale liquidation of the Habsburg Monarchy ,c alled for the prompt creation of _a. substitute authority - stable, definite and unchallenged. This the Czechoslovak National Assembly supplied. It was a unicameral ·body made up of the Reichsrat representatives from the Bohemian, Moravian, and .Silesian Crown Lands, ai;; .el ected in 1911. Taking this prewar standard of political normalcy as a point of departure, in accordance with the prescriptions of Emperor Oharles's Federalization Manifesto of October 10, 1938, the Czech leaders awaited the formal adhesion of the Slovaks to tire new state, by the [)oclaration of Turciansky Sv. Martin of October 31, 1918, then coopted a bloc of fifty-five Slovaks into the body to give fundamental represe<ntation to that part of the Czechoslovak nation which, under Hungarian rule, had been deprived of virtually all means of political self-exvression. Later, when the definite boundaries of the country had been laid down in the draft treaty of Trianon with Hungary, addit'ional representatives were allotted to Slovakia" - (p. 109). Simple was it not? The "democracy" of Masaryk and Benes was given a Constitution about which the peoples of �60 SLOVAKIA Czecho ..Slova:kia had nothing to say. The new "democratic" State was just ,b orn and already "undemocratic" methods were resorted to. It is significant .that Professor Graham should try to excuse it or act as an apologist for it. That is not the task of a true historian. What does he mean by saying that the Czecho-1Slova:k Constitution was brought into being "by a strictly natlonal assembly created through a distinctive cooperative process"? I,f Mr. Graham did not know the details of how the Czecho-SlovaJk Constitution was brought into 1b eing, why did he attempt to write about it? Who were the Slovaks coopted by the Czech leaders into the "Czechoslovak National Assembly" to give fundamental representation TO THE PART OF THE CZECHOSLOVAK Nation ... m:ider Hungarian rule"? Did not Mr. G:mhaim 1know that Benes and other Czechs presumed to represent the Slovaks? It should ibe significant, too, that the Slovaks declared their "formal adhesion to the new State" on October 31, 1918, that is, three days after the independence of Czecho-Slovakia was proclaimed, by the Czech •Mruffia in Prague. There was no "Czechoslo,vaik nation" - ethnically or politically s:peaking - before the b.irth of Ozecho-:Slorvaikia, so how could the Slo,va!ks be a part of it? The implication seems to be that the run.democratic "Czechoslo1vaJk Constitution" created such a nation. "AH formal aspects aside, however," continues Mr. Graham (,p. 11), "the assemlbly which adopted lboth the provisional and deifinibve constitutions for the Czechoslovak StaJte was decidedly national, that is, fully representative of the political currents at work in the prewar life of the nation . .." But the historical fact is that the "lawful" represen. tatives, who prepared. and voted the Czecho-'Slova:k Constitution, were anything but lawful. We know that the members of the National Assembly, the first Czecho-Slovak Parliament, were not elected, but handpicked by the political clique headed lby Masaryk and Benes, who came into po:wer only with the help of the AHies. When the Constitution of Czecho ..SlovaJkia was approved on February 29, 1920, Slovakia was occupied by the Czech army and Andrew HJinka, leader of the Slovaks in their fight for freedom and inde- �SLOVAKIA 61 pendence, was still in a Czech prison at Mirov in -Moraivia. The Germans and Hungarians, as well as people of other nations in the new Czecho-!Slovak State, did not haive a single representative in this ',undemocratic" National Assemlbly, the Masaryk and Benes Ozechs ignoring all claims on their ibehalf. Furthermore, so that no aimendrments might be made to the Constitution against the will o.f the Ozechs, it was decreed that a two-thirds majority would be required to amend it. After the National Assemfbly, picked lby Masaryk and Benes, ,r atified the Constitution, the .A!ssembly was <lissolved, ,a nd four weeks Jater new parliaimentary elections were held. Hlinka was elected while he was stiH in prison; after his election he was released. At the first session Hilir.uka and other Slovaik members of Parliament de-· mantled the implemtcntation of the Pittsburgh Pact, but were told that it was contrary to the Ozecho-S'lovak Constitution. Masaryk and Benes had control of everything. The few !Slovaks who went along with them - called Judas Slovaks ~v 'Slova;k patriots - were given highly paid po-· sitions in the !State administration, and the fiction of "Czechoslovak" unity was 1pushed in all corners of the earth . • Stating that "it is unnecessary to recount the details of the actual enactment of the Constitution," because today its temporary or transitional stipulations have lost their significance and do not require consideration," !Mr. Gra-· ham says (p. 114) : "Rather is it of interest to discern how the basic ideolo,gy underlying the repubHcan. regime was translated into fundamental law." And that ideology, continues Mr. Graham, "is admirably eX!pressed in the preamble of the Constitution, whose phraseology, strongly redolent of that of the .A!rnerican Constitution, is also in itself a synthesis of the political philosophy of Masaryk and Benes." Be that as- Mr. Graham says it is, hut it certainly is not a synthesis of the ,political philosophy of the Czech and 'Slovak nations. The preamble to the OzechoSlova'k Constitution reads: "We, the Czechoslovak nation, desiring to consolidate the perfect unity of our people, to establish t,he reign of justi ce in the Republic, �SLOVAKIA 62 to assure the peac,e ful development of our native Czechoslovak land, to con tribute to the common welfare of all citizens of this State, and to secure the blessings of. freedom to coming generations, have in our National A,ssembly adopted the following Cons titution for the Czechoslovak Republic and in doing so we decla.re that it will be our endeavor to s ee that this Constitution, to·g et•h er with all the laiws of our land, be carried out in the spirit of our history, as well as in the spkit of those modern principles embodied in the idea of selfdetermination, for we desir.e to take our place in the Family of Nations as a member at once cultured, peace-loving, democratic and progressive." To compare the "eX!act degree of American influence on the ideology," expressed in the foggy, intellectual tripe above, Mr. Graham footnotes the American preamble, which reads as follows: "WE THE PEOPLE of the United States, i n order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, -insure domestic tranquility, p:rovide for the common Defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the blessirngs of Liberty to ourselves ·a nd our Posterity, do ordain and establish this ,Constitution for the United States of America." Now, the American preamble makes sense and reads like a song, but not so the Czecho-Slovak preamible. What is "perfect unity" if not perfect consolidation? And why should "We, the Czechoslovak nation" mean anything lbut "our people"? Or did the handpicked National Asse:mibly presume its.elf, and not "our people," to be the "Czechoslovalk nation"? It is significant that the Masaryk-B~nes constitution makers did not start the preamlble with "'WE THE PEOBLE oif the Czech0-:Sio,v ak 'State," or with "We the 1people of the Bohemian Crown Lands and 1Slo'Vakia," instead of with :the fiction "We, the OzechosloJVak nation"! Mr. Graham explains the Czecho-'Slovak preamlble in this manner: "The primorcliat principle enunciated is that of the unity of the nation, not as a goal to be attained, and therefore executory, but, so far as the Czechs ,and Slovaks were concerned, as an achievement to be consolidated. W•hat is important in this affirmation o.f achieved constitutional ml'ity is not only its validation of the acts of th€ October revolution . . . but particularly its absolute rejection of all separatist tendencies (,p. 115) __ . '1t w,a s not the, intent of the Czechoslovak founding fathers to create legal pediments for future racist or separatist movements by conceding to the inha:bitants of various p.rurts of the country dlifferential status" (p. 116). Mr. Graham somehow conveniently forgot that Cze- �SLOVAKIA 63 cho--Slovia;kia was supposed to be a federation, patterned after the United States or Switzerland. Nevertheless, he knew the "intent" of the "Czechoslorvak" founding fathers! Mr. Graham fouled UJP on the false premise of "unity" of the "Ozechoslovak" nation, which his fertile imagination traced all the way ibaok to the "medieval Bohemian State." (More Coming) • • • CASTLES OF SLOVAKIIA THE NEW CASTLE OF LIPTOV Beneath the Slovak Tatras, under the ibowed head of Krivaii, in the valley of the serpentine Vah river, lies the hidden town of Liiptovsky Hradok (the Little Castle of Lipto,v) . :Lt is oompletely encircled by mountains and the red roofs of the dwellings are shariply contrasted iby the fresh green of the surrounding forests. The town has its name from the castle there which today is in ruins, its walls increasing the romanticism of the reigion. The fortress, situated on a plain and surrounded 1by a moat, was built by Magistrate Done, son of iDominic, at the ibeginning of the 14th century. It took twenty years to build. Novy Hrad (New Castle), as Liptovsky Hradok is called, is near the river Bela and behind it rises the cliff Skalka. The vicinity of Hradok was once an ancient forest; even today many forests exist there, the source of much of the wood which can be seen on rafts ,p lying the Vah during most of the year. The castle itself was a twowinged affair with a small courtyard with a well. The center of the northern wall is ,completely demolished; the western part resembles a wide bastion in which is pre~ served a vaulted room. Done, the original occwpant of the castle, did not enjoy it very long; he was followed hy many others. In 1398, the Moravian warrior Procopius s'eiized it and held it for a · short time; in 143·3 L:iiptovs:ky Hradok was ta:ken by the Hussites and held several months. When they were evicted in 141,1, the management of the castle was taken over 'by magistrate Ladislaus z .u:baie Riikolf; the latter had � 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 1955, Vol. 5 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 1 (No. 14), March 1955.</li> <li>Issue 2-3 (No. 15-16), June-September 1955.</li> <li>Issue 4 (No. 17), December 1955.</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 1955 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 55 Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" (Cont'd.) HISTORY OR PROPAGANDA? P.A. HROBAK ORAPTER V - "What Woodrow Wilson and America Meant to Czechoslovakia" - rb y Her:bert Adolphus Miller, .Ph.D., "Lecturer on Social Economy, Bryn Mawr College; Professor of Sociology; Oberlin College (1'914-1925), and Ohio State Universi,ty (1924-,1931) ; chief, Division of Immigrant !Heritages, Carnegie Cor,poration; director, MidEuropean Union; president, Masaryk Institut,e," etc. •~in the year 1914 the number of non-Czech and non-Slovak Americans who had intimate know,l edge of the Czechoslova,ks and their aspirations could almost 1h,ave been counted on the fingers or one hMlld. ,E ven up to 1M,ay, 1918, iwhen Thomas Garrigue !Masaryk came to Amer.lea, the New York Times •h ad not carried a single serious editorial on the Czec•hoslov,aks. When he left in December of that year, he was one of the acknowledged g;reat men of the war period and also president-e,l ect of a country soon to become of recognized importance in the family of nations" (p. 71). "lln the face of such ,a complete la,ck of information it waa imposs.ilble for the Ameri= people to give any help to a nationa:l cause. There w,as a traditional predisposition for Americans to be interested in ,freedom but it was necessary for the Czechs and Slovaks in the United States to estahlish their rigiht to freedom" (p. 72). This chapter confirms the story that "Czecho-Slovakia" was a state 'born out of propaganda. Masaryk, the un. known "even up to May 1918," became a celebrated rpoJitical figure 1by DecemJber 1918. it all happened !because Masaryk got to know the "right" people, who in turn got the U. 1S. Army, the YlMCA and the YWCA, the New York 'l'imes, Woodrow Wilson, the ivarious sectarian churches, etc., to push the estrublishment of the state proposed by Masaryk ,a nd Benes. lgnorance of the facts, as usual in such cases, ,p layed a very, if not the most important role. "As often hruppens in such cases, the less knowledge, the greater the enthusioom," M:asary,k himself wrote in his "The M81king of a 1State" (rS vetova revoluce). Professor Miller unlblu:.shingly describes the role he played to put Masaryk's ideas across to the American pulblic and the American Government. 56 SLOVAKIA This chapter should have been titled "What Woodro,w Wilson and America Meant to· Masaryk, Benes and the Czechs." True, without Wilson and America Ozecho-Sloivakia would not have been born, lbut the fact nevertheless is that Ozecho-Slo,vaikia served the interests of the Masaryik and Benes Ozechs more than it did the interests of the vast mrujority of the population of that Republic. When MajooGenera1 E. F. Glenn, commander of the iDivision invited Mr. iMiHer "again to discuss what oould be done rubout reestablishing an eastern front through revolutionary activity," Mr. Miller arranged 1a meeting of the "leaders of the various g;roups of central Europe' (p. 76). And who, do you suppose, represented the .Slovaiks? '.Dwo Ozechs to whom Mr. 'Miller does not refer as Czechs, lbut simply states: "Charles Pergler and Professor Pisecky reipresented the Czecho-1Slovaik1s." With Miller, much like most of the other writers on Czecho-:Slovakia, just albout everything is "Czech," and "Slovak" is only casually mentioned. An illustration: "Att·ention then was turn-ed to the education of public opinion. The story was told to the !Committee on 'Public ,Information, and immediately the national aspirations of the Czechs, Poles, and Jugoslavs began to get space in the new,s,papers. . . Americ,a n public opiruion wa;s stimulated, first, by what the Czechs themselves did in America fr.om the very beginning of the war, ,a nd then later in Europe; and, secondly, through the immediate acceptance of Professor Masaryk (pp. 76-77) . . . . The ,Czech colonies in Chicago, Cle~land, Cedar Rap'ids, and many other pl:aces had Jon,g b een organized and respected. At the outbreak of the war they got into action. The Czech National Alliance w,as formed on August 18, 1914, with the purpos-e of informing the people of America and Europe of the just demands of the Czech nation for independence. Very soon the conflicting elements of ,Oa;tholics and anti-Catholics that had long divided the Czechs wer,e ,brought together, and soon afterwards the Slovaks came in" (p. 73). The :Slovak League of America, which rp layed just as active, if not a more active part than the Czech organizations for the estaJblishment of the Ozecho-SloivaJk (Republic, simply was ignored by 'M;r. Miller. Slovak colonies and the Slovak organi,z ations a:fifiliated with the iSlovak Lea,gue of America meant nothing to Mr. Miller. The tendency is only too obvious. Then, too,. Mr. Miller would have us believe that Masaryk was spontaneously a:cclaimed and "immediaite1y 57 SLOVAKIA accepted" 1by Slovaks and Czechs everywhere in America. The fact is that he was not. Czech and Slovruk Catholic leader~ in America knew how Masaryk felt aibout Catholicism (Rome must lbe tried and convicted! Away f:rom Rome!) and <killed him at length about the status of religion in the !proposed Czecho-:Slovak Republic. The Slovaks were not satisfied with Masarylk's oral picture of the status of ·Slovakia within the iRepulblic ; to win them over he met with them, drafted and signed the Pittsburgh Agreement, !May 30, 1918, which ,g uaranteed the SlOIVaks autonomy (IState.s' rights) ,w ithin the framework o,f OzechoSlova!kia. The artificial sibate, created by ipropaganda, fell apart li:ke a house .o f cards when it faced its fkst crisis. Miller and others, who rpushed the principles. of self-<letermination for the Ozechs, did not follow through to apply the principle to other nations. What followed was inevitable. OH.APTER VI - "The Historical Roots of Czech Democracy" - /by Hans Kohn, J.D. , "professo;z- of Modern European History, Smith College; J.D., German University of Prague; visiting Lecturer on Internationia;l Relations, Harvard University (19317-1938) ; Guggenheim ·F ellow (19401941); author of numerous 'boo~s and articles, among them: A History of NaJtionalisim in the East (192,9); Na-tiona:lism and Imperialism in the Hither East (1932); Na-, tionalism in the !Soviet Union (1933) ; Orient and Occident (1934); West(ern Civilization in the Near East (1936); iForce of Reason (1937); Revolutions and -DictaJtorships (1939) ." This is strictly another Czech chapter. In it Professor Kohn does not concern himself with the "historical roots of 'SlovaJk [)emocracy." How this cha,pter lbecaime a 1part of the history of Ozecho-Slovakia, without a corresponding Slovak cha!pter might best be expf.ained by Kerner, who sought out the authors of the chapters of the lbook he edited and published. Kerner ,p robably could not find a Czech to do it. The whole narrative rrevol,ves around 1F rantisek P,a l,a cky, "who was much more than the first great Czech historian." PalMky, "the father of modern Czech nationalism," gave to the Czechs the "sense of a mission, a raison d'etre 1 58 SLOVAKIA for the aspiration to take anew their place o,n the field of history"; his interpretat ion of the Czech i)ast "created the secure foundation for Czech democracy " and became a "living intellectual tradition, ,v italizing all manifestati ons. of Czech life." 'Palaoky "deeply steeped in the moral philosoiphy of Kant," set himself to the task of "reinterpre ting" Czech history, so that he might make "the Czech Reformatio n the culminatio n and the meaning of Czech history, the decisive .period of which ,b egan with Jan Hus and the Hussite movement and experience d its last and most sUJblime flowering on the Czech Brethren." T. G. Masaryk, Palacky's "great disciple," Mr. Kohn tells us, "saw rightly not only that Palacky had educated the Czech people .to democracy , but that he had established in the eyes of Europe the Hussite refonnatio n as the most valid Czech title to recognition" (p. 104). But he tells us that "T. G. Masaryk points out rightly in his Palackeho idea naroda ceskeho (Prague, 1926; pp. 42 f.) 'the conviction that the Czech people cannot become politically independent is one of the fundament al political conceptions of Palacky'." The Palacky-Ma sary;k conception of Czech history is adhered to lby Mr. Kohn, even though it was criticized by the eminent Czech historian, Josef 'Pekar, as a falsificatio n of Czech history. The chapter by Mr. Kohn he1ps prove that Czecho-Slo vakia was a political mon_, strosity. OHA!PTER V!III - "Constitutional and Political Structure" - By iMalbone W. Graham, Ph.D., "Professor of Political :Science, University of California, Los Angeles; member, Advisory Committee, Institute of Czechoslovak Studies, Columbia University (1925); member, European Con• ference of American tProfessors of Internation al Law and Relations (1926); member of numecrous American learned societies; author of New Governmen ts of Central :Eiurope (1924) ; New Governmen ts of Eastern Europe (1927) ; The Soviet 1S ecurity System (1929); The League of Nations and the Recognitio n of States (1933); In Quest of a Law of Recognitio n (1933); The Soviet Union and Peace (1935) ," etc. SLOVAKIA 59 "The medieval Bohemian State, whose overthrow at the hands of the iHabsburgs closed a long chapter in Czechoslovak national development and opened a darker one of subjugation, was, if only by (p. 106). its historical origins, essenti-ally a feudal structure" - The very first sentence of Mr. Graham's chapter reveals what is coming. What is the connection !between the "Bohemian" State and the ISlava:ks? 1Since there is none, how could the destruction o,f the "Bohemian" !State close "a long ,c hapter in CZECHOSLOVAK national development"? ·F or what purpo,s e did Mr. Graham resort to this falsification of history? To us it is quite obvious that here "Czechoslova k" means "Czech." 'But, Mr. Graham, apparently was more interested in building up the "antiquity" of the "Czechoslovak " business of chauvinistic ~echs (political reconstruction of the Czechoslo:vak State) than he was in relating historical facts. "In its ent from its strument of constituent • genesis, the Constitution of Czochoslovakia was differcompeers of the postwar period. Whereas every other ingovernment was the -product of a democratically elected assembly, the Czechoslovak Constitution was brought into being without elections, by a strictly national assembly created through a distinctive cooperative process. This apparently anti-democratic procedure was occasioned by the necessity of having availab le for the country from the outset a body with plen,a ry authority and full responsibility for its actions. At the moment the future boundaries of the new state were undecided, and elections could not be held lawfully in unassigned territory. Moreover, the institutional flux accompanying the wholesale liquidation of the Habsburg Monarchy ,c alled for the prompt creation of _a. substitute authority - stable, definite and unchallenged. This the Czechoslovak National Assembly supplied. It was a unicameral ·body made up of the Reichsrat representatives from the Bohemian, Moravian, and .Silesian Crown Lands, ai;; .el ected in 1911. Taking this prewar standard of political normalcy as a point of departure, in accordance with the prescriptions of Emperor Oharles's Federalization Manifesto of October 10, 1938, the Czech leaders awaited the formal adhesion of the Slovaks to tire new state, by the [)oclaration of Turciansky Sv. Martin of October 31, 1918, then coopted a bloc of fifty-five Slovaks into the body to give fundamental represe<ntation to that part of the Czechoslovak nation which, under Hungarian rule, had been deprived of virtually all means of political self-exvression. Later, when the definite boundaries of the country had been laid down in the draft treaty of Trianon with Hungary, addit'ional representatives were allotted to Slovakia" - (p. 109). Simple was it not? The "democracy" of Masaryk and Benes was given a Constitution about which the peoples of 60 SLOVAKIA Czecho ..Slova:kia had nothing to say. The new "democratic" State was just ,b orn and already "undemocratic" methods were resorted to. It is significant .that Professor Graham should try to excuse it or act as an apologist for it. That is not the task of a true historian. What does he mean by saying that the Czecho-1Slova:k Constitution was brought into being "by a strictly natlonal assembly created through a distinctive cooperative process"? I,f Mr. Graham did not know the details of how the Czecho-SlovaJk Constitution was brought into 1b eing, why did he attempt to write about it? Who were the Slovaks coopted by the Czech leaders into the "Czechoslovak National Assembly" to give fundamental representation TO THE PART OF THE CZECHOSLOVAK Nation ... m:ider Hungarian rule"? Did not Mr. G:mhaim 1know that Benes and other Czechs presumed to represent the Slovaks? It should ibe significant, too, that the Slovaks declared their "formal adhesion to the new State" on October 31, 1918, that is, three days after the independence of Czecho-Slovakia was proclaimed, by the Czech •Mruffia in Prague. There was no "Czechoslo,vaik nation" - ethnically or politically s:peaking - before the b.irth of Ozecho-:Slorvaikia, so how could the Slo,va!ks be a part of it? The implication seems to be that the run.democratic "Czechoslo1vaJk Constitution" created such a nation. "AH formal aspects aside, however," continues Mr. Graham (,p. 11), "the assemlbly which adopted lboth the provisional and deifinibve constitutions for the Czechoslovak StaJte was decidedly national, that is, fully representative of the political currents at work in the prewar life of the nation . .." But the historical fact is that the "lawful" represen. tatives, who prepared. and voted the Czecho-'Slova:k Constitution, were anything but lawful. We know that the members of the National Assembly, the first Czecho-Slovak Parliament, were not elected, but handpicked by the political clique headed lby Masaryk and Benes, who came into po:wer only with the help of the AHies. When the Constitution of Czecho ..SlovaJkia was approved on February 29, 1920, Slovakia was occupied by the Czech army and Andrew HJinka, leader of the Slovaks in their fight for freedom and inde- SLOVAKIA 61 pendence, was still in a Czech prison at Mirov in -Moraivia. The Germans and Hungarians, as well as people of other nations in the new Czecho-!Slovak State, did not haive a single representative in this ',undemocratic" National Assemlbly, the Masaryk and Benes Ozechs ignoring all claims on their ibehalf. Furthermore, so that no aimendrments might be made to the Constitution against the will o.f the Ozechs, it was decreed that a two-thirds majority would be required to amend it. After the National Assemfbly, picked lby Masaryk and Benes, ,r atified the Constitution, the .A!ssembly was <lissolved, ,a nd four weeks Jater new parliaimentary elections were held. Hlinka was elected while he was stiH in prison; after his election he was released. At the first session Hilir.uka and other Slovaik members of Parliament de-· mantled the implemtcntation of the Pittsburgh Pact, but were told that it was contrary to the Ozecho-S'lovak Constitution. Masaryk and Benes had control of everything. The few !Slovaks who went along with them - called Judas Slovaks ~v 'Slova;k patriots - were given highly paid po-· sitions in the !State administration, and the fiction of "Czechoslovak" unity was 1pushed in all corners of the earth . • Stating that "it is unnecessary to recount the details of the actual enactment of the Constitution," because today its temporary or transitional stipulations have lost their significance and do not require consideration," !Mr. Gra-· ham says (p. 114) : "Rather is it of interest to discern how the basic ideolo,gy underlying the repubHcan. regime was translated into fundamental law." And that ideology, continues Mr. Graham, "is admirably eX!pressed in the preamble of the Constitution, whose phraseology, strongly redolent of that of the .A!rnerican Constitution, is also in itself a synthesis of the political philosophy of Masaryk and Benes." Be that as- Mr. Graham says it is, hut it certainly is not a synthesis of the ,political philosophy of the Czech and 'Slovak nations. The preamble to the OzechoSlova'k Constitution reads: "We, the Czechoslovak nation, desiring to consolidate the perfect unity of our people, to establish t,he reign of justi ce in the Republic, SLOVAKIA 62 to assure the peac,e ful development of our native Czechoslovak land, to con tribute to the common welfare of all citizens of this State, and to secure the blessings of. freedom to coming generations, have in our National A,ssembly adopted the following Cons titution for the Czechoslovak Republic and in doing so we decla.re that it will be our endeavor to s ee that this Constitution, to·g et•h er with all the laiws of our land, be carried out in the spirit of our history, as well as in the spkit of those modern principles embodied in the idea of selfdetermination, for we desir.e to take our place in the Family of Nations as a member at once cultured, peace-loving, democratic and progressive." To compare the "eX!act degree of American influence on the ideology," expressed in the foggy, intellectual tripe above, Mr. Graham footnotes the American preamble, which reads as follows: "WE THE PEOPLE of the United States, i n order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, -insure domestic tranquility, p:rovide for the common Defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the blessirngs of Liberty to ourselves ·a nd our Posterity, do ordain and establish this ,Constitution for the United States of America." Now, the American preamble makes sense and reads like a song, but not so the Czecho-Slovak preamible. What is "perfect unity" if not perfect consolidation? And why should "We, the Czechoslovak nation" mean anything lbut "our people"? Or did the handpicked National Asse:mibly presume its.elf, and not "our people," to be the "Czechoslovalk nation"? It is significant that the Masaryk-B~nes constitution makers did not start the preamlble with "'WE THE PEOBLE oif the Czech0-:Sio,v ak 'State," or with "We the 1people of the Bohemian Crown Lands and 1Slo'Vakia," instead of with :the fiction "We, the OzechosloJVak nation"! Mr. Graham explains the Czecho-'Slovak preamlble in this manner: "The primorcliat principle enunciated is that of the unity of the nation, not as a goal to be attained, and therefore executory, but, so far as the Czechs ,and Slovaks were concerned, as an achievement to be consolidated. W•hat is important in this affirmation o.f achieved constitutional ml'ity is not only its validation of the acts of th€ October revolution . . . but particularly its absolute rejection of all separatist tendencies (,p. 115) __ . '1t w,a s not the, intent of the Czechoslovak founding fathers to create legal pediments for future racist or separatist movements by conceding to the inha:bitants of various p.rurts of the country dlifferential status" (p. 116). Mr. Graham somehow conveniently forgot that Cze- SLOVAKIA 63 cho--Slovia;kia was supposed to be a federation, patterned after the United States or Switzerland. Nevertheless, he knew the "intent" of the "Czechoslorvak" founding fathers! Mr. Graham fouled UJP on the false premise of "unity" of the "Ozechoslovak" nation, which his fertile imagination traced all the way ibaok to the "medieval Bohemian State." (More Coming) • • • CASTLES OF SLOVAKIIA THE NEW CASTLE OF LIPTOV Beneath the Slovak Tatras, under the ibowed head of Krivaii, in the valley of the serpentine Vah river, lies the hidden town of Liiptovsky Hradok (the Little Castle of Lipto,v) . :Lt is oompletely encircled by mountains and the red roofs of the dwellings are shariply contrasted iby the fresh green of the surrounding forests. The town has its name from the castle there which today is in ruins, its walls increasing the romanticism of the reigion. The fortress, situated on a plain and surrounded 1by a moat, was built by Magistrate Done, son of iDominic, at the ibeginning of the 14th century. It took twenty years to build. Novy Hrad (New Castle), as Liptovsky Hradok is called, is near the river Bela and behind it rises the cliff Skalka. The vicinity of Hradok was once an ancient forest; even today many forests exist there, the source of much of the wood which can be seen on rafts ,p lying the Vah during most of the year. The castle itself was a twowinged affair with a small courtyard with a well. The center of the northern wall is ,completely demolished; the western part resembles a wide bastion in which is pre~ served a vaulted room. Done, the original occwpant of the castle, did not enjoy it very long; he was followed hy many others. In 1398, the Moravian warrior Procopius s'eiized it and held it for a · short time; in 143·3 L:iiptovs:ky Hradok was ta:ken by the Hussites and held several months. When they were evicted in 141,1, the management of the castle was taken over 'by magistrate Ladislaus z .u:baie Riikolf; the latter had  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 Professor Kerner's "CZECHOSLOVAKIA": History or Propaganda? (2/8) Description An account of the resource P. A. Hrobak Slovakia, Vol. 5, No. 4 (17), December 1955 pp. 55-63 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hrobak, Philip Anthony, 1904-1964 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 1955 Relation A related resource continued from <a href="/items/show/186">Vol. 5, No. 2-3 (15-16), pp. 38-62</a><br />continues in <a href="/items/show/222">Vol. 6, No. 1 (18), pp. 57-64</a> LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/b364b7e35f27b4085c4f883773cd6a6e.pdf af4c68dde22286a580943431bf08ff28 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 57 Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" (Cont'd.) HISTORY OR PROPAGANDA? P.A. HROBAK According to Mr. Graham, there was no competition for the presidency after Masaryk resigned "in view of the outstanding character of Dr. Benes" (p. 125). This is not exactly true, 1b ecause the Hlinka Party opposed the election of Benes, as did others, until Benes promised :reforms and tbe fulfillment of the 1P ittsburgh Pact, that is, that within a year of his election Slovakia would become autonomous. This disciple, after his election, reneged on the Pittslburgh Poot, just as his master did. This, m course, added to the "outstanding character" of Dr. Benes. 1 • "Freedom of the press, to the exclusion of the preliminar,y censorship so dreaded under the Austrian regime, was guaranteed. With unusual foresight, not match ed by the political leaders of either Weim ar Germany of Socialist Austria, the framers of the Czechoslovak Constitution made pro,v ision for legal restriction on the rights of the press, of assembly, and of association in time of war or in case of events taking p lace within the State seriously threatening the repub• lican form of govern m ent, the Constitution, or public peace and order." (p. 131). - Unusual foresight, indeed. "Public peace and order" must have been threatened thousands of times, judging from the "white spaces" in Slovak newspapers and books during the regimes of Masaryk and Benes; entire editions of Slova1k newspapers were confiscated many times. We have plenty of proof of that for Mr. Graham and all readers of Kerner's "Ozechoslovaikia." Guarantees of freedoms, liberties and rights on 1paper look nice, but mean nothing if they are not realized. The Masaryk-•Benes Czechs were in control of everything and could, therefore, inter,pret the Constitution as they pleased; under them political opposL tion was inte11preted as "unlawful" and a threat to "public peace and order." According to Mr. Graham: "Reli,gious liberty was of primordial import . . . al} religious confessions were treated as equal before the l aw . . . national, religious ,a,u<l. racial mino rities were promised the same equality accorded to the Czechoslovaks in civil and political matters . . . ,a s1>ecial l angu~ge law, itself of a constitutional character, was issued Feb- �58 SLOVAKIA rua.ry 29, 1920, making the Czechoslovak language the official s tate b ut maldng other languag,es, •when used language of the Republic, < by a minority consisting of at least 20 percent of the inhabitants of any jurisdictional area, coordinately valid for virtually every legal pu!'lp()se . .. the right of children to r,e ceive education in their mother tongue ,w as guaranteed, but instruction in the Czech language could be macte obligatory at any time . .. T-o the moment of .partition it could truly he sa;id by German, Magy,ar, Slovak Ruthene, or Czech, that the very air breathed the freedom of the human spirit, a freedom to which the republic was dedicated by its founders." In short, as far as Mr. Graham was concerned, everything was just albout ,p erfect in the "democracy of Masarylk and Benes." But the historical truth is that it was far from it. The Slovaks were not considered a minority, but they actually were worse off in many instances than any minority. The "Czechoslovak NA'VIONAL Church" - a strictly Czech ente:riprise - was estrublished with the blessing and the support of the Masarylk--Benes regimes. The "Czechoslovak" language did not and does not exist, but it became the official language of the Republic, without Mr. Graham ·knowing it. And worst of all, iMr. Graham presumes to spea!k for ,peoples 3Jbout whom he knows little or nothing. If the nations of Czechoslovakia actually enjoyed freedom and lilberties - "the freedom of the human spirit," as Graham calls it - in the democracy of Masaryk and Benes, why did they not fire even a single shot in its defense? Mr. Grah3JID, like the other contrrbutors to Kerner's "Ozechoslovakia," eulogi1zed Masaryik and Benes and sweated out a grandiloquent cha1pter ba:sed on the fiction of "Ozeohoslovak" unity. No, matter what Graham's intentions or objectives were, there can be no justification for suppressing, denying, or falsifying established historical facts. CHA!P'DER ViI!Ill - "Parties and Politics" - by Malbone W. Graham (vd. previous chapter). The tendency so much in evidence in the previous chapter, contributed by the same author, prevails here. To Dr. Graham, "the political history of the Czechoslovak Republic reveals a pattern of continuity and stability unequaied by any other country in Europe." T. G. Masaryk and Be-< nes were masters of the situation. Foreign policy of the Re- �SLOVAKIA 59 public was "in the exipert hands of Dr. Eduard Benes for two decades, from 1915 to 1935"; •b ut "even in the ,period of his presidency, Dr. Benes continued to dominate morally the entevprise of diplomacy." The contin,uity in leadership, plus the "continuity of principle" - ,w hatever that was, gave to the foreign policies of Cze.cho-Slova:kia, and her domestic .p olitics as well,_ "calmness, balance, and objectivity." Benes was no ordinary man, according to Graham. Only 34 years old in 1918 and without any .practical political eXJperience whatever, Benes dominated the political scene in Czecho-Slova!kia. "Dr. Benes was given an opportunity, seldom vouchsafed by history, to organize foreign policy realistically." Just how "realistically Benes organized it became evident, first in 19'38, and then in 1943. He made enemies of all nei,ghboring countries, while in CzechoSlovakia he failed miserrubly to gain the Slova:ks. Benes was a "revolte" - a socialist, also an atheist long before 1'915. Benes went to study to Prague before he was twelve years old. Edward B. Hitchcocl{, one of the most extravagant eulogists of Benes, tells us ("BENES - The Man and The Statesman" - Hamish Hamilton, London ; 1940): "Late,r•, when he (Benes) stayed for several years in Prague, he developed into a believer in brute materialism, anarchism, socialism. He was against religion. He was opposed to almost every established order in the world of that day .... And even the fundamental question - the existence of God - was for him a serious problem. He always countered with the statement that the existence of God was nothing but wishful thinking, that nobody could prove to him that there is a God." Such a man, Graha,m would have us believe, gave the Ozecho-Slovak domestic ipolitics "calmness, balance, and objectivity." About 72 •p ercent of the Czechs and 82 percent of the Slova;ks were Catholics - and Benes hated the Catholic Church. Mr. Graham apparenty knew nothing of the hack,g round of Benes, who also rated among Freemasons. In Paris, Prague, London and Berlin, the young ,m an from Kozl any always felt at home in the company of socirulists, wrote for their pa;pers, hut Mr. Graham, it seems, knows nothing a,bout that; the same goes for the other .contributors to Kerner's "Czechoslovakia." It seems that 1 �60 SLOV.AKI.A they do not want students of history to know what made Benes tick as he did. 'Dhey are supposed to believe that the man just popped out of nowhere, met T. G. Masaryk, and became the greatest democrat and statesman in Europe . • ".Along with tih~ m aj or <:urrent of s ocial democracy i n Czechoslovakia, tlhere developed ,a subsidiary, r eform ist, non-Marxian socialist party with a defJ ni tely evolutionary pro gram .. . it called itself the Na tional Sociali st P a rty. . . .Accepting a program of evolutionary state socia li sm a nd general collectivism, without stressing th e claims or th e in terests of industrial worke rs, the party was predestined to be disproportionately influential in the determination of policy, because a number of its members were highly placed in the government in the constitution-making period and because foreign affairs were in the hands of Dr. Benes, who affiliated with the party in Parliament." (p. 145). Under Masaryik and Benes, Czecho-Slova:kia was made into a socialistic state. The Ozech National Socialists (Czech Nazis) rmder Benes promoted the godless, materialistic ·p hilosophy of Marx in Ozecho-Slovakia from the very start of the Republic and, hence, the party could not hruve been a "non-,Marxian socialist party," as Mr. Graham claims. The Czechs had no trouble in converting completely to communism in 1948, because Masaryk, Benes and the socialists had prepared them for it. The Slovaks adamantly opposed communism, but could do nothing under the circumstances, -because the Benes political clique made policies. 1 • "Under the organization after 1918 , th e prin cipal party groups, taken from Right to L eft, were ap.proximately as fo llows : The National Democrats •.. The ,P opuli sts .. . The Agrarians ..• The Socialists... The Slovaks" (pp. 140-146). Mr. Graham has very little to say a;bout the SLOV.A,KiS, which means that he knew little or nothing a:bout t hem. The Czechs did, however, run the entire ipoHtical show in Oze0ho-1Slo,v akia. In regard to the Slovaks, Mr. Graham tells us : "In the Revolutionary National Assembly the S'lova.ks initially formed a compact bloc, but shortly began to act with their Czech coDeagues along definite party lines, following in general either a clerical, agrarian, or socialist orientation" (p. 146). Who those Slova:ks were, however, Mr. Graham does not divulge. The fact is that �SLOVAKIA 61 the overwhelming Catholic majority of the Slova,k population had no representation in the Revolutionary National Assembly, the memlbers of which were selected by Masaryk and Benes. It is significant that all the Slovaks appointed were opponents of Slova'k autonomy and proponents of "Czechoslovak" unity; and that the "Slovak bloc" included C:rechs (iBenes, Alice Masaryk, Rotnagl, Kalisek , ZarubaPfeffeJ1IDann) ! Misrepresentation, fraud and deceit were devices of the Benes Czechs, used t o befuddle the outside world. The Slova,ks were dealt with superficially also under the title of "The Populists," where Mr. Graham says : '' As in W eimar, Germ any the Roman Catholic poli ti ca l for ces in Czechoslovak ia underwen t a baptism of dem ocracy and emerged as a Czechoslovak People's Piar,ty and a Slovak P eo ple's Part y, respecti v el y . .. t he Populists deman ded wide au t onom y for t h e local communities. F or twenty years t h e Slovaik P eople's Party, l ed by Father Andrej B linka and for a tim e seco nded by P rofe s so r Bela Tuka, was the principa l foyer of Slo vak particularism and separatism " (p. 142). Strange things, indeed, harppened in Weimar, Germany, and to the "Roman Catholic forces" in Czecho-Slovakia after a "ha,ptism of democracy" ! The Slova:ks emerged as the Slovak P eople's Party, but the Czechs came out as the "Czechoslovak P eople's Party" and, apparently ibefuddled even iMr. Graham. And the country of the Slova;ks, the land inha!bited by them for at least the past 1500 years, became only a "local community"! Again Mr. Graham somehow forgot that Czecho-Slov akia was supposed to be a federation of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Slovaikia. And what was this " particularism and separatism" of Hlinka's party? Nothing else but a struggle for States' Rights for Slovakia within the framework of Cze_ cho-1Slovakia. Why didn't !Mr. Graham say so? The answer is obvious. "Both branches of the P opulist movement," according to Graham, "subscrilbed to the philosophy of Christian socialism as conceived in Austria," that is, "endeavored to bring Christian, i.e., Catholic ideas into effect in legislation and to fight for the preserwation of the influence of the Catholic Church in the schools and in public iJ.ife," says Graham quoting the words o.f one of the apologists of the �62 SLOVAKIA movement. And this, Graham wants us to believe, gaive the Populist 1parties an "anti-soclalist chara,cter." A queer deduction, indeed! The question crops u;p: what is the essential difference between Christian and non--Christian socialism - and which would better serve the interests of a country whose population is for the most part Catholic? • "By the law of April 16, 1919, there was crea ted the Czechoslovak Land OMice ... with •a president ap,pointed by Masaryk and an administrative board ,a ppointed •b y the Revolutionary National Assembly. To this body were given plenary powers for the expropri-ation and realloc ation of land . . . In this way the CZECHOSLOVAK RE·PU.BLIC undid the historic wrongs by which after 1620 the greater part of the CZ•ECH nobility were deprived of their lands and German servitors of the Habsburgs were colonized upon them." {p. 148) . The Land Reform benefitted the Czechs especially the politicians in Prague, their families and friends who never had to worry rubout money afterward. Graham tells us that the estates of the crown and the nobiltity were expropriated "outright and without compensation, whereas in other ca:ses the State offered "appvopriate compensation." Historic "wrongs" were undone by committing more "wrongs"! What lands did the CZECH nobility lose in Slovakia after 1620? Why does Mr. Graham identify the "Czechoslovak Republic" with the Czech nobility? Obviously because to him the Repulblic meant CZffiCHiS. He omits the fact that German nobility lost its lands also. Mr. Graham would have us ,believe that 1620 (White Mountain) was a nationalistic affair, but we know that it was a purely reltgious and dynastic affair. After the Bohemian (not Czech) magnates were defeated, the emperor wrought vengeance upon his enemies both Czech and German - and made Bohemia a hereditary crownland. • Opposite page 1'52 we find a nice picture of Benes, under which we read: "EDUARD BENES--President of the Czechoslovak Republic, 1935-1938, 1940 - " I do not know whether it was placed there tb y •Mr. Kerner or Mr. Graham; most likely it was ,put there by Mr. Kerner. Be that as it may, it is �SLOVAKIA 63 significant that the year 1939 did not figure. The historical fact, however, is that President Benes voluntarily resigned the 1presidency of Ozecho~Slova,kia in 1938, cowardly fled the country, and the Czecho~Sovak !Parliament elected Ha.cha as provided by the Constitution. Why should Kerner, Graham, or any one else for that matter, want us to believe that Benes was still president from "1940-"? The latter, I believe, in oroer to conform to fact, should read: 1940-1948: Moscow Puppet. • In Graham's chapter on "Parties and politics," the Czechs figure most prominently, while the Slovaks are more ignored than the Germans. 1Benes, Kramar, Tusar, Rasin, Masaryk, Cerny, Svehla, Udrzal, Gajda, iMalypetr, Krofta, - AuL CZiIDC!HS - shone 1b rightly on the poli~ tical scene, while SlOIVak Hlinka is mentioned just casually and Slovak Hodza comes on the stage only late in 193'5. At least one thing should be very clear: whatever happened to the Republic was the responsibility of the Masaryk .. Benes Czechs. Czecho-!Slovakia was ruled by coalition governments, 1b ut the ra,dical left-wingers, followers of the materialistic, socialistic philosoiphy of Marx, always predominated. Under the "democratic" system of Masaryk and Benes, the Slovaks were powerless and had practically no influence on policy, foreign or domestic. Neither did the Germans and the Magyars of the Republic. When the "ultraconservative elements" in Malypetr's coalition seceded, he found it necessary, according to Mr. Graham, "to combat legislatively the abuses of the press to which the extremist organs of indigenous Czech fascism and the imported German variety lent themselves." Graha,m continues (,pp. 162-163): "Withou t surrendering fundamental liberties, it was made difficult for factions hostile to ,the democratic order to pursue their activities in the press with impunity. Although applicable to all fact.ions, including Communists, the fascist groups and the German National Socialists were the ,principal ones to feel the brunt of the new legislation ." But the truth is that the Slovaks, who continued to demand "states' rights" (autonomy) within the framework of Ozecho-Slovakia and never were "hostile to the demo- �64 SLOVAKIA cratic order," felt the brunt of the new legislation even more than the communists, fascists and German National Socialists of Czecho-:Slova,kia. Mr. Graham, however, ;pre~ fers to ignore this historical fact, as he also does the actual Czech-Slovak problem, the relations between the Czechs and 1Slovaks, which !b ecame so utterly deteriorated under the Masaryk and Benes regimes. Again the tendency is only too obvious. • The Czecho-,Slovak political pot, fired by the stwpid and highly inflammaJble policies of the Benes Czechs, was coming to a boil. "!Henlein's group openly /began to- espouse the leadership principle, to su'bscr~be to the totalitarian philosophy of Geranan national socialism" (p. 165) something the Czechs did not susped, Graham would have us believe, saying: "This orientation caused genuine apprehension on tlhe p•ar.t of the Czechs, and the accession of Hodza to power was viewed as an open indication to the world of Czech and Slovak solidarity, •a lthough to the end of the •R epublic the ,Slovak Populists under Hlink•a retained their diff.idence and r efused to participate in the coalition, demandjng too high a price by way of autonomy foe Slovakia for even Hodia, himself a Slovaik, to pay." One of the greatest concerns of the Benes Czechs was to have the world believe that all Czechs and all Slovaiks were solidly behind them. The world wanted to be deceived, hence deceived it was. GrahMn would want it to labor under that deception indefinitely, it seems. If it was in Hodza's power, he would have gladly payed the price of autonomy to the Slovaks; the Benes Czechs remained stubbornly against it to the very last, though they were willing to grant Henlein almost anything and everything in 1938 to save their reeHng "Czechoslovak democracy." Hodza, who, was made the scapegoat of the events which preceded the total collapse of the Republic and who despite his better judgment stuck with the Benes Czechs to the bitter end, was later dumped by them. (•More coming) The BEST availaible EiNGLJiSlf-1SLOVAK DICTIONARY? Yes, we have it. Get your copy o.f HROBAK'S ENGLISH~SDOVAK DICTIONARY today! Only $4.00 per copy. � SLOVAKIA 57 Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" (Cont'd.) HISTORY OR PROPAGANDA? P.A. HROBAK According to Mr. Graham, there was no competition for the presidency after Masaryk resigned "in view of the outstanding character of Dr. Benes" (p. 125). This is not exactly true, 1b ecause the Hlinka Party opposed the election of Benes, as did others, until Benes promised :reforms and tbe fulfillment of the 1P ittsburgh Pact, that is, that within a year of his election Slovakia would become autonomous. This disciple, after his election, reneged on the Pittslburgh Poot, just as his master did. This, m course, added to the "outstanding character" of Dr. Benes. 1 • "Freedom of the press, to the exclusion of the preliminar,y censorship so dreaded under the Austrian regime, was guaranteed. With unusual foresight, not match ed by the political leaders of either Weim ar Germany of Socialist Austria, the framers of the Czechoslovak Constitution made pro,v ision for legal restriction on the rights of the press, of assembly, and of association in time of war or in case of events taking p lace within the State seriously threatening the repub• lican form of govern m ent, the Constitution, or public peace and order." (p. 131). - Unusual foresight, indeed. "Public peace and order" must have been threatened thousands of times, judging from the "white spaces" in Slovak newspapers and books during the regimes of Masaryk and Benes; entire editions of Slova1k newspapers were confiscated many times. We have plenty of proof of that for Mr. Graham and all readers of Kerner's "Ozechoslovaikia." Guarantees of freedoms, liberties and rights on 1paper look nice, but mean nothing if they are not realized. The Masaryk-•Benes Czechs were in control of everything and could, therefore, inter,pret the Constitution as they pleased; under them political opposL tion was inte11preted as "unlawful" and a threat to "public peace and order." According to Mr. Graham: "Reli,gious liberty was of primordial import . . . al} religious confessions were treated as equal before the l aw . . . national, religious ,a,u<l. racial mino rities were promised the same equality accorded to the Czechoslovaks in civil and political matters . . . ,a s1>ecial l angu~ge law, itself of a constitutional character, was issued Feb- �58 SLOVAKIA rua.ry 29, 1920, making the Czechoslovak language the official s tate b ut maldng other languag,es, •when used language of the Republic, < by a minority consisting of at least 20 percent of the inhabitants of any jurisdictional area, coordinately valid for virtually every legal pu!'lp()se . .. the right of children to r,e ceive education in their mother tongue ,w as guaranteed, but instruction in the Czech language could be macte obligatory at any time . .. T-o the moment of .partition it could truly he sa;id by German, Magy,ar, Slovak Ruthene, or Czech, that the very air breathed the freedom of the human spirit, a freedom to which the republic was dedicated by its founders." In short, as far as Mr. Graham was concerned, everything was just albout ,p erfect in the "democracy of Masarylk and Benes." But the historical truth is that it was far from it. The Slovaks were not considered a minority, but they actually were worse off in many instances than any minority. The "Czechoslovak NA'VIONAL Church" - a strictly Czech ente:riprise - was estrublished with the blessing and the support of the Masarylk--Benes regimes. The "Czechoslovak" language did not and does not exist, but it became the official language of the Republic, without Mr. Graham ·knowing it. And worst of all, iMr. Graham presumes to spea!k for ,peoples 3Jbout whom he knows little or nothing. If the nations of Czechoslovakia actually enjoyed freedom and lilberties - "the freedom of the human spirit," as Graham calls it - in the democracy of Masaryk and Benes, why did they not fire even a single shot in its defense? Mr. Grah3JID, like the other contrrbutors to Kerner's "Ozechoslovakia," eulogi1zed Masaryik and Benes and sweated out a grandiloquent cha1pter ba:sed on the fiction of "Ozeohoslovak" unity. No, matter what Graham's intentions or objectives were, there can be no justification for suppressing, denying, or falsifying established historical facts. CHA!P'DER ViI!Ill - "Parties and Politics" - by Malbone W. Graham (vd. previous chapter). The tendency so much in evidence in the previous chapter, contributed by the same author, prevails here. To Dr. Graham, "the political history of the Czechoslovak Republic reveals a pattern of continuity and stability unequaied by any other country in Europe." T. G. Masaryk and Be-< nes were masters of the situation. Foreign policy of the Re- �SLOVAKIA 59 public was "in the exipert hands of Dr. Eduard Benes for two decades, from 1915 to 1935"; •b ut "even in the ,period of his presidency, Dr. Benes continued to dominate morally the entevprise of diplomacy." The contin,uity in leadership, plus the "continuity of principle" - ,w hatever that was, gave to the foreign policies of Cze.cho-Slova:kia, and her domestic .p olitics as well,_ "calmness, balance, and objectivity." Benes was no ordinary man, according to Graham. Only 34 years old in 1918 and without any .practical political eXJperience whatever, Benes dominated the political scene in Czecho-Slova!kia. "Dr. Benes was given an opportunity, seldom vouchsafed by history, to organize foreign policy realistically." Just how "realistically Benes organized it became evident, first in 19'38, and then in 1943. He made enemies of all nei,ghboring countries, while in CzechoSlovakia he failed miserrubly to gain the Slova:ks. Benes was a "revolte" - a socialist, also an atheist long before 1'915. Benes went to study to Prague before he was twelve years old. Edward B. Hitchcocl{, one of the most extravagant eulogists of Benes, tells us ("BENES - The Man and The Statesman" - Hamish Hamilton, London ; 1940): "Late,r•, when he (Benes) stayed for several years in Prague, he developed into a believer in brute materialism, anarchism, socialism. He was against religion. He was opposed to almost every established order in the world of that day .... And even the fundamental question - the existence of God - was for him a serious problem. He always countered with the statement that the existence of God was nothing but wishful thinking, that nobody could prove to him that there is a God." Such a man, Graha,m would have us believe, gave the Ozecho-Slovak domestic ipolitics "calmness, balance, and objectivity." About 72 •p ercent of the Czechs and 82 percent of the Slova;ks were Catholics - and Benes hated the Catholic Church. Mr. Graham apparenty knew nothing of the hack,g round of Benes, who also rated among Freemasons. In Paris, Prague, London and Berlin, the young ,m an from Kozl any always felt at home in the company of socirulists, wrote for their pa;pers, hut Mr. Graham, it seems, knows nothing a,bout that; the same goes for the other .contributors to Kerner's "Czechoslovakia." It seems that 1 �60 SLOV.AKI.A they do not want students of history to know what made Benes tick as he did. 'Dhey are supposed to believe that the man just popped out of nowhere, met T. G. Masaryk, and became the greatest democrat and statesman in Europe . • ".Along with tih~ m aj or <:urrent of s ocial democracy i n Czechoslovakia, tlhere developed ,a subsidiary, r eform ist, non-Marxian socialist party with a defJ ni tely evolutionary pro gram .. . it called itself the Na tional Sociali st P a rty. . . .Accepting a program of evolutionary state socia li sm a nd general collectivism, without stressing th e claims or th e in terests of industrial worke rs, the party was predestined to be disproportionately influential in the determination of policy, because a number of its members were highly placed in the government in the constitution-making period and because foreign affairs were in the hands of Dr. Benes, who affiliated with the party in Parliament." (p. 145). Under Masaryik and Benes, Czecho-Slova:kia was made into a socialistic state. The Ozech National Socialists (Czech Nazis) rmder Benes promoted the godless, materialistic ·p hilosophy of Marx in Ozecho-Slovakia from the very start of the Republic and, hence, the party could not hruve been a "non-,Marxian socialist party," as Mr. Graham claims. The Czechs had no trouble in converting completely to communism in 1948, because Masaryk, Benes and the socialists had prepared them for it. The Slovaks adamantly opposed communism, but could do nothing under the circumstances, -because the Benes political clique made policies. 1 • "Under the organization after 1918 , th e prin cipal party groups, taken from Right to L eft, were ap.proximately as fo llows : The National Democrats •.. The ,P opuli sts .. . The Agrarians ..• The Socialists... The Slovaks" (pp. 140-146). Mr. Graham has very little to say a;bout the SLOV.A,KiS, which means that he knew little or nothing a:bout t hem. The Czechs did, however, run the entire ipoHtical show in Oze0ho-1Slo,v akia. In regard to the Slovaks, Mr. Graham tells us : "In the Revolutionary National Assembly the S'lova.ks initially formed a compact bloc, but shortly began to act with their Czech coDeagues along definite party lines, following in general either a clerical, agrarian, or socialist orientation" (p. 146). Who those Slova:ks were, however, Mr. Graham does not divulge. The fact is that �SLOVAKIA 61 the overwhelming Catholic majority of the Slova,k population had no representation in the Revolutionary National Assembly, the memlbers of which were selected by Masaryk and Benes. It is significant that all the Slovaks appointed were opponents of Slova'k autonomy and proponents of "Czechoslovak" unity; and that the "Slovak bloc" included C:rechs (iBenes, Alice Masaryk, Rotnagl, Kalisek , ZarubaPfeffeJ1IDann) ! Misrepresentation, fraud and deceit were devices of the Benes Czechs, used t o befuddle the outside world. The Slova,ks were dealt with superficially also under the title of "The Populists," where Mr. Graham says : '' As in W eimar, Germ any the Roman Catholic poli ti ca l for ces in Czechoslovak ia underwen t a baptism of dem ocracy and emerged as a Czechoslovak People's Piar,ty and a Slovak P eo ple's Part y, respecti v el y . .. t he Populists deman ded wide au t onom y for t h e local communities. F or twenty years t h e Slovaik P eople's Party, l ed by Father Andrej B linka and for a tim e seco nded by P rofe s so r Bela Tuka, was the principa l foyer of Slo vak particularism and separatism " (p. 142). Strange things, indeed, harppened in Weimar, Germany, and to the "Roman Catholic forces" in Czecho-Slovakia after a "ha,ptism of democracy" ! The Slova:ks emerged as the Slovak P eople's Party, but the Czechs came out as the "Czechoslovak P eople's Party" and, apparently ibefuddled even iMr. Graham. And the country of the Slova;ks, the land inha!bited by them for at least the past 1500 years, became only a "local community"! Again Mr. Graham somehow forgot that Czecho-Slov akia was supposed to be a federation of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Slovaikia. And what was this " particularism and separatism" of Hlinka's party? Nothing else but a struggle for States' Rights for Slovakia within the framework of Cze_ cho-1Slovakia. Why didn't !Mr. Graham say so? The answer is obvious. "Both branches of the P opulist movement," according to Graham, "subscrilbed to the philosophy of Christian socialism as conceived in Austria," that is, "endeavored to bring Christian, i.e., Catholic ideas into effect in legislation and to fight for the preserwation of the influence of the Catholic Church in the schools and in public iJ.ife," says Graham quoting the words o.f one of the apologists of the �62 SLOVAKIA movement. And this, Graham wants us to believe, gaive the Populist 1parties an "anti-soclalist chara,cter." A queer deduction, indeed! The question crops u;p: what is the essential difference between Christian and non--Christian socialism - and which would better serve the interests of a country whose population is for the most part Catholic? • "By the law of April 16, 1919, there was crea ted the Czechoslovak Land OMice ... with •a president ap,pointed by Masaryk and an administrative board ,a ppointed •b y the Revolutionary National Assembly. To this body were given plenary powers for the expropri-ation and realloc ation of land . . . In this way the CZECHOSLOVAK RE·PU.BLIC undid the historic wrongs by which after 1620 the greater part of the CZ•ECH nobility were deprived of their lands and German servitors of the Habsburgs were colonized upon them." {p. 148) . The Land Reform benefitted the Czechs especially the politicians in Prague, their families and friends who never had to worry rubout money afterward. Graham tells us that the estates of the crown and the nobiltity were expropriated "outright and without compensation, whereas in other ca:ses the State offered "appvopriate compensation." Historic "wrongs" were undone by committing more "wrongs"! What lands did the CZECH nobility lose in Slovakia after 1620? Why does Mr. Graham identify the "Czechoslovak Republic" with the Czech nobility? Obviously because to him the Repulblic meant CZffiCHiS. He omits the fact that German nobility lost its lands also. Mr. Graham would have us ,believe that 1620 (White Mountain) was a nationalistic affair, but we know that it was a purely reltgious and dynastic affair. After the Bohemian (not Czech) magnates were defeated, the emperor wrought vengeance upon his enemies both Czech and German - and made Bohemia a hereditary crownland. • Opposite page 1'52 we find a nice picture of Benes, under which we read: "EDUARD BENES--President of the Czechoslovak Republic, 1935-1938, 1940 - " I do not know whether it was placed there tb y •Mr. Kerner or Mr. Graham; most likely it was ,put there by Mr. Kerner. Be that as it may, it is �SLOVAKIA 63 significant that the year 1939 did not figure. The historical fact, however, is that President Benes voluntarily resigned the 1presidency of Ozecho~Slova,kia in 1938, cowardly fled the country, and the Czecho~Sovak !Parliament elected Ha.cha as provided by the Constitution. Why should Kerner, Graham, or any one else for that matter, want us to believe that Benes was still president from "1940-"? The latter, I believe, in oroer to conform to fact, should read: 1940-1948: Moscow Puppet. • In Graham's chapter on "Parties and politics," the Czechs figure most prominently, while the Slovaks are more ignored than the Germans. 1Benes, Kramar, Tusar, Rasin, Masaryk, Cerny, Svehla, Udrzal, Gajda, iMalypetr, Krofta, - AuL CZiIDC!HS - shone 1b rightly on the poli~ tical scene, while SlOIVak Hlinka is mentioned just casually and Slovak Hodza comes on the stage only late in 193'5. At least one thing should be very clear: whatever happened to the Republic was the responsibility of the Masaryk .. Benes Czechs. Czecho-!Slovakia was ruled by coalition governments, 1b ut the ra,dical left-wingers, followers of the materialistic, socialistic philosoiphy of Marx, always predominated. Under the "democratic" system of Masaryk and Benes, the Slovaks were powerless and had practically no influence on policy, foreign or domestic. Neither did the Germans and the Magyars of the Republic. When the "ultraconservative elements" in Malypetr's coalition seceded, he found it necessary, according to Mr. Graham, "to combat legislatively the abuses of the press to which the extremist organs of indigenous Czech fascism and the imported German variety lent themselves." Graha,m continues (,pp. 162-163): "Withou t surrendering fundamental liberties, it was made difficult for factions hostile to ,the democratic order to pursue their activities in the press with impunity. Although applicable to all fact.ions, including Communists, the fascist groups and the German National Socialists were the ,principal ones to feel the brunt of the new legislation ." But the truth is that the Slovaks, who continued to demand "states' rights" (autonomy) within the framework of Ozecho-Slovakia and never were "hostile to the demo- �64 SLOVAKIA cratic order," felt the brunt of the new legislation even more than the communists, fascists and German National Socialists of Czecho-:Slova,kia. Mr. Graham, however, ;pre~ fers to ignore this historical fact, as he also does the actual Czech-Slovak problem, the relations between the Czechs and 1Slovaks, which !b ecame so utterly deteriorated under the Masaryk and Benes regimes. Again the tendency is only too obvious. • The Czecho-,Slovak political pot, fired by the stwpid and highly inflammaJble policies of the Benes Czechs, was coming to a boil. "!Henlein's group openly /began to- espouse the leadership principle, to su'bscr~be to the totalitarian philosophy of Geranan national socialism" (p. 165) something the Czechs did not susped, Graham would have us believe, saying: "This orientation caused genuine apprehension on tlhe p•ar.t of the Czechs, and the accession of Hodza to power was viewed as an open indication to the world of Czech and Slovak solidarity, •a lthough to the end of the •R epublic the ,Slovak Populists under Hlink•a retained their diff.idence and r efused to participate in the coalition, demandjng too high a price by way of autonomy foe Slovakia for even Hodia, himself a Slovaik, to pay." One of the greatest concerns of the Benes Czechs was to have the world believe that all Czechs and all Slovaiks were solidly behind them. The world wanted to be deceived, hence deceived it was. GrahMn would want it to labor under that deception indefinitely, it seems. If it was in Hodza's power, he would have gladly payed the price of autonomy to the Slovaks; the Benes Czechs remained stubbornly against it to the very last, though they were willing to grant Henlein almost anything and everything in 1938 to save their reeHng "Czechoslovak democracy." Hodza, who, was made the scapegoat of the events which preceded the total collapse of the Republic and who despite his better judgment stuck with the Benes Czechs to the bitter end, was later dumped by them. (•More coming) The BEST availaible EiNGLJiSlf-1SLOVAK DICTIONARY? Yes, we have it. Get your copy o.f HROBAK'S ENGLISH~SDOVAK DICTIONARY today! Only $4.00 per copy. � 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 1956, Vol. 6 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 1 (No. 18), March 1956.</li> <li>Issue 2 (No. 19), June 1956.</li> <li>Issue 3-4 (No. 20-21), September-December 1956.</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 1956 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 57 Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" (Cont'd.) HISTORY OR PROPAGANDA? P.A. HROBAK According to Mr. Graham, there was no competition for the presidency after Masaryk resigned "in view of the outstanding character of Dr. Benes" (p. 125). This is not exactly true, 1b ecause the Hlinka Party opposed the election of Benes, as did others, until Benes promised :reforms and tbe fulfillment of the 1P ittsburgh Pact, that is, that within a year of his election Slovakia would become autonomous. This disciple, after his election, reneged on the Pittslburgh Poot, just as his master did. This, m course, added to the "outstanding character" of Dr. Benes. 1 • "Freedom of the press, to the exclusion of the preliminar,y censorship so dreaded under the Austrian regime, was guaranteed. With unusual foresight, not match ed by the political leaders of either Weim ar Germany of Socialist Austria, the framers of the Czechoslovak Constitution made pro,v ision for legal restriction on the rights of the press, of assembly, and of association in time of war or in case of events taking p lace within the State seriously threatening the repub• lican form of govern m ent, the Constitution, or public peace and order." (p. 131). - Unusual foresight, indeed. "Public peace and order" must have been threatened thousands of times, judging from the "white spaces" in Slovak newspapers and books during the regimes of Masaryk and Benes; entire editions of Slova1k newspapers were confiscated many times. We have plenty of proof of that for Mr. Graham and all readers of Kerner's "Ozechoslovaikia." Guarantees of freedoms, liberties and rights on 1paper look nice, but mean nothing if they are not realized. The Masaryk-•Benes Czechs were in control of everything and could, therefore, inter,pret the Constitution as they pleased; under them political opposL tion was inte11preted as "unlawful" and a threat to "public peace and order." According to Mr. Graham: "Reli,gious liberty was of primordial import . . . al} religious confessions were treated as equal before the l aw . . . national, religious ,a,u<l. racial mino rities were promised the same equality accorded to the Czechoslovaks in civil and political matters . . . ,a s1>ecial l angu~ge law, itself of a constitutional character, was issued Feb- 58 SLOVAKIA rua.ry 29, 1920, making the Czechoslovak language the official s tate b ut maldng other languag,es, •when used language of the Republic, < by a minority consisting of at least 20 percent of the inhabitants of any jurisdictional area, coordinately valid for virtually every legal pu!'lp()se . .. the right of children to r,e ceive education in their mother tongue ,w as guaranteed, but instruction in the Czech language could be macte obligatory at any time . .. T-o the moment of .partition it could truly he sa;id by German, Magy,ar, Slovak Ruthene, or Czech, that the very air breathed the freedom of the human spirit, a freedom to which the republic was dedicated by its founders." In short, as far as Mr. Graham was concerned, everything was just albout ,p erfect in the "democracy of Masarylk and Benes." But the historical truth is that it was far from it. The Slovaks were not considered a minority, but they actually were worse off in many instances than any minority. The "Czechoslovak NA'VIONAL Church" - a strictly Czech ente:riprise - was estrublished with the blessing and the support of the Masarylk--Benes regimes. The "Czechoslovak" language did not and does not exist, but it became the official language of the Republic, without Mr. Graham ·knowing it. And worst of all, iMr. Graham presumes to spea!k for ,peoples 3Jbout whom he knows little or nothing. If the nations of Czechoslovakia actually enjoyed freedom and lilberties - "the freedom of the human spirit," as Graham calls it - in the democracy of Masaryk and Benes, why did they not fire even a single shot in its defense? Mr. Grah3JID, like the other contrrbutors to Kerner's "Ozechoslovakia," eulogi1zed Masaryik and Benes and sweated out a grandiloquent cha1pter ba:sed on the fiction of "Ozeohoslovak" unity. No, matter what Graham's intentions or objectives were, there can be no justification for suppressing, denying, or falsifying established historical facts. CHA!P'DER ViI!Ill - "Parties and Politics" - by Malbone W. Graham (vd. previous chapter). The tendency so much in evidence in the previous chapter, contributed by the same author, prevails here. To Dr. Graham, "the political history of the Czechoslovak Republic reveals a pattern of continuity and stability unequaied by any other country in Europe." T. G. Masaryk and Be-< nes were masters of the situation. Foreign policy of the Re- SLOVAKIA 59 public was "in the exipert hands of Dr. Eduard Benes for two decades, from 1915 to 1935"; •b ut "even in the ,period of his presidency, Dr. Benes continued to dominate morally the entevprise of diplomacy." The contin,uity in leadership, plus the "continuity of principle" - ,w hatever that was, gave to the foreign policies of Cze.cho-Slova:kia, and her domestic .p olitics as well,_ "calmness, balance, and objectivity." Benes was no ordinary man, according to Graham. Only 34 years old in 1918 and without any .practical political eXJperience whatever, Benes dominated the political scene in Czecho-Slova!kia. "Dr. Benes was given an opportunity, seldom vouchsafed by history, to organize foreign policy realistically." Just how "realistically Benes organized it became evident, first in 19'38, and then in 1943. He made enemies of all nei,ghboring countries, while in CzechoSlovakia he failed miserrubly to gain the Slova:ks. Benes was a "revolte" - a socialist, also an atheist long before 1'915. Benes went to study to Prague before he was twelve years old. Edward B. Hitchcocl{, one of the most extravagant eulogists of Benes, tells us ("BENES - The Man and The Statesman" - Hamish Hamilton, London ; 1940): "Late,r•, when he (Benes) stayed for several years in Prague, he developed into a believer in brute materialism, anarchism, socialism. He was against religion. He was opposed to almost every established order in the world of that day .... And even the fundamental question - the existence of God - was for him a serious problem. He always countered with the statement that the existence of God was nothing but wishful thinking, that nobody could prove to him that there is a God." Such a man, Graha,m would have us believe, gave the Ozecho-Slovak domestic ipolitics "calmness, balance, and objectivity." About 72 •p ercent of the Czechs and 82 percent of the Slova;ks were Catholics - and Benes hated the Catholic Church. Mr. Graham apparenty knew nothing of the hack,g round of Benes, who also rated among Freemasons. In Paris, Prague, London and Berlin, the young ,m an from Kozl any always felt at home in the company of socirulists, wrote for their pa;pers, hut Mr. Graham, it seems, knows nothing a,bout that; the same goes for the other .contributors to Kerner's "Czechoslovakia." It seems that 1 60 SLOV.AKI.A they do not want students of history to know what made Benes tick as he did. 'Dhey are supposed to believe that the man just popped out of nowhere, met T. G. Masaryk, and became the greatest democrat and statesman in Europe . • ".Along with tih~ m aj or <:urrent of s ocial democracy i n Czechoslovakia, tlhere developed ,a subsidiary, r eform ist, non-Marxian socialist party with a defJ ni tely evolutionary pro gram .. . it called itself the Na tional Sociali st P a rty. . . .Accepting a program of evolutionary state socia li sm a nd general collectivism, without stressing th e claims or th e in terests of industrial worke rs, the party was predestined to be disproportionately influential in the determination of policy, because a number of its members were highly placed in the government in the constitution-making period and because foreign affairs were in the hands of Dr. Benes, who affiliated with the party in Parliament." (p. 145). Under Masaryik and Benes, Czecho-Slova:kia was made into a socialistic state. The Ozech National Socialists (Czech Nazis) rmder Benes promoted the godless, materialistic ·p hilosophy of Marx in Ozecho-Slovakia from the very start of the Republic and, hence, the party could not hruve been a "non-,Marxian socialist party," as Mr. Graham claims. The Czechs had no trouble in converting completely to communism in 1948, because Masaryk, Benes and the socialists had prepared them for it. The Slovaks adamantly opposed communism, but could do nothing under the circumstances, -because the Benes political clique made policies. 1 • "Under the organization after 1918 , th e prin cipal party groups, taken from Right to L eft, were ap.proximately as fo llows : The National Democrats •.. The ,P opuli sts .. . The Agrarians ..• The Socialists... The Slovaks" (pp. 140-146). Mr. Graham has very little to say a;bout the SLOV.A,KiS, which means that he knew little or nothing a:bout t hem. The Czechs did, however, run the entire ipoHtical show in Oze0ho-1Slo,v akia. In regard to the Slovaks, Mr. Graham tells us : "In the Revolutionary National Assembly the S'lova.ks initially formed a compact bloc, but shortly began to act with their Czech coDeagues along definite party lines, following in general either a clerical, agrarian, or socialist orientation" (p. 146). Who those Slova:ks were, however, Mr. Graham does not divulge. The fact is that SLOVAKIA 61 the overwhelming Catholic majority of the Slova,k population had no representation in the Revolutionary National Assembly, the memlbers of which were selected by Masaryk and Benes. It is significant that all the Slovaks appointed were opponents of Slova'k autonomy and proponents of "Czechoslovak" unity; and that the "Slovak bloc" included C:rechs (iBenes, Alice Masaryk, Rotnagl, Kalisek , ZarubaPfeffeJ1IDann) ! Misrepresentation, fraud and deceit were devices of the Benes Czechs, used t o befuddle the outside world. The Slova,ks were dealt with superficially also under the title of "The Populists," where Mr. Graham says : '' As in W eimar, Germ any the Roman Catholic poli ti ca l for ces in Czechoslovak ia underwen t a baptism of dem ocracy and emerged as a Czechoslovak People's Piar,ty and a Slovak P eo ple's Part y, respecti v el y . .. t he Populists deman ded wide au t onom y for t h e local communities. F or twenty years t h e Slovaik P eople's Party, l ed by Father Andrej B linka and for a tim e seco nded by P rofe s so r Bela Tuka, was the principa l foyer of Slo vak particularism and separatism " (p. 142). Strange things, indeed, harppened in Weimar, Germany, and to the "Roman Catholic forces" in Czecho-Slovakia after a "ha,ptism of democracy" ! The Slova:ks emerged as the Slovak P eople's Party, but the Czechs came out as the "Czechoslovak P eople's Party" and, apparently ibefuddled even iMr. Graham. And the country of the Slova;ks, the land inha!bited by them for at least the past 1500 years, became only a "local community"! Again Mr. Graham somehow forgot that Czecho-Slov akia was supposed to be a federation of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Slovaikia. And what was this " particularism and separatism" of Hlinka's party? Nothing else but a struggle for States' Rights for Slovakia within the framework of Cze_ cho-1Slovakia. Why didn't !Mr. Graham say so? The answer is obvious. "Both branches of the P opulist movement," according to Graham, "subscrilbed to the philosophy of Christian socialism as conceived in Austria," that is, "endeavored to bring Christian, i.e., Catholic ideas into effect in legislation and to fight for the preserwation of the influence of the Catholic Church in the schools and in public iJ.ife," says Graham quoting the words o.f one of the apologists of the 62 SLOVAKIA movement. And this, Graham wants us to believe, gaive the Populist 1parties an "anti-soclalist chara,cter." A queer deduction, indeed! The question crops u;p: what is the essential difference between Christian and non--Christian socialism - and which would better serve the interests of a country whose population is for the most part Catholic? • "By the law of April 16, 1919, there was crea ted the Czechoslovak Land OMice ... with •a president ap,pointed by Masaryk and an administrative board ,a ppointed •b y the Revolutionary National Assembly. To this body were given plenary powers for the expropri-ation and realloc ation of land . . . In this way the CZECHOSLOVAK RE·PU.BLIC undid the historic wrongs by which after 1620 the greater part of the CZ•ECH nobility were deprived of their lands and German servitors of the Habsburgs were colonized upon them." {p. 148) . The Land Reform benefitted the Czechs especially the politicians in Prague, their families and friends who never had to worry rubout money afterward. Graham tells us that the estates of the crown and the nobiltity were expropriated "outright and without compensation, whereas in other ca:ses the State offered "appvopriate compensation." Historic "wrongs" were undone by committing more "wrongs"! What lands did the CZECH nobility lose in Slovakia after 1620? Why does Mr. Graham identify the "Czechoslovak Republic" with the Czech nobility? Obviously because to him the Repulblic meant CZffiCHiS. He omits the fact that German nobility lost its lands also. Mr. Graham would have us ,believe that 1620 (White Mountain) was a nationalistic affair, but we know that it was a purely reltgious and dynastic affair. After the Bohemian (not Czech) magnates were defeated, the emperor wrought vengeance upon his enemies both Czech and German - and made Bohemia a hereditary crownland. • Opposite page 1'52 we find a nice picture of Benes, under which we read: "EDUARD BENES--President of the Czechoslovak Republic, 1935-1938, 1940 - " I do not know whether it was placed there tb y •Mr. Kerner or Mr. Graham; most likely it was ,put there by Mr. Kerner. Be that as it may, it is SLOVAKIA 63 significant that the year 1939 did not figure. The historical fact, however, is that President Benes voluntarily resigned the 1presidency of Ozecho~Slova,kia in 1938, cowardly fled the country, and the Czecho~Sovak !Parliament elected Ha.cha as provided by the Constitution. Why should Kerner, Graham, or any one else for that matter, want us to believe that Benes was still president from "1940-"? The latter, I believe, in oroer to conform to fact, should read: 1940-1948: Moscow Puppet. • In Graham's chapter on "Parties and politics," the Czechs figure most prominently, while the Slovaks are more ignored than the Germans. 1Benes, Kramar, Tusar, Rasin, Masaryk, Cerny, Svehla, Udrzal, Gajda, iMalypetr, Krofta, - AuL CZiIDC!HS - shone 1b rightly on the poli~ tical scene, while SlOIVak Hlinka is mentioned just casually and Slovak Hodza comes on the stage only late in 193'5. At least one thing should be very clear: whatever happened to the Republic was the responsibility of the Masaryk .. Benes Czechs. Czecho-!Slovakia was ruled by coalition governments, 1b ut the ra,dical left-wingers, followers of the materialistic, socialistic philosoiphy of Marx, always predominated. Under the "democratic" system of Masaryk and Benes, the Slovaks were powerless and had practically no influence on policy, foreign or domestic. Neither did the Germans and the Magyars of the Republic. When the "ultraconservative elements" in Malypetr's coalition seceded, he found it necessary, according to Mr. Graham, "to combat legislatively the abuses of the press to which the extremist organs of indigenous Czech fascism and the imported German variety lent themselves." Graha,m continues (,pp. 162-163): "Withou t surrendering fundamental liberties, it was made difficult for factions hostile to ,the democratic order to pursue their activities in the press with impunity. Although applicable to all fact.ions, including Communists, the fascist groups and the German National Socialists were the ,principal ones to feel the brunt of the new legislation ." But the truth is that the Slovaks, who continued to demand "states' rights" (autonomy) within the framework of Ozecho-Slovakia and never were "hostile to the demo- 64 SLOVAKIA cratic order," felt the brunt of the new legislation even more than the communists, fascists and German National Socialists of Czecho-:Slova,kia. Mr. Graham, however, ;pre~ fers to ignore this historical fact, as he also does the actual Czech-Slovak problem, the relations between the Czechs and 1Slovaks, which !b ecame so utterly deteriorated under the Masaryk and Benes regimes. Again the tendency is only too obvious. • The Czecho-,Slovak political pot, fired by the stwpid and highly inflammaJble policies of the Benes Czechs, was coming to a boil. "!Henlein's group openly /began to- espouse the leadership principle, to su'bscr~be to the totalitarian philosophy of Geranan national socialism" (p. 165) something the Czechs did not susped, Graham would have us believe, saying: "This orientation caused genuine apprehension on tlhe p•ar.t of the Czechs, and the accession of Hodza to power was viewed as an open indication to the world of Czech and Slovak solidarity, •a lthough to the end of the •R epublic the ,Slovak Populists under Hlink•a retained their diff.idence and r efused to participate in the coalition, demandjng too high a price by way of autonomy foe Slovakia for even Hodia, himself a Slovaik, to pay." One of the greatest concerns of the Benes Czechs was to have the world believe that all Czechs and all Slovaiks were solidly behind them. The world wanted to be deceived, hence deceived it was. GrahMn would want it to labor under that deception indefinitely, it seems. If it was in Hodza's power, he would have gladly payed the price of autonomy to the Slovaks; the Benes Czechs remained stubbornly against it to the very last, though they were willing to grant Henlein almost anything and everything in 1938 to save their reeHng "Czechoslovak democracy." Hodza, who, was made the scapegoat of the events which preceded the total collapse of the Republic and who despite his better judgment stuck with the Benes Czechs to the bitter end, was later dumped by them. (•More coming) The BEST availaible EiNGLJiSlf-1SLOVAK DICTIONARY? Yes, we have it. Get your copy o.f HROBAK'S ENGLISH~SDOVAK DICTIONARY today! Only $4.00 per copy.  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 Professor Kerner's "CZECHOSLOVAKIA": History or Propaganda? (3/8) Description An account of the resource P. A. Hrobak Slovakia, Vol. 6, No. 1 (18), March 1956 pp. 57-64 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hrobak, Philip Anthony, 1904-1964 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource March 1956 Relation A related resource continued from <a href="/items/show/176">Vol. 5, No. 4 (17), pp. 55-63</a><br />continues in <a href="/items/show/213">Vol. 6, No. 2 (19), pp. 61-64</a> LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/6645d349c78b98e1ec103b8e9a05333e.pdf bf844954816a2fa8e94ac8d831488d08 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 61 Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" (Cont'd.) HISTORY OR PROPAGANDA? P.A.B1ROB.A.K When the Syrovy government was faced with "the accomplished fact of the Munich Agreement, it had to make the supreme choice": accept Munich, or the death of the Czecho..1Slovak nation. We know what happened. But Mr. Graham says: "The choice ended the possibility of maintaining the regime of democracy and organized multi-1.>arty Hfe w1hich had made Czecho-S1ovakia renowned throughout the world, and occasioned the departure from public life of Pres:ident Benes." equalitarian Is there any doubt in any informed person's mind that Mr. Graham can say the nicest, even though not exactly truthful, things in the nicest way about Dr. Edward Benes and his "equalitarian democracy"? Benes capitulated to Munich without consulting Parliame:rrt, hence acted unconstitutionally, but Mr. Graham would have us !believe that the Symvy government did the capitulating. Munich did "occasion the deiparture of Benes from public life" as Graham puts it - hut we have it from several Czechs, who were members of the Prague Parliament, that it was rather a "forced" departure to esca,pe punishment for Munich, for which they held him responsilble. In a manner typical of Kerner's "Ozecho:slova:kia," Mr. Graham concludes his chapter on ":Parties and Politics" with these words: "Politically, the regime which was born of the lifelong endeavor of Masaryk and Benes to found institutionally the resurgent Czechoslovak nationality passed out of ex<i.stence on October ,5, 1938, betmyed but not defeated . For thos e of us who have survived its passing, the ironic tra,gedy is that its chastisement brought neither peace nor healing to tJhe Danubian and central European world." For those of us who really knew the regime of Masary,k and Benes, and for the Czechs and Slovaks who were mi'Sled by it or suffered under it, let it be said that the world would :be iby far the better for it had the OzechoSlovak business, the political monstrosity that was CzechoSlovaikia, never /been born. We know that Benes resigned �62 SLOVAKIA on October 5, 1938, after he betrayed not only the Slovaks, ,b ut also his own Czech nation to Hitler. We also know that the same Benes five years later betrayed the nations of Czecho-1Slcwakia the second time, this time to Stalin, when he formally sold them out with the OzechSoviet Treaty of December 12, 1943, so that he might return as "president" of Czecho-Slcwa,kia again and smite all those who o.pposed his anti-Christian and pro-'So,v iet policies. To Benes revenge was sweet in 1945. Three years later, before he died, Benes wailed again that he was betrayed, this time not ·b y the Slovaks, Poles, Germans, Magyars, Catholics and all anti..,Marxist socialists, but by Moscow and the Czech communists under Gottwald. No honor among thieves! CHAPTER IX - "Czechoslovakia and Her Minorities" - by Joseph S. Roucek, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Political Science and Sociology, and Chairman, Department of political Science, Hofstra College; member, editorial board, World Affairs Inter,preter; knight, Order of the Star (Rumania), Crown of Jugoslavia; author of The Working of the Minorities System under the League of Nations (Prague, 1928); Contemporary World Politics (1939); etc. The bibliography cited by Roucek tells us at a glance what we might expect; it really is a roster of Czech propagandists. The Slovaks, not considered a "minority," do not even get as much play as the minorities, who caused quite some concern "when Czecho-Slovakia renewed her independent existence as a state in 1918" (p. 171). Of course, Roucek, like other Czech and pro-Czech historians, simply presumes that Czecho-Slovakia, at one time or another, did in fact exist and, hence, in 1918 simply "renewed" her independence. This, however, has no historical basis in fact. It is strictly Czech propaganda. "Czecho-Slovakia accepted without hesitation international responsibility for the protection of minorities as an integral part of the Constitution." Benes, like the Magyars of Hungary, declared that Czecho-Slovakia would grant all rights to her minorities when the question was broached at the Paris Peace Con- �SLOVAKIA 63 ference. What happened in reality is something else. We remember how nice the Hungarian Constitution read, too. Roucek, however, seems to forget exactly how the minorities were treated by Prague; he forgets, too, that the Slovaks, who had joined the Czechs to form a common political state as "equal partners," were just as badly off, if not worse, than the minorities themselves. The statistics given on pp. 174-176 tell us how many Magyars, Germans, Ruthenians, Poles, Jews, Rumanians, etc., there were in Czecho-Slovakia, how many deputies they had in parliament, the number of schools provided for them, but no statistics on the Slovaks and Czechs. Roucek lumps them together so that talk might be made about a "CzechoSlovak majority." This tendency is followed by all Czech propagandists; it is supposed to conceal the fact that the Czechs were in fact the minority people in Czecho-Slovakia, that is, there were more non-Czech people in it. "Contrary to the popular conception, Czecho-Slovakia did not acquire the Sudete Germans from modern Germany. The Slav tribes which settled during the fifth and sixth centuries on the territories, which were to become the foundation of the Czech (Bohemian) State, were separated from their German neighbors by mountain ranges. But they were continually in contact'' (p. 176). It is highly questionable whether Roucek knew what "popular" conception concerning the Sudeten Germans was. If he did, then he should have gone a bit further and told us why it was wrong. To what country did the Sudetenland belong? The Slav tribes that settled there might, in a sense, be considered the foundation of a Czech state, but what is the purpose of the parenthetical "Bohemian"? It is obvious that Roucek wants readers of Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" to believe that the terms "Czech" and "Bohemian" are synonymous. But we know that the Slav tribes (the ancestors of the Czechs) settled on the territory of the Boii, which was known as BOHEMIA at that time and not as any CZECH state. Germans had settled there, too; they did not have to wait for invitations from "Czech" princes or kings, either, as Roucek states. And when a Czech did become ruler of Bohemia, he never could get along without the Germans. "Hence Czechs and Germans lived together for eight centuries in �64 Bohemia . out clearly the latter did pendence" (p. SLOVAKIA But throughout the history of Bohemia one fact stands the Czechs got along with the Germans only so long as not try to become dominant and overthrow Czech inde· 177). What Czech independence, and when? How long were the Czechs really dominant in Bohemia? There certainly are many facts that stand out more clearly than the one mentioned, but they are omitted by Roucek for reasons obvious to informed observer,s. He is simply doing a job for the Czechs, who, he says "learned their lesson from past experiences. After the disastrous Battle of White Moun tain, which brought the Czechs under the dominance of Austria, the German element ul timately reduced the Czechs to a nation of servants and doorkeepers, despised in their own homes by their German masters. The struggle went on with the reawakening of the Czech nation in the nineteenth century" (p. 177 ). By whom were the Czechs dominated before the Battle of White Mountain, if not by Austria and the Germans? Is it not a fact that the Czechs even after their "reawakening " wished to be dominated by Austria (the Habsburgs)? Palacky, the Czech historian who was so greatly admired and followed by Masaryk and Benes, would have invented Austria if she did not exist! The Battle of White Mountain was not a nationalistic, but strictly a religious and dynastic affair. The fact is that the Czechs would still be under Austria, if the Habsburgs would have granted them autonomy (states' rights) within the empire, the only thing they really fought for until Masaryk and Benes messed up everything during World War I. (•More coming) WHO SAID IT? "Deviating :threes shall be jailed. . . Devi•a ting forces are todary er1adicalted or liquidated. Today only the Democrats and Communists, and members of oither political parties (of .the NaJtional Fronlt) bear the respons~bility of detemnli.ning which forces shaJ11 control S10V'akia and in which direction Sl(}IVakia shall go." - (Dr. Joseph Lettrich, ViceChairman of the Executive Committee of the "Co11n.~il of Free Ozoohoslovrukia,." CAS, Bratislava, No. 130, 194.S~. � SLOVAKIA 61 Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" (Cont'd.) HISTORY OR PROPAGANDA? P.A.B1ROB.A.K When the Syrovy government was faced with "the accomplished fact of the Munich Agreement, it had to make the supreme choice": accept Munich, or the death of the Czecho..1Slovak nation. We know what happened. But Mr. Graham says: "The choice ended the possibility of maintaining the regime of democracy and organized multi-1.>arty Hfe w1hich had made Czecho-S1ovakia renowned throughout the world, and occasioned the departure from public life of Pres:ident Benes." equalitarian Is there any doubt in any informed person's mind that Mr. Graham can say the nicest, even though not exactly truthful, things in the nicest way about Dr. Edward Benes and his "equalitarian democracy"? Benes capitulated to Munich without consulting Parliame:rrt, hence acted unconstitutionally, but Mr. Graham would have us !believe that the Symvy government did the capitulating. Munich did "occasion the deiparture of Benes from public life" as Graham puts it - hut we have it from several Czechs, who were members of the Prague Parliament, that it was rather a "forced" departure to esca,pe punishment for Munich, for which they held him responsilble. In a manner typical of Kerner's "Ozecho:slova:kia," Mr. Graham concludes his chapter on ":Parties and Politics" with these words: "Politically, the regime which was born of the lifelong endeavor of Masaryk and Benes to found institutionally the resurgent Czechoslovak nationality passed out of ex<i.stence on October ,5, 1938, betmyed but not defeated . For thos e of us who have survived its passing, the ironic tra,gedy is that its chastisement brought neither peace nor healing to tJhe Danubian and central European world." For those of us who really knew the regime of Masary,k and Benes, and for the Czechs and Slovaks who were mi'Sled by it or suffered under it, let it be said that the world would :be iby far the better for it had the OzechoSlovak business, the political monstrosity that was CzechoSlovaikia, never /been born. We know that Benes resigned �62 SLOVAKIA on October 5, 1938, after he betrayed not only the Slovaks, ,b ut also his own Czech nation to Hitler. We also know that the same Benes five years later betrayed the nations of Czecho-1Slcwakia the second time, this time to Stalin, when he formally sold them out with the OzechSoviet Treaty of December 12, 1943, so that he might return as "president" of Czecho-Slcwa,kia again and smite all those who o.pposed his anti-Christian and pro-'So,v iet policies. To Benes revenge was sweet in 1945. Three years later, before he died, Benes wailed again that he was betrayed, this time not ·b y the Slovaks, Poles, Germans, Magyars, Catholics and all anti..,Marxist socialists, but by Moscow and the Czech communists under Gottwald. No honor among thieves! CHAPTER IX - "Czechoslovakia and Her Minorities" - by Joseph S. Roucek, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Political Science and Sociology, and Chairman, Department of political Science, Hofstra College; member, editorial board, World Affairs Inter,preter; knight, Order of the Star (Rumania), Crown of Jugoslavia; author of The Working of the Minorities System under the League of Nations (Prague, 1928); Contemporary World Politics (1939); etc. The bibliography cited by Roucek tells us at a glance what we might expect; it really is a roster of Czech propagandists. The Slovaks, not considered a "minority," do not even get as much play as the minorities, who caused quite some concern "when Czecho-Slovakia renewed her independent existence as a state in 1918" (p. 171). Of course, Roucek, like other Czech and pro-Czech historians, simply presumes that Czecho-Slovakia, at one time or another, did in fact exist and, hence, in 1918 simply "renewed" her independence. This, however, has no historical basis in fact. It is strictly Czech propaganda. "Czecho-Slovakia accepted without hesitation international responsibility for the protection of minorities as an integral part of the Constitution." Benes, like the Magyars of Hungary, declared that Czecho-Slovakia would grant all rights to her minorities when the question was broached at the Paris Peace Con- �SLOVAKIA 63 ference. What happened in reality is something else. We remember how nice the Hungarian Constitution read, too. Roucek, however, seems to forget exactly how the minorities were treated by Prague; he forgets, too, that the Slovaks, who had joined the Czechs to form a common political state as "equal partners," were just as badly off, if not worse, than the minorities themselves. The statistics given on pp. 174-176 tell us how many Magyars, Germans, Ruthenians, Poles, Jews, Rumanians, etc., there were in Czecho-Slovakia, how many deputies they had in parliament, the number of schools provided for them, but no statistics on the Slovaks and Czechs. Roucek lumps them together so that talk might be made about a "CzechoSlovak majority." This tendency is followed by all Czech propagandists; it is supposed to conceal the fact that the Czechs were in fact the minority people in Czecho-Slovakia, that is, there were more non-Czech people in it. "Contrary to the popular conception, Czecho-Slovakia did not acquire the Sudete Germans from modern Germany. The Slav tribes which settled during the fifth and sixth centuries on the territories, which were to become the foundation of the Czech (Bohemian) State, were separated from their German neighbors by mountain ranges. But they were continually in contact'' (p. 176). It is highly questionable whether Roucek knew what "popular" conception concerning the Sudeten Germans was. If he did, then he should have gone a bit further and told us why it was wrong. To what country did the Sudetenland belong? The Slav tribes that settled there might, in a sense, be considered the foundation of a Czech state, but what is the purpose of the parenthetical "Bohemian"? It is obvious that Roucek wants readers of Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" to believe that the terms "Czech" and "Bohemian" are synonymous. But we know that the Slav tribes (the ancestors of the Czechs) settled on the territory of the Boii, which was known as BOHEMIA at that time and not as any CZECH state. Germans had settled there, too; they did not have to wait for invitations from "Czech" princes or kings, either, as Roucek states. And when a Czech did become ruler of Bohemia, he never could get along without the Germans. "Hence Czechs and Germans lived together for eight centuries in �64 Bohemia . out clearly the latter did pendence" (p. SLOVAKIA But throughout the history of Bohemia one fact stands the Czechs got along with the Germans only so long as not try to become dominant and overthrow Czech inde· 177). What Czech independence, and when? How long were the Czechs really dominant in Bohemia? There certainly are many facts that stand out more clearly than the one mentioned, but they are omitted by Roucek for reasons obvious to informed observer,s. He is simply doing a job for the Czechs, who, he says "learned their lesson from past experiences. After the disastrous Battle of White Moun tain, which brought the Czechs under the dominance of Austria, the German element ul timately reduced the Czechs to a nation of servants and doorkeepers, despised in their own homes by their German masters. The struggle went on with the reawakening of the Czech nation in the nineteenth century" (p. 177 ). By whom were the Czechs dominated before the Battle of White Mountain, if not by Austria and the Germans? Is it not a fact that the Czechs even after their "reawakening " wished to be dominated by Austria (the Habsburgs)? Palacky, the Czech historian who was so greatly admired and followed by Masaryk and Benes, would have invented Austria if she did not exist! The Battle of White Mountain was not a nationalistic, but strictly a religious and dynastic affair. The fact is that the Czechs would still be under Austria, if the Habsburgs would have granted them autonomy (states' rights) within the empire, the only thing they really fought for until Masaryk and Benes messed up everything during World War I. (•More coming) WHO SAID IT? "Deviating :threes shall be jailed. . . Devi•a ting forces are todary er1adicalted or liquidated. Today only the Democrats and Communists, and members of oither political parties (of .the NaJtional Fronlt) bear the respons~bility of detemnli.ning which forces shaJ11 control S10V'akia and in which direction Sl(}IVakia shall go." - (Dr. Joseph Lettrich, ViceChairman of the Executive Committee of the "Co11n.~il of Free Ozoohoslovrukia,." CAS, Bratislava, No. 130, 194.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 1956, Vol. 6 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 1 (No. 18), March 1956.</li> <li>Issue 2 (No. 19), June 1956.</li> <li>Issue 3-4 (No. 20-21), September-December 1956.</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 1956 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SLOVAKIA 61 Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" (Cont'd.) HISTORY OR PROPAGANDA? P.A.B1ROB.A.K When the Syrovy government was faced with "the accomplished fact of the Munich Agreement, it had to make the supreme choice": accept Munich, or the death of the Czecho..1Slovak nation. We know what happened. But Mr. Graham says: "The choice ended the possibility of maintaining the regime of democracy and organized multi-1.>arty Hfe w1hich had made Czecho-S1ovakia renowned throughout the world, and occasioned the departure from public life of Pres:ident Benes." equalitarian Is there any doubt in any informed person's mind that Mr. Graham can say the nicest, even though not exactly truthful, things in the nicest way about Dr. Edward Benes and his "equalitarian democracy"? Benes capitulated to Munich without consulting Parliame:rrt, hence acted unconstitutionally, but Mr. Graham would have us !believe that the Symvy government did the capitulating. Munich did "occasion the deiparture of Benes from public life" as Graham puts it - hut we have it from several Czechs, who were members of the Prague Parliament, that it was rather a "forced" departure to esca,pe punishment for Munich, for which they held him responsilble. In a manner typical of Kerner's "Ozecho:slova:kia," Mr. Graham concludes his chapter on ":Parties and Politics" with these words: "Politically, the regime which was born of the lifelong endeavor of Masaryk and Benes to found institutionally the resurgent Czechoslovak nationality passed out of ex<i.stence on October ,5, 1938, betmyed but not defeated . For thos e of us who have survived its passing, the ironic tra,gedy is that its chastisement brought neither peace nor healing to tJhe Danubian and central European world." For those of us who really knew the regime of Masary,k and Benes, and for the Czechs and Slovaks who were mi'Sled by it or suffered under it, let it be said that the world would :be iby far the better for it had the OzechoSlovak business, the political monstrosity that was CzechoSlovaikia, never /been born. We know that Benes resigned 62 SLOVAKIA on October 5, 1938, after he betrayed not only the Slovaks, ,b ut also his own Czech nation to Hitler. We also know that the same Benes five years later betrayed the nations of Czecho-1Slcwakia the second time, this time to Stalin, when he formally sold them out with the OzechSoviet Treaty of December 12, 1943, so that he might return as "president" of Czecho-Slcwa,kia again and smite all those who o.pposed his anti-Christian and pro-'So,v iet policies. To Benes revenge was sweet in 1945. Three years later, before he died, Benes wailed again that he was betrayed, this time not ·b y the Slovaks, Poles, Germans, Magyars, Catholics and all anti..,Marxist socialists, but by Moscow and the Czech communists under Gottwald. No honor among thieves! CHAPTER IX - "Czechoslovakia and Her Minorities" - by Joseph S. Roucek, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Political Science and Sociology, and Chairman, Department of political Science, Hofstra College; member, editorial board, World Affairs Inter,preter; knight, Order of the Star (Rumania), Crown of Jugoslavia; author of The Working of the Minorities System under the League of Nations (Prague, 1928); Contemporary World Politics (1939); etc. The bibliography cited by Roucek tells us at a glance what we might expect; it really is a roster of Czech propagandists. The Slovaks, not considered a "minority," do not even get as much play as the minorities, who caused quite some concern "when Czecho-Slovakia renewed her independent existence as a state in 1918" (p. 171). Of course, Roucek, like other Czech and pro-Czech historians, simply presumes that Czecho-Slovakia, at one time or another, did in fact exist and, hence, in 1918 simply "renewed" her independence. This, however, has no historical basis in fact. It is strictly Czech propaganda. "Czecho-Slovakia accepted without hesitation international responsibility for the protection of minorities as an integral part of the Constitution." Benes, like the Magyars of Hungary, declared that Czecho-Slovakia would grant all rights to her minorities when the question was broached at the Paris Peace Con- SLOVAKIA 63 ference. What happened in reality is something else. We remember how nice the Hungarian Constitution read, too. Roucek, however, seems to forget exactly how the minorities were treated by Prague; he forgets, too, that the Slovaks, who had joined the Czechs to form a common political state as "equal partners," were just as badly off, if not worse, than the minorities themselves. The statistics given on pp. 174-176 tell us how many Magyars, Germans, Ruthenians, Poles, Jews, Rumanians, etc., there were in Czecho-Slovakia, how many deputies they had in parliament, the number of schools provided for them, but no statistics on the Slovaks and Czechs. Roucek lumps them together so that talk might be made about a "CzechoSlovak majority." This tendency is followed by all Czech propagandists; it is supposed to conceal the fact that the Czechs were in fact the minority people in Czecho-Slovakia, that is, there were more non-Czech people in it. "Contrary to the popular conception, Czecho-Slovakia did not acquire the Sudete Germans from modern Germany. The Slav tribes which settled during the fifth and sixth centuries on the territories, which were to become the foundation of the Czech (Bohemian) State, were separated from their German neighbors by mountain ranges. But they were continually in contact'' (p. 176). It is highly questionable whether Roucek knew what "popular" conception concerning the Sudeten Germans was. If he did, then he should have gone a bit further and told us why it was wrong. To what country did the Sudetenland belong? The Slav tribes that settled there might, in a sense, be considered the foundation of a Czech state, but what is the purpose of the parenthetical "Bohemian"? It is obvious that Roucek wants readers of Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" to believe that the terms "Czech" and "Bohemian" are synonymous. But we know that the Slav tribes (the ancestors of the Czechs) settled on the territory of the Boii, which was known as BOHEMIA at that time and not as any CZECH state. Germans had settled there, too; they did not have to wait for invitations from "Czech" princes or kings, either, as Roucek states. And when a Czech did become ruler of Bohemia, he never could get along without the Germans. "Hence Czechs and Germans lived together for eight centuries in 64 Bohemia . out clearly the latter did pendence" (p. SLOVAKIA But throughout the history of Bohemia one fact stands the Czechs got along with the Germans only so long as not try to become dominant and overthrow Czech inde· 177). What Czech independence, and when? How long were the Czechs really dominant in Bohemia? There certainly are many facts that stand out more clearly than the one mentioned, but they are omitted by Roucek for reasons obvious to informed observer,s. He is simply doing a job for the Czechs, who, he says "learned their lesson from past experiences. After the disastrous Battle of White Moun tain, which brought the Czechs under the dominance of Austria, the German element ul timately reduced the Czechs to a nation of servants and doorkeepers, despised in their own homes by their German masters. The struggle went on with the reawakening of the Czech nation in the nineteenth century" (p. 177 ). By whom were the Czechs dominated before the Battle of White Mountain, if not by Austria and the Germans? Is it not a fact that the Czechs even after their "reawakening " wished to be dominated by Austria (the Habsburgs)? Palacky, the Czech historian who was so greatly admired and followed by Masaryk and Benes, would have invented Austria if she did not exist! The Battle of White Mountain was not a nationalistic, but strictly a religious and dynastic affair. The fact is that the Czechs would still be under Austria, if the Habsburgs would have granted them autonomy (states' rights) within the empire, the only thing they really fought for until Masaryk and Benes messed up everything during World War I. (•More coming) WHO SAID IT? "Deviating :threes shall be jailed. . . Devi•a ting forces are todary er1adicalted or liquidated. Today only the Democrats and Communists, and members of oither political parties (of .the NaJtional Fronlt) bear the respons~bility of detemnli.ning which forces shaJ11 control S10V'akia and in which direction Sl(}IVakia shall go." - (Dr. Joseph Lettrich, ViceChairman of the Executive Committee of the "Co11n.~il of Free Ozoohoslovrukia,." CAS, Bratislava, No. 130, 194.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 Professor Kerner's "CZECHOSLOVAKIA": History or Propaganda? (4/8) Description An account of the resource P. A. Hrobak Slovakia, Vol. 6, No. 2 (19), June 1956 pp. 61-64 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hrobak, Philip Anthony, 1904-1964 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource June 1956 Relation A related resource continued from <a href="/items/show/222">Vol. 6, No. 1 (18), pp. 57-64</a> <br />continues in <a href="/items/show/197">Vol. 6, No. 3-4 (20-21), pp. 88-96</a> LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/91b571fed5874142104665abf50bd5f2.pdf 90f8ab1d1e391715a4d6c875d90c1db7 PDF Text Text 88 SLOVAKIA Kerner's "Czechoslov~kia" (Cont'd.) IDSTORY OR PROPAGANDA? P.A. HROBAK "With the formation of the Czecho,Slovak State, the Germans refused to accept the new situation and to cooperate with the new government at Prague" (p. 177) . But the fact is that even though they were forced to accept the situation, on various occasions the Sudetenlanders showed their willingness to cooperate with Prague, but the Czechs were not disposed to cooperate. "The Germans, reduced from the position of dominance to that of a minority, naturally resented the new setup," Roucek tells us, which is true, but the entire blame for the bad blood between the Czechs and the Germans, could hardly be placed on the latter, as Roucek would have us do. Masaryk and Benes and their followers were responsible for what happened in and to Czecho-Slovakia, because they practically ran the whole show. "But why did the Czechs ask that this hostile element be included in their state? In the memorandum which the Czechs submitted to the Peace Conference, they claimed the historic frontiers of Bohemia. All history showed, they argued, and economic and strategic considerations demanded, that the historic Lands of the Bohemian Crown should remain a single unit. The exclusion of the Sudete areas would have broken the virtually indissoluble geographical and economic ties with central Bohemia. The Germans of Bohemia d6lsired to be united with the new Austrian Republic and not with the Reich. The areas settled by the Germans were never, of themselves, component parts of the German Reich nor were they independent elements in the former Austria• Hungary. So far as these territories were connected constitutionally with the Holy Roman Empire, they were connected solely as part and parcel of the Czech State, consisting of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, and only as an entity with those Lands." - (p. 178). Roucek's tendency is obvious: the Czechs had a claim, but the Germans did not. Bohemia, we know, was an independent kingdom until 1526; the Germans were no less a part of it than were the Czechs. Roucek, however, tells us that the territories settled by the Germans "were connected solely as part and parcel of the "CZECH" State and not the BOHEMIAN Crown lands. What Benes and Masaryk submitted to the Peace Conference to back their "claims" to the his- �SLOVAKIA 89 toric frontiers of Bohemia is one thing, but the truth is something else. Roucek apparently preferred not to deal with the latter. For his edification, I quote Robert Ingrim, eminent journalist and author, who says that: _ . . before Huss's reformation, Bohemia had been the scene of the most felicitous Czech-German cooperation. Of this, Prague, one of the most magnificent cities in Europe, is still a living witness. It must be added that in those dark times, when people had not yet learned to regard another language as a symptom of inferiority, no one spoke of Czechs or 'G ermans. They were just Bohemians. This explains why no two other races have more similarity than Czechs and Sudeten Germans. There was perpetual intermarriage and it became, in the towns, purely accidental whether a family considered itself German or Czech. The race which profited most by this close community were the Czechs because the Germans had an older and more highly developed culture and could draw from the great receptacle of the Germanies. The Czechs as part and parcel of the Holy Roman Empire became entirely different from Slavic peoples outside." ("After Hitler Stalin?" - 1946 - Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, Wis.; pp. 54-55) . It is significant that Roucek did not include the works of such eminent historians as C. A. Macartney and A. J. P. Taylor, which shed much light on Bohemia and the Habsburg Empire. Macartney, for example, says that Bohemia did "become a member of the German Reich," whereas Roucek claims that "the areas settled by the Germans were never, of themselves, component parts of the German Reich," which is a tricky way of putting it, to say the least. iHow many students and teachers of history, using Kerner's "Czechoslovakia," noticed or paid any attention to Roucek's "of themselves," and if some did, what did they make of it? What real claim did Masaryk and Benes have to the 3,231,688 Germans of Bohemia, the figure mentioned by Roucek (.p. 178)? Furthermore, according to Roucek: "The whole problem of the Sudete Germans was a counter in the game of power politics and a part of the larger problem of Germany in Europe. It was not a debate between the 11,000,000 Czecho-Slovaks and the 75,0'00,000 Germans concerning the treatment of Germans in Czecho-Slovakia, or the frontiers of that Repu'blic, or of the destiny of the national fragments which remained outside the German borders. It was a question of the desire of Germany to establish a new empire" (p. 182). Now this may have been the desire of Hitler after he came to power. But why should Roucek consider the Sudete �90 SLOVAKIA problem only from this angle? The situation in 1938 may have been ~s described, but what the Sudeten Germans themselves had to say about their treatment at the hands of the Czechs from 1918 to 1938 is not at all worth mentioning by Roucek. Furthermore, the debate certainly did not concern "11,000,000 Czecho-Slovaks," as Roucek would have us believe. The Slovaks had nothing to do with it; foreign policy was dominated by Benes and the Czechs. The Slovaks, we know, had their own arguments with the Czechs. The Czechs under Masaryk and Benes were on one side, while the non-Czech nationalities - the majority of the population of Czecho-Slovakia - were on the opposite side. The demands of these non-Czech nations may have been, as Roucek says, "incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy as understood and practiced in Czecho-Slovakia," nevertheless they were not incompatible with natural rights and the fundamental principles of democracy as understood and practiced in genuinely democratic countries. The simple truth is that the Czechs, especially the Masaryk-Bene s Czechs, did not learn the lesson of AustriaHungary. They followed Masaryk and Benes blindly, ruling high and mighty over the non-Czech nations, in the fashion of Stalin and Hitler. " The problem of nationalism played no part In Slovak ia up to the end of the eighteenth cen t ury because the official language of Hungary was Latin" (p. 183) . Following this line of reasoning, then, nationalism played no part in any country, at any time, whenever the official language of a country was any other than that of the inhabitants. Does professor Roucek really believe that? Writing about the period of Joseph II, when "Bohemian politics of the nineteenth century received their first rehearsal," A. J. P. Taylor says in his "The Habsburg Monarchy": Even In Bohemia the Imperial nobility, which had been Imported by the Habsburgs, cloaked their hostility to social reform In a display of Bohemian patriotism , and in the ante-rooms of the >Habsburgi the! descendants of German, ,Scottish, or Spanish adventurers ostentatiously exchanged a few words of CZECH which they had laboriously learnt from their stable-boys" (pp. 19-20). �SLOVAKIA 91 This relates to the time that Roucek writes about (Joseph died in 1790). What then was the official language of Bohemia, or of the Habsburg Empire up to the end of the eighteenth century? "The Slovaks were not considered as a minority by Prague, and certainly not by the Slovaks themselves. This is attested to by the fact that the Czech parties had their adherents in Slovakia, that there was no discrimination against the inclusion of Slovaks in various cabinets, and that Dr. Milan Hodza, a member of the R epublican Party and a Slovak, headed the cabinets from 1935 to 1938" (p. 184). If the Slovaks were not considered "as a minority" by Prague, what were they considered? An equal partner, a colony, a branch of the Czech nation? What does Roucek's "attestation" prove? What were CZECH parties doing in Slovakia? Does not Roucek know that the Slovaks selected by Masaryk and Benes for cabinet or other posts did not represent the will of the vast masses of the Slovak people? We remember that Judas was one of the apostles, too. Masaryk and Benes could hardly make the new-born Republic appear "Czecho-Slovak" without including several Slovaks in their cabinets. But those Slovaks knew that they had to serve the interests of Masaryk and Benes, the interests of the Czechs, if · they wanted to keep their posts. Every one of them repudiated the right of their own nation to freedom and political independence, nay, even autonomy (states' rights). What kind of Slovaks were they, if not "Judas" Slovaks? Dr. Milan Hod.fa was a smart politician; he knew what was best for Milan Hod.fa. He served Masaryk and Benes well for decades, but, in the end, was made the scapegoat of Munich, being discarded by Benes, as were so many other Slovaks and Czechs who got out of line with the policies of Masaryk and Benes. (Pergler, Stfibrny, Beran, Osusky, etc.). "The autonomist tendencies of the Catholic Slovaks found their expression, however, in the Slovak Populist Party of Father Andrej Hlinka, wt-lose policies can be understood best when we recall the demands for states' rights in the United States which culminated in the Civil War" (p. 184) . Roucek, however, omitted to mention that Hlinka was joined in "the autonomist tendencies" by the Lutheran minister and poet, Martin Razus, Slovak patriot and head of �92 SLOVAKIA the Slovak National Party. Biased historians propagate the idea that only the Slovak Catholics fought for autonomy (states' rights) :in Slovakia. What does Mr. Roucek mean when he says that Hlinka's policies "can be underst.ood best when we recall the demands for stat.es' rights in the United Stat.es which culminated in the Civil War"? In the first place, does it make sense to compare the relationship between the individual 48 States to the United States and the relationship of Slovakia to Czecho-Slovakia? Demands by how many states and for what states' rights culminated in the Civil War? Do not the States comprising the United States have their rights defined and secured by the Constitution of the U. S. A.? What states' rights did Slovakia have guaranteed and secured by the Czecho-Slovak Constitution of Masaryk and Benes, which, in fact , even denied the existence of the Slovak nation? Or is it possible that Mr. Roucek wants us to believe that Hlinka's .policies advocated slavery? It is quite obvious that Roucek did not know Hlinka and his policies! "The Czechs and the Slovaks had been separated politically for one thousand years. The former had become very largely industrialized, Influenced by German and Western thought and technical development. The Slovaks, on the contrary, r emained agriculturists and under a Magyar (that is, Eastern) type of culture. The Czechs were nominally Roman Catholics, and those who opposed Roman Catholicism during their national struggle against the Catholic tHabsburgs had earned the reputation in the eyes of devout Slovaks of being irreligious" (pp. 184-185). Roucek and other pro-Czech historians like to dwell on the theme that the Czechs and Slovaks were "separated politically for one thousand years," but somehow always forget to tell when and under what conditions the Czechs and Slovaks were ever united politically or otherwise. They also favor the theme that the Czechs were "largely industrialized," while the Slovaks "remained agriculturists," but never have an explanation for the fact that Slovakia was more industrialized under the Magyars of Hungary than it was under Masaryk and Benes of Czecho-Slovakia. The tendency is only too obvious! The Czechs, it is true, did not fare badly under the Germans (Austria); the Slovaks suffered incomparably greater �SLOVAKIA 93 political and economic oppression under the Magyars of Hungary. The culture of the Slovaks, however, was not "Magyar (that is, Eastern)," as Roucek maintains. The Slovaks evidently knew the Czechs better than Roucek did. Many Czechs were undoubtedly "nominally Roman Catholics," hut many times many mOTe became so-called "progressive" Roman Catholics, having succumbed to the influence of Huss, Palacky, Rieger, Havlicek, Masaryk and Benes. The Slovaks did not consider the Czechs "irreligious" because they fought against the "Catholic Ha:bsburgs," but rather because they repudiated the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and deeply insulted the religious feelings of the Slovak people by destroying religious monuments, removing crucifixes from classrooms, etc., soon after Masaryk and Benes took over the reins of the Czecho-Slova k State. Roucek may not like to admit it, nevertheless the possibility does exist that the Slovaks could have regarded the Czechs as "irreligious" also for denying the existence of the Slovak nation and its inherent and God-given right to freedom and political independence. Or is it possible that Roucek believes that recognition of and respect for the natural rights of nations does not come under the title of religion? "Whereas the standard of literacy among the Czechs was high, the percentage of Slovaks who could read and write was very low In 1919. For that reason, many officials, teachers, and intellectuals from the Czech regions had to be sent to Slovakia in 1918-1919, and many of them antagonized the Slovaks with their well-intentioned, but often too matter-of-fact, methods . . . When, during the eourse of time, Slovaks became available, it was not easy to dismiss the Czechs, many of whom had married and settled down" (p. 185). By what standards or statistics professor Roucek was influenced, I do not know, but I honestly believe that his statement regarding the literacy of the Slovaks in 1919 is highly exaggerated. How low is very low? What were the "well-intentioned, but often too matter-of-fac t, methods" of Czech intellectuals which antagonized the Slovaks? Is it not significant that Roucek has no sympathy for the many Slovaks who, during the course of time, did become available, got married and had children, but could hardly settle down in their own homeland, because the jobs they had been trained for were taken by Czechs? R. W. Seton-Watson , the �94 SLOVAKIA Czech propagandi st, admits much more in his "The New Slovakia" (Fr. Borovy, Prague; 1924) ; I heartily recommend it to Roucek and to all readers of Kerner's "Czechoslo vakia." The fact is that Prague sent about 110,000 Czechs to Slovakia to do jobs which the Slovaks themselves could have done erusily and effectively. Roucek asks "what was the Pittsburgh Agreement ?" and then answers the typical Masaryk-B enes way, using Ivan Derer's (the Judas Slovak) "The Unity of the Czechs and Slovaks" (Prague, 1938) and Benes's "Central European Observer" (Dec. 16, 1938) as his "catechism s"! It is evident that Roucek never even saw a copy of the original, because he dates the Pittsburgh Agreement June 30, 1918, instead of May 30, 1918, the same mistake made by other Czech propagandists, including T. G. Masaryk (Svet.ova Revoluce, p. 262) and professor S. Harrison Thomson of the University of Colorado, author of "Czechoslovakia in European mstory" (Princeton University Press, 1953) and editor of the "Journal of Central European Affairs." Roucek does not produce the full text of the Pittsburgh Agreement , but simply states: "These American Czechs and Slovaks, together with Dr. Masaryk, agreed that Slovakia should 'have her own administrativ e system, her own diet and her own courts, (and that) the Slovak the official language in the schools, In the public affairs generally'. Actually the points in agreement ried out - except the one stipulating the setting up kia." language should be offices and public were virtually carof a diet for Slova- Roucek, however, does not tell the whole story about the Pittsburgh Agreement . By presenting only the Czech side and omitting the Slovak side of it, he proves himself partial and prejudiced. Without the support of the Slovaks, T. G. Masaryk knew that his proposed "Czecho-Sl ovakia" was doomed. There was no way of contacting the Slovaks at home (in Hungary at that time), hence he came to the United States to seek the support of Americans of Slovak descent; also the support of Americans of Czech descent, since the Czechs at home did not react favorably to Masaryk's plan to destroy Austria-Hu ngary and to establish CzechoSlovakia. The weightiest objection to Masaryk's plan was that �SLOVAKIA 95 about six and a half million Czechs would hardly make a .state fit to live, even if they were allowed to swallow three and a half million Germans in order to obtain the historical frontiers of the Bohemian kingdom. To meet this argument, Robert Ing,rirn tells us ("After Hitler Stalin" - ip. 80): "Masaryk invented the fiction that the Czechs and Slovaks were the same, that is Czecho-Slovaks, thus claiming a large part of Hungary for his new state. As this discovery failed to impress the Allies, he enlisted the support of the Americans of Slovakian descent. Disliking the Magyars, who . . . had not given them a fair deal, they favored the idea of separating Slovakia from Hungary. But sufficiently history conscious, they rejected emphatically the theory of the Czecho-Slovak race." Americans of Slovak descent did not put much trust in Masaryk's oral pronouncements and promises. They remembered that the Magyars had made quite a few promises to the Slovaks and never kept them. When Masaryk came to America to gain the support of the citizens of Slovak descent, the latter insisted on a written guaranree that Slovakia would enjoy full autonomy (states' rights) within the proposed Czecho-Slovakian republic. The result was the Pittsburgh Agreement or Convention which Masaryk drafted and signed during a meeting of representatives of Slovak and Czech organizations at Pittsburgh, Pa., May 30, 1918. Masaryk, however, repudiated it soon after he and Benes took over the reins of the Czecho-Slovak State. To refute Slovakia's claim for autonomy, Masaryk wrote in 1925: "It (the Pittsburgh Convention) was concluded in order to appease a small Slovak fraction which was dreaming of God knows what sort of independence for Slovakia ... I signed the agreement unhesitatingly because it was a local agreement of American Czechs and Slovaks between themselves'' (SVETOV.A REVOLUCE, p . 262). To attain a "Czecho-Slovak" majority in the proposed Czecho-Slovak Republic T. G. Masaryk did not hesitate to resort to• falsehood and dishonesty. How else can we explain his preposterous statement that the Pittsburgh Agreement was only a "local agreement of American Czechs and Slovaks between themselves"! What need did .Amerkan Crechs and Slovaks have for such an agreement? And if Masaryk actually did think it was only a "local agreement" between Americans, why did he, a foreigner, even consider drafting and signing it? iHe con- �96 SLOVAKIA eluded the agreement, he says, "in order to appease a small SWVAK fraction which was dreaming of God knows what sort of independence for Slovakia," but the fact is that the Slovaks at that Pittsburgh meeting represented an overwhelming majority of organized Slovaks in America. And what sort of independence for Slovakia could they possibly be dreaming of when Masaryk himself told them that CzechoSlovakia would be modeled after the United States or Switzerland? In 1918, T. G. Masaryk presented the Pittsburgh Convention to President Woodrow Wilson as a solemn treaty between the Slovaks and the Czechs to induce him to grant official recognition to the Czech and Slovak union and its provisional government. Wilson would hardly have been charmed by Masaryk to destroy Austria if Masaryk had described the Pittsburgh convention, in 1918, in the disparaging terms he set in the record in 1925. The "great" Masaryk, who so persistently insisted on the truth in all things, obviously lied to President Wilson and the Slovaks! By saying that "actually the points in agreement were virtually carried out - except the one stipulating the setting up of a diet for Slovakia," professor Roucek admits that he does not know what went on in Czecho-Slovakia and, hence, is hardly qualified to write with authority about that country, and especially the Slovak portion of it. The fact is that the Masaryk and Benes regimes were deaf to the just demand of the Slovaks that the Pittsburgh Convention be honored by the Constitution of the Czecho-Slovak Republic and, hence, both were responsible for the consequences. The relations between the Czechs and the Slovaks were actually worse in 1938 than they were in 1918. (More Coming) • • • He1p expose the political monstrosity that was CzechoSlov;aJkia by getting the SLOV'AK NEWSLEITER to as many Americans as possible. Renew youT subscriptions NOW and send one in for a friend . The BEST availaJble mNGLlSH-1SLOVAlK DICTIONARY? Yes, we have it. Get your copy of HROBAICS ENGLISH-.SLOVAK DICTIONARY today! Only $4.00 per copy. � 88 SLOVAKIA Kerner's "Czechoslov~kia" (Cont'd.) IDSTORY OR PROPAGANDA? P.A. HROBAK "With the formation of the Czecho,Slovak State, the Germans refused to accept the new situation and to cooperate with the new government at Prague" (p. 177) . But the fact is that even though they were forced to accept the situation, on various occasions the Sudetenlanders showed their willingness to cooperate with Prague, but the Czechs were not disposed to cooperate. "The Germans, reduced from the position of dominance to that of a minority, naturally resented the new setup," Roucek tells us, which is true, but the entire blame for the bad blood between the Czechs and the Germans, could hardly be placed on the latter, as Roucek would have us do. Masaryk and Benes and their followers were responsible for what happened in and to Czecho-Slovakia, because they practically ran the whole show. "But why did the Czechs ask that this hostile element be included in their state? In the memorandum which the Czechs submitted to the Peace Conference, they claimed the historic frontiers of Bohemia. All history showed, they argued, and economic and strategic considerations demanded, that the historic Lands of the Bohemian Crown should remain a single unit. The exclusion of the Sudete areas would have broken the virtually indissoluble geographical and economic ties with central Bohemia. The Germans of Bohemia d6lsired to be united with the new Austrian Republic and not with the Reich. The areas settled by the Germans were never, of themselves, component parts of the German Reich nor were they independent elements in the former Austria• Hungary. So far as these territories were connected constitutionally with the Holy Roman Empire, they were connected solely as part and parcel of the Czech State, consisting of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, and only as an entity with those Lands." - (p. 178). Roucek's tendency is obvious: the Czechs had a claim, but the Germans did not. Bohemia, we know, was an independent kingdom until 1526; the Germans were no less a part of it than were the Czechs. Roucek, however, tells us that the territories settled by the Germans "were connected solely as part and parcel of the "CZECH" State and not the BOHEMIAN Crown lands. What Benes and Masaryk submitted to the Peace Conference to back their "claims" to the his- �SLOVAKIA 89 toric frontiers of Bohemia is one thing, but the truth is something else. Roucek apparently preferred not to deal with the latter. For his edification, I quote Robert Ingrim, eminent journalist and author, who says that: _ . . before Huss's reformation, Bohemia had been the scene of the most felicitous Czech-German cooperation. Of this, Prague, one of the most magnificent cities in Europe, is still a living witness. It must be added that in those dark times, when people had not yet learned to regard another language as a symptom of inferiority, no one spoke of Czechs or 'G ermans. They were just Bohemians. This explains why no two other races have more similarity than Czechs and Sudeten Germans. There was perpetual intermarriage and it became, in the towns, purely accidental whether a family considered itself German or Czech. The race which profited most by this close community were the Czechs because the Germans had an older and more highly developed culture and could draw from the great receptacle of the Germanies. The Czechs as part and parcel of the Holy Roman Empire became entirely different from Slavic peoples outside." ("After Hitler Stalin?" - 1946 - Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, Wis.; pp. 54-55) . It is significant that Roucek did not include the works of such eminent historians as C. A. Macartney and A. J. P. Taylor, which shed much light on Bohemia and the Habsburg Empire. Macartney, for example, says that Bohemia did "become a member of the German Reich," whereas Roucek claims that "the areas settled by the Germans were never, of themselves, component parts of the German Reich," which is a tricky way of putting it, to say the least. iHow many students and teachers of history, using Kerner's "Czechoslovakia," noticed or paid any attention to Roucek's "of themselves," and if some did, what did they make of it? What real claim did Masaryk and Benes have to the 3,231,688 Germans of Bohemia, the figure mentioned by Roucek (.p. 178)? Furthermore, according to Roucek: "The whole problem of the Sudete Germans was a counter in the game of power politics and a part of the larger problem of Germany in Europe. It was not a debate between the 11,000,000 Czecho-Slovaks and the 75,0'00,000 Germans concerning the treatment of Germans in Czecho-Slovakia, or the frontiers of that Repu'blic, or of the destiny of the national fragments which remained outside the German borders. It was a question of the desire of Germany to establish a new empire" (p. 182). Now this may have been the desire of Hitler after he came to power. But why should Roucek consider the Sudete �90 SLOVAKIA problem only from this angle? The situation in 1938 may have been ~s described, but what the Sudeten Germans themselves had to say about their treatment at the hands of the Czechs from 1918 to 1938 is not at all worth mentioning by Roucek. Furthermore, the debate certainly did not concern "11,000,000 Czecho-Slovaks," as Roucek would have us believe. The Slovaks had nothing to do with it; foreign policy was dominated by Benes and the Czechs. The Slovaks, we know, had their own arguments with the Czechs. The Czechs under Masaryk and Benes were on one side, while the non-Czech nationalities - the majority of the population of Czecho-Slovakia - were on the opposite side. The demands of these non-Czech nations may have been, as Roucek says, "incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy as understood and practiced in Czecho-Slovakia," nevertheless they were not incompatible with natural rights and the fundamental principles of democracy as understood and practiced in genuinely democratic countries. The simple truth is that the Czechs, especially the Masaryk-Bene s Czechs, did not learn the lesson of AustriaHungary. They followed Masaryk and Benes blindly, ruling high and mighty over the non-Czech nations, in the fashion of Stalin and Hitler. " The problem of nationalism played no part In Slovak ia up to the end of the eighteenth cen t ury because the official language of Hungary was Latin" (p. 183) . Following this line of reasoning, then, nationalism played no part in any country, at any time, whenever the official language of a country was any other than that of the inhabitants. Does professor Roucek really believe that? Writing about the period of Joseph II, when "Bohemian politics of the nineteenth century received their first rehearsal," A. J. P. Taylor says in his "The Habsburg Monarchy": Even In Bohemia the Imperial nobility, which had been Imported by the Habsburgs, cloaked their hostility to social reform In a display of Bohemian patriotism , and in the ante-rooms of the >Habsburgi the! descendants of German, ,Scottish, or Spanish adventurers ostentatiously exchanged a few words of CZECH which they had laboriously learnt from their stable-boys" (pp. 19-20). �SLOVAKIA 91 This relates to the time that Roucek writes about (Joseph died in 1790). What then was the official language of Bohemia, or of the Habsburg Empire up to the end of the eighteenth century? "The Slovaks were not considered as a minority by Prague, and certainly not by the Slovaks themselves. This is attested to by the fact that the Czech parties had their adherents in Slovakia, that there was no discrimination against the inclusion of Slovaks in various cabinets, and that Dr. Milan Hodza, a member of the R epublican Party and a Slovak, headed the cabinets from 1935 to 1938" (p. 184). If the Slovaks were not considered "as a minority" by Prague, what were they considered? An equal partner, a colony, a branch of the Czech nation? What does Roucek's "attestation" prove? What were CZECH parties doing in Slovakia? Does not Roucek know that the Slovaks selected by Masaryk and Benes for cabinet or other posts did not represent the will of the vast masses of the Slovak people? We remember that Judas was one of the apostles, too. Masaryk and Benes could hardly make the new-born Republic appear "Czecho-Slovak" without including several Slovaks in their cabinets. But those Slovaks knew that they had to serve the interests of Masaryk and Benes, the interests of the Czechs, if · they wanted to keep their posts. Every one of them repudiated the right of their own nation to freedom and political independence, nay, even autonomy (states' rights). What kind of Slovaks were they, if not "Judas" Slovaks? Dr. Milan Hod.fa was a smart politician; he knew what was best for Milan Hod.fa. He served Masaryk and Benes well for decades, but, in the end, was made the scapegoat of Munich, being discarded by Benes, as were so many other Slovaks and Czechs who got out of line with the policies of Masaryk and Benes. (Pergler, Stfibrny, Beran, Osusky, etc.). "The autonomist tendencies of the Catholic Slovaks found their expression, however, in the Slovak Populist Party of Father Andrej Hlinka, wt-lose policies can be understood best when we recall the demands for states' rights in the United States which culminated in the Civil War" (p. 184) . Roucek, however, omitted to mention that Hlinka was joined in "the autonomist tendencies" by the Lutheran minister and poet, Martin Razus, Slovak patriot and head of �92 SLOVAKIA the Slovak National Party. Biased historians propagate the idea that only the Slovak Catholics fought for autonomy (states' rights) :in Slovakia. What does Mr. Roucek mean when he says that Hlinka's policies "can be underst.ood best when we recall the demands for stat.es' rights in the United Stat.es which culminated in the Civil War"? In the first place, does it make sense to compare the relationship between the individual 48 States to the United States and the relationship of Slovakia to Czecho-Slovakia? Demands by how many states and for what states' rights culminated in the Civil War? Do not the States comprising the United States have their rights defined and secured by the Constitution of the U. S. A.? What states' rights did Slovakia have guaranteed and secured by the Czecho-Slovak Constitution of Masaryk and Benes, which, in fact , even denied the existence of the Slovak nation? Or is it possible that Mr. Roucek wants us to believe that Hlinka's .policies advocated slavery? It is quite obvious that Roucek did not know Hlinka and his policies! "The Czechs and the Slovaks had been separated politically for one thousand years. The former had become very largely industrialized, Influenced by German and Western thought and technical development. The Slovaks, on the contrary, r emained agriculturists and under a Magyar (that is, Eastern) type of culture. The Czechs were nominally Roman Catholics, and those who opposed Roman Catholicism during their national struggle against the Catholic tHabsburgs had earned the reputation in the eyes of devout Slovaks of being irreligious" (pp. 184-185). Roucek and other pro-Czech historians like to dwell on the theme that the Czechs and Slovaks were "separated politically for one thousand years," but somehow always forget to tell when and under what conditions the Czechs and Slovaks were ever united politically or otherwise. They also favor the theme that the Czechs were "largely industrialized," while the Slovaks "remained agriculturists," but never have an explanation for the fact that Slovakia was more industrialized under the Magyars of Hungary than it was under Masaryk and Benes of Czecho-Slovakia. The tendency is only too obvious! The Czechs, it is true, did not fare badly under the Germans (Austria); the Slovaks suffered incomparably greater �SLOVAKIA 93 political and economic oppression under the Magyars of Hungary. The culture of the Slovaks, however, was not "Magyar (that is, Eastern)," as Roucek maintains. The Slovaks evidently knew the Czechs better than Roucek did. Many Czechs were undoubtedly "nominally Roman Catholics," hut many times many mOTe became so-called "progressive" Roman Catholics, having succumbed to the influence of Huss, Palacky, Rieger, Havlicek, Masaryk and Benes. The Slovaks did not consider the Czechs "irreligious" because they fought against the "Catholic Ha:bsburgs," but rather because they repudiated the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and deeply insulted the religious feelings of the Slovak people by destroying religious monuments, removing crucifixes from classrooms, etc., soon after Masaryk and Benes took over the reins of the Czecho-Slova k State. Roucek may not like to admit it, nevertheless the possibility does exist that the Slovaks could have regarded the Czechs as "irreligious" also for denying the existence of the Slovak nation and its inherent and God-given right to freedom and political independence. Or is it possible that Roucek believes that recognition of and respect for the natural rights of nations does not come under the title of religion? "Whereas the standard of literacy among the Czechs was high, the percentage of Slovaks who could read and write was very low In 1919. For that reason, many officials, teachers, and intellectuals from the Czech regions had to be sent to Slovakia in 1918-1919, and many of them antagonized the Slovaks with their well-intentioned, but often too matter-of-fact, methods . . . When, during the eourse of time, Slovaks became available, it was not easy to dismiss the Czechs, many of whom had married and settled down" (p. 185). By what standards or statistics professor Roucek was influenced, I do not know, but I honestly believe that his statement regarding the literacy of the Slovaks in 1919 is highly exaggerated. How low is very low? What were the "well-intentioned, but often too matter-of-fac t, methods" of Czech intellectuals which antagonized the Slovaks? Is it not significant that Roucek has no sympathy for the many Slovaks who, during the course of time, did become available, got married and had children, but could hardly settle down in their own homeland, because the jobs they had been trained for were taken by Czechs? R. W. Seton-Watson , the �94 SLOVAKIA Czech propagandi st, admits much more in his "The New Slovakia" (Fr. Borovy, Prague; 1924) ; I heartily recommend it to Roucek and to all readers of Kerner's "Czechoslo vakia." The fact is that Prague sent about 110,000 Czechs to Slovakia to do jobs which the Slovaks themselves could have done erusily and effectively. Roucek asks "what was the Pittsburgh Agreement ?" and then answers the typical Masaryk-B enes way, using Ivan Derer's (the Judas Slovak) "The Unity of the Czechs and Slovaks" (Prague, 1938) and Benes's "Central European Observer" (Dec. 16, 1938) as his "catechism s"! It is evident that Roucek never even saw a copy of the original, because he dates the Pittsburgh Agreement June 30, 1918, instead of May 30, 1918, the same mistake made by other Czech propagandists, including T. G. Masaryk (Svet.ova Revoluce, p. 262) and professor S. Harrison Thomson of the University of Colorado, author of "Czechoslovakia in European mstory" (Princeton University Press, 1953) and editor of the "Journal of Central European Affairs." Roucek does not produce the full text of the Pittsburgh Agreement , but simply states: "These American Czechs and Slovaks, together with Dr. Masaryk, agreed that Slovakia should 'have her own administrativ e system, her own diet and her own courts, (and that) the Slovak the official language in the schools, In the public affairs generally'. Actually the points in agreement ried out - except the one stipulating the setting up kia." language should be offices and public were virtually carof a diet for Slova- Roucek, however, does not tell the whole story about the Pittsburgh Agreement . By presenting only the Czech side and omitting the Slovak side of it, he proves himself partial and prejudiced. Without the support of the Slovaks, T. G. Masaryk knew that his proposed "Czecho-Sl ovakia" was doomed. There was no way of contacting the Slovaks at home (in Hungary at that time), hence he came to the United States to seek the support of Americans of Slovak descent; also the support of Americans of Czech descent, since the Czechs at home did not react favorably to Masaryk's plan to destroy Austria-Hu ngary and to establish CzechoSlovakia. The weightiest objection to Masaryk's plan was that �SLOVAKIA 95 about six and a half million Czechs would hardly make a .state fit to live, even if they were allowed to swallow three and a half million Germans in order to obtain the historical frontiers of the Bohemian kingdom. To meet this argument, Robert Ing,rirn tells us ("After Hitler Stalin" - ip. 80): "Masaryk invented the fiction that the Czechs and Slovaks were the same, that is Czecho-Slovaks, thus claiming a large part of Hungary for his new state. As this discovery failed to impress the Allies, he enlisted the support of the Americans of Slovakian descent. Disliking the Magyars, who . . . had not given them a fair deal, they favored the idea of separating Slovakia from Hungary. But sufficiently history conscious, they rejected emphatically the theory of the Czecho-Slovak race." Americans of Slovak descent did not put much trust in Masaryk's oral pronouncements and promises. They remembered that the Magyars had made quite a few promises to the Slovaks and never kept them. When Masaryk came to America to gain the support of the citizens of Slovak descent, the latter insisted on a written guaranree that Slovakia would enjoy full autonomy (states' rights) within the proposed Czecho-Slovakian republic. The result was the Pittsburgh Agreement or Convention which Masaryk drafted and signed during a meeting of representatives of Slovak and Czech organizations at Pittsburgh, Pa., May 30, 1918. Masaryk, however, repudiated it soon after he and Benes took over the reins of the Czecho-Slovak State. To refute Slovakia's claim for autonomy, Masaryk wrote in 1925: "It (the Pittsburgh Convention) was concluded in order to appease a small Slovak fraction which was dreaming of God knows what sort of independence for Slovakia ... I signed the agreement unhesitatingly because it was a local agreement of American Czechs and Slovaks between themselves'' (SVETOV.A REVOLUCE, p . 262). To attain a "Czecho-Slovak" majority in the proposed Czecho-Slovak Republic T. G. Masaryk did not hesitate to resort to• falsehood and dishonesty. How else can we explain his preposterous statement that the Pittsburgh Agreement was only a "local agreement of American Czechs and Slovaks between themselves"! What need did .Amerkan Crechs and Slovaks have for such an agreement? And if Masaryk actually did think it was only a "local agreement" between Americans, why did he, a foreigner, even consider drafting and signing it? iHe con- �96 SLOVAKIA eluded the agreement, he says, "in order to appease a small SWVAK fraction which was dreaming of God knows what sort of independence for Slovakia," but the fact is that the Slovaks at that Pittsburgh meeting represented an overwhelming majority of organized Slovaks in America. And what sort of independence for Slovakia could they possibly be dreaming of when Masaryk himself told them that CzechoSlovakia would be modeled after the United States or Switzerland? In 1918, T. G. Masaryk presented the Pittsburgh Convention to President Woodrow Wilson as a solemn treaty between the Slovaks and the Czechs to induce him to grant official recognition to the Czech and Slovak union and its provisional government. Wilson would hardly have been charmed by Masaryk to destroy Austria if Masaryk had described the Pittsburgh convention, in 1918, in the disparaging terms he set in the record in 1925. The "great" Masaryk, who so persistently insisted on the truth in all things, obviously lied to President Wilson and the Slovaks! By saying that "actually the points in agreement were virtually carried out - except the one stipulating the setting up of a diet for Slovakia," professor Roucek admits that he does not know what went on in Czecho-Slovakia and, hence, is hardly qualified to write with authority about that country, and especially the Slovak portion of it. The fact is that the Masaryk and Benes regimes were deaf to the just demand of the Slovaks that the Pittsburgh Convention be honored by the Constitution of the Czecho-Slovak Republic and, hence, both were responsible for the consequences. The relations between the Czechs and the Slovaks were actually worse in 1938 than they were in 1918. (More Coming) • • • He1p expose the political monstrosity that was CzechoSlov;aJkia by getting the SLOV'AK NEWSLEITER to as many Americans as possible. Renew youT subscriptions NOW and send one in for a friend . The BEST availaJble mNGLlSH-1SLOVAlK DICTIONARY? Yes, we have it. Get your copy of HROBAICS ENGLISH-.SLOVAK DICTIONARY today! Only $4.00 per copy. � 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 1956, Vol. 6 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 1 (No. 18), March 1956.</li> <li>Issue 2 (No. 19), June 1956.</li> <li>Issue 3-4 (No. 20-21), September-December 1956.</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 1956 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 Kerner's "Czechoslov~kia" (Cont'd.) IDSTORY OR PROPAGANDA? P.A. HROBAK "With the formation of the Czecho,Slovak State, the Germans refused to accept the new situation and to cooperate with the new government at Prague" (p. 177) . But the fact is that even though they were forced to accept the situation, on various occasions the Sudetenlanders showed their willingness to cooperate with Prague, but the Czechs were not disposed to cooperate. "The Germans, reduced from the position of dominance to that of a minority, naturally resented the new setup," Roucek tells us, which is true, but the entire blame for the bad blood between the Czechs and the Germans, could hardly be placed on the latter, as Roucek would have us do. Masaryk and Benes and their followers were responsible for what happened in and to Czecho-Slovakia, because they practically ran the whole show. "But why did the Czechs ask that this hostile element be included in their state? In the memorandum which the Czechs submitted to the Peace Conference, they claimed the historic frontiers of Bohemia. All history showed, they argued, and economic and strategic considerations demanded, that the historic Lands of the Bohemian Crown should remain a single unit. The exclusion of the Sudete areas would have broken the virtually indissoluble geographical and economic ties with central Bohemia. The Germans of Bohemia d6lsired to be united with the new Austrian Republic and not with the Reich. The areas settled by the Germans were never, of themselves, component parts of the German Reich nor were they independent elements in the former Austria• Hungary. So far as these territories were connected constitutionally with the Holy Roman Empire, they were connected solely as part and parcel of the Czech State, consisting of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, and only as an entity with those Lands." - (p. 178). Roucek's tendency is obvious: the Czechs had a claim, but the Germans did not. Bohemia, we know, was an independent kingdom until 1526; the Germans were no less a part of it than were the Czechs. Roucek, however, tells us that the territories settled by the Germans "were connected solely as part and parcel of the "CZECH" State and not the BOHEMIAN Crown lands. What Benes and Masaryk submitted to the Peace Conference to back their "claims" to the his- SLOVAKIA 89 toric frontiers of Bohemia is one thing, but the truth is something else. Roucek apparently preferred not to deal with the latter. For his edification, I quote Robert Ingrim, eminent journalist and author, who says that: _ . . before Huss's reformation, Bohemia had been the scene of the most felicitous Czech-German cooperation. Of this, Prague, one of the most magnificent cities in Europe, is still a living witness. It must be added that in those dark times, when people had not yet learned to regard another language as a symptom of inferiority, no one spoke of Czechs or 'G ermans. They were just Bohemians. This explains why no two other races have more similarity than Czechs and Sudeten Germans. There was perpetual intermarriage and it became, in the towns, purely accidental whether a family considered itself German or Czech. The race which profited most by this close community were the Czechs because the Germans had an older and more highly developed culture and could draw from the great receptacle of the Germanies. The Czechs as part and parcel of the Holy Roman Empire became entirely different from Slavic peoples outside." ("After Hitler Stalin?" - 1946 - Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, Wis.; pp. 54-55) . It is significant that Roucek did not include the works of such eminent historians as C. A. Macartney and A. J. P. Taylor, which shed much light on Bohemia and the Habsburg Empire. Macartney, for example, says that Bohemia did "become a member of the German Reich," whereas Roucek claims that "the areas settled by the Germans were never, of themselves, component parts of the German Reich," which is a tricky way of putting it, to say the least. iHow many students and teachers of history, using Kerner's "Czechoslovakia," noticed or paid any attention to Roucek's "of themselves," and if some did, what did they make of it? What real claim did Masaryk and Benes have to the 3,231,688 Germans of Bohemia, the figure mentioned by Roucek (.p. 178)? Furthermore, according to Roucek: "The whole problem of the Sudete Germans was a counter in the game of power politics and a part of the larger problem of Germany in Europe. It was not a debate between the 11,000,000 Czecho-Slovaks and the 75,0'00,000 Germans concerning the treatment of Germans in Czecho-Slovakia, or the frontiers of that Repu'blic, or of the destiny of the national fragments which remained outside the German borders. It was a question of the desire of Germany to establish a new empire" (p. 182). Now this may have been the desire of Hitler after he came to power. But why should Roucek consider the Sudete 90 SLOVAKIA problem only from this angle? The situation in 1938 may have been ~s described, but what the Sudeten Germans themselves had to say about their treatment at the hands of the Czechs from 1918 to 1938 is not at all worth mentioning by Roucek. Furthermore, the debate certainly did not concern "11,000,000 Czecho-Slovaks," as Roucek would have us believe. The Slovaks had nothing to do with it; foreign policy was dominated by Benes and the Czechs. The Slovaks, we know, had their own arguments with the Czechs. The Czechs under Masaryk and Benes were on one side, while the non-Czech nationalities - the majority of the population of Czecho-Slovakia - were on the opposite side. The demands of these non-Czech nations may have been, as Roucek says, "incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy as understood and practiced in Czecho-Slovakia," nevertheless they were not incompatible with natural rights and the fundamental principles of democracy as understood and practiced in genuinely democratic countries. The simple truth is that the Czechs, especially the Masaryk-Bene s Czechs, did not learn the lesson of AustriaHungary. They followed Masaryk and Benes blindly, ruling high and mighty over the non-Czech nations, in the fashion of Stalin and Hitler. " The problem of nationalism played no part In Slovak ia up to the end of the eighteenth cen t ury because the official language of Hungary was Latin" (p. 183) . Following this line of reasoning, then, nationalism played no part in any country, at any time, whenever the official language of a country was any other than that of the inhabitants. Does professor Roucek really believe that? Writing about the period of Joseph II, when "Bohemian politics of the nineteenth century received their first rehearsal," A. J. P. Taylor says in his "The Habsburg Monarchy": Even In Bohemia the Imperial nobility, which had been Imported by the Habsburgs, cloaked their hostility to social reform In a display of Bohemian patriotism , and in the ante-rooms of the >Habsburgi the! descendants of German, ,Scottish, or Spanish adventurers ostentatiously exchanged a few words of CZECH which they had laboriously learnt from their stable-boys" (pp. 19-20). SLOVAKIA 91 This relates to the time that Roucek writes about (Joseph died in 1790). What then was the official language of Bohemia, or of the Habsburg Empire up to the end of the eighteenth century? "The Slovaks were not considered as a minority by Prague, and certainly not by the Slovaks themselves. This is attested to by the fact that the Czech parties had their adherents in Slovakia, that there was no discrimination against the inclusion of Slovaks in various cabinets, and that Dr. Milan Hodza, a member of the R epublican Party and a Slovak, headed the cabinets from 1935 to 1938" (p. 184). If the Slovaks were not considered "as a minority" by Prague, what were they considered? An equal partner, a colony, a branch of the Czech nation? What does Roucek's "attestation" prove? What were CZECH parties doing in Slovakia? Does not Roucek know that the Slovaks selected by Masaryk and Benes for cabinet or other posts did not represent the will of the vast masses of the Slovak people? We remember that Judas was one of the apostles, too. Masaryk and Benes could hardly make the new-born Republic appear "Czecho-Slovak" without including several Slovaks in their cabinets. But those Slovaks knew that they had to serve the interests of Masaryk and Benes, the interests of the Czechs, if · they wanted to keep their posts. Every one of them repudiated the right of their own nation to freedom and political independence, nay, even autonomy (states' rights). What kind of Slovaks were they, if not "Judas" Slovaks? Dr. Milan Hod.fa was a smart politician; he knew what was best for Milan Hod.fa. He served Masaryk and Benes well for decades, but, in the end, was made the scapegoat of Munich, being discarded by Benes, as were so many other Slovaks and Czechs who got out of line with the policies of Masaryk and Benes. (Pergler, Stfibrny, Beran, Osusky, etc.). "The autonomist tendencies of the Catholic Slovaks found their expression, however, in the Slovak Populist Party of Father Andrej Hlinka, wt-lose policies can be understood best when we recall the demands for states' rights in the United States which culminated in the Civil War" (p. 184) . Roucek, however, omitted to mention that Hlinka was joined in "the autonomist tendencies" by the Lutheran minister and poet, Martin Razus, Slovak patriot and head of 92 SLOVAKIA the Slovak National Party. Biased historians propagate the idea that only the Slovak Catholics fought for autonomy (states' rights) :in Slovakia. What does Mr. Roucek mean when he says that Hlinka's policies "can be underst.ood best when we recall the demands for stat.es' rights in the United Stat.es which culminated in the Civil War"? In the first place, does it make sense to compare the relationship between the individual 48 States to the United States and the relationship of Slovakia to Czecho-Slovakia? Demands by how many states and for what states' rights culminated in the Civil War? Do not the States comprising the United States have their rights defined and secured by the Constitution of the U. S. A.? What states' rights did Slovakia have guaranteed and secured by the Czecho-Slovak Constitution of Masaryk and Benes, which, in fact , even denied the existence of the Slovak nation? Or is it possible that Mr. Roucek wants us to believe that Hlinka's .policies advocated slavery? It is quite obvious that Roucek did not know Hlinka and his policies! "The Czechs and the Slovaks had been separated politically for one thousand years. The former had become very largely industrialized, Influenced by German and Western thought and technical development. The Slovaks, on the contrary, r emained agriculturists and under a Magyar (that is, Eastern) type of culture. The Czechs were nominally Roman Catholics, and those who opposed Roman Catholicism during their national struggle against the Catholic tHabsburgs had earned the reputation in the eyes of devout Slovaks of being irreligious" (pp. 184-185). Roucek and other pro-Czech historians like to dwell on the theme that the Czechs and Slovaks were "separated politically for one thousand years," but somehow always forget to tell when and under what conditions the Czechs and Slovaks were ever united politically or otherwise. They also favor the theme that the Czechs were "largely industrialized," while the Slovaks "remained agriculturists," but never have an explanation for the fact that Slovakia was more industrialized under the Magyars of Hungary than it was under Masaryk and Benes of Czecho-Slovakia. The tendency is only too obvious! The Czechs, it is true, did not fare badly under the Germans (Austria); the Slovaks suffered incomparably greater SLOVAKIA 93 political and economic oppression under the Magyars of Hungary. The culture of the Slovaks, however, was not "Magyar (that is, Eastern)," as Roucek maintains. The Slovaks evidently knew the Czechs better than Roucek did. Many Czechs were undoubtedly "nominally Roman Catholics," hut many times many mOTe became so-called "progressive" Roman Catholics, having succumbed to the influence of Huss, Palacky, Rieger, Havlicek, Masaryk and Benes. The Slovaks did not consider the Czechs "irreligious" because they fought against the "Catholic Ha:bsburgs," but rather because they repudiated the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and deeply insulted the religious feelings of the Slovak people by destroying religious monuments, removing crucifixes from classrooms, etc., soon after Masaryk and Benes took over the reins of the Czecho-Slova k State. Roucek may not like to admit it, nevertheless the possibility does exist that the Slovaks could have regarded the Czechs as "irreligious" also for denying the existence of the Slovak nation and its inherent and God-given right to freedom and political independence. Or is it possible that Roucek believes that recognition of and respect for the natural rights of nations does not come under the title of religion? "Whereas the standard of literacy among the Czechs was high, the percentage of Slovaks who could read and write was very low In 1919. For that reason, many officials, teachers, and intellectuals from the Czech regions had to be sent to Slovakia in 1918-1919, and many of them antagonized the Slovaks with their well-intentioned, but often too matter-of-fact, methods . . . When, during the eourse of time, Slovaks became available, it was not easy to dismiss the Czechs, many of whom had married and settled down" (p. 185). By what standards or statistics professor Roucek was influenced, I do not know, but I honestly believe that his statement regarding the literacy of the Slovaks in 1919 is highly exaggerated. How low is very low? What were the "well-intentioned, but often too matter-of-fac t, methods" of Czech intellectuals which antagonized the Slovaks? Is it not significant that Roucek has no sympathy for the many Slovaks who, during the course of time, did become available, got married and had children, but could hardly settle down in their own homeland, because the jobs they had been trained for were taken by Czechs? R. W. Seton-Watson , the 94 SLOVAKIA Czech propagandi st, admits much more in his "The New Slovakia" (Fr. Borovy, Prague; 1924) ; I heartily recommend it to Roucek and to all readers of Kerner's "Czechoslo vakia." The fact is that Prague sent about 110,000 Czechs to Slovakia to do jobs which the Slovaks themselves could have done erusily and effectively. Roucek asks "what was the Pittsburgh Agreement ?" and then answers the typical Masaryk-B enes way, using Ivan Derer's (the Judas Slovak) "The Unity of the Czechs and Slovaks" (Prague, 1938) and Benes's "Central European Observer" (Dec. 16, 1938) as his "catechism s"! It is evident that Roucek never even saw a copy of the original, because he dates the Pittsburgh Agreement June 30, 1918, instead of May 30, 1918, the same mistake made by other Czech propagandists, including T. G. Masaryk (Svet.ova Revoluce, p. 262) and professor S. Harrison Thomson of the University of Colorado, author of "Czechoslovakia in European mstory" (Princeton University Press, 1953) and editor of the "Journal of Central European Affairs." Roucek does not produce the full text of the Pittsburgh Agreement , but simply states: "These American Czechs and Slovaks, together with Dr. Masaryk, agreed that Slovakia should 'have her own administrativ e system, her own diet and her own courts, (and that) the Slovak the official language in the schools, In the public affairs generally'. Actually the points in agreement ried out - except the one stipulating the setting up kia." language should be offices and public were virtually carof a diet for Slova- Roucek, however, does not tell the whole story about the Pittsburgh Agreement . By presenting only the Czech side and omitting the Slovak side of it, he proves himself partial and prejudiced. Without the support of the Slovaks, T. G. Masaryk knew that his proposed "Czecho-Sl ovakia" was doomed. There was no way of contacting the Slovaks at home (in Hungary at that time), hence he came to the United States to seek the support of Americans of Slovak descent; also the support of Americans of Czech descent, since the Czechs at home did not react favorably to Masaryk's plan to destroy Austria-Hu ngary and to establish CzechoSlovakia. The weightiest objection to Masaryk's plan was that SLOVAKIA 95 about six and a half million Czechs would hardly make a .state fit to live, even if they were allowed to swallow three and a half million Germans in order to obtain the historical frontiers of the Bohemian kingdom. To meet this argument, Robert Ing,rirn tells us ("After Hitler Stalin" - ip. 80): "Masaryk invented the fiction that the Czechs and Slovaks were the same, that is Czecho-Slovaks, thus claiming a large part of Hungary for his new state. As this discovery failed to impress the Allies, he enlisted the support of the Americans of Slovakian descent. Disliking the Magyars, who . . . had not given them a fair deal, they favored the idea of separating Slovakia from Hungary. But sufficiently history conscious, they rejected emphatically the theory of the Czecho-Slovak race." Americans of Slovak descent did not put much trust in Masaryk's oral pronouncements and promises. They remembered that the Magyars had made quite a few promises to the Slovaks and never kept them. When Masaryk came to America to gain the support of the citizens of Slovak descent, the latter insisted on a written guaranree that Slovakia would enjoy full autonomy (states' rights) within the proposed Czecho-Slovakian republic. The result was the Pittsburgh Agreement or Convention which Masaryk drafted and signed during a meeting of representatives of Slovak and Czech organizations at Pittsburgh, Pa., May 30, 1918. Masaryk, however, repudiated it soon after he and Benes took over the reins of the Czecho-Slovak State. To refute Slovakia's claim for autonomy, Masaryk wrote in 1925: "It (the Pittsburgh Convention) was concluded in order to appease a small Slovak fraction which was dreaming of God knows what sort of independence for Slovakia ... I signed the agreement unhesitatingly because it was a local agreement of American Czechs and Slovaks between themselves'' (SVETOV.A REVOLUCE, p . 262). To attain a "Czecho-Slovak" majority in the proposed Czecho-Slovak Republic T. G. Masaryk did not hesitate to resort to• falsehood and dishonesty. How else can we explain his preposterous statement that the Pittsburgh Agreement was only a "local agreement of American Czechs and Slovaks between themselves"! What need did .Amerkan Crechs and Slovaks have for such an agreement? And if Masaryk actually did think it was only a "local agreement" between Americans, why did he, a foreigner, even consider drafting and signing it? iHe con- 96 SLOVAKIA eluded the agreement, he says, "in order to appease a small SWVAK fraction which was dreaming of God knows what sort of independence for Slovakia," but the fact is that the Slovaks at that Pittsburgh meeting represented an overwhelming majority of organized Slovaks in America. And what sort of independence for Slovakia could they possibly be dreaming of when Masaryk himself told them that CzechoSlovakia would be modeled after the United States or Switzerland? In 1918, T. G. Masaryk presented the Pittsburgh Convention to President Woodrow Wilson as a solemn treaty between the Slovaks and the Czechs to induce him to grant official recognition to the Czech and Slovak union and its provisional government. Wilson would hardly have been charmed by Masaryk to destroy Austria if Masaryk had described the Pittsburgh convention, in 1918, in the disparaging terms he set in the record in 1925. The "great" Masaryk, who so persistently insisted on the truth in all things, obviously lied to President Wilson and the Slovaks! By saying that "actually the points in agreement were virtually carried out - except the one stipulating the setting up of a diet for Slovakia," professor Roucek admits that he does not know what went on in Czecho-Slovakia and, hence, is hardly qualified to write with authority about that country, and especially the Slovak portion of it. The fact is that the Masaryk and Benes regimes were deaf to the just demand of the Slovaks that the Pittsburgh Convention be honored by the Constitution of the Czecho-Slovak Republic and, hence, both were responsible for the consequences. The relations between the Czechs and the Slovaks were actually worse in 1938 than they were in 1918. (More Coming) • • • He1p expose the political monstrosity that was CzechoSlov;aJkia by getting the SLOV'AK NEWSLEITER to as many Americans as possible. Renew youT subscriptions NOW and send one in for a friend . The BEST availaJble mNGLlSH-1SLOVAlK DICTIONARY? Yes, we have it. Get your copy of HROBAICS ENGLISH-.SLOVAK DICTIONARY today! Only $4.00 per copy.  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 Professor Kerner's "CZECHOSLOVAKIA": History or Propaganda? (5/8) Description An account of the resource P. A. Hrobak Slovakia, Vol. 6, No. 3-4 (20-21), September-December 1956 pp. 88-96 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hrobak, Philip Anthony, 1904-1964 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource September-December 1956 Relation A related resource continued from <a href="/items/show/213">Vol. 6, No. 2 (19), pp. 61-64</a><br />continues in <a href="/items/show/251">Vol. 7, No. 1 (22), pp. 59-64</a> LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/56f2b6a27cb6faf1e9d6592a8ddd5f01.pdf 8259601ea19a53524701c45296a43eaf PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 59 In 900 A. D. the Germans _again invaded Mojmir's territory, this time aided by the Czechs. After a terrific battle Mojmir II was forced to sue for peace, because his country was completely exhausted from constant warfare. After a peace was negotiated with the Germans, Mojmir sought to renew the church organization in the land of the Slovaks. After the expulsion of the disciples of Methodius and the death of Bishop Wiching, the Church was in a state of collapse. Mojmir II sent a special delegation to Rome with his request for aid. Pope John IX heard his plea and appointed an archbishop and two bishops to take over the burdens of the Church in the land of the Slovaks. Mojmir :LI worked assiduously and courageously to save his country from impending doom, but the odds were against him. To the danger from the west was added the menace from the east. The fierce Magyars, who from 896 had settled in the valley of the lower Danube and made continual attacks on their neighbors, tore into Slovakia in 902. Mojmir rallied his forces and successfully repulsed the Magyar hordes. But the nomadic Mongols were not to be denied. After every setback, they retreated and prepared for a new attack. The Slovaks defended the independence of their country heroically, but finally were overpowered by the overwhelming forces of their enemies. In 906 Moj.mir's state collapsed and the Slovak nation lost its independence. (Continu ed) • • • Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" (Cont'd.) HISTORY OR PROPAGANDA? P.A. HROBAK "The tragedy of Czecho-Slovakia's fate hinged, of course, not on whether this democracy treated her minorities 'justly' or not, but on the fact that the minorities were used as 'Trojan horses' for the aggressive policies of the neighboring Powers. After all, it is not even debatable that Germany's minorities, and particularly the Jews, have been treated with much less 'justice' than Czecho-Slovakia's minorities. The same statement applies to the fate of the minirities in Hungary and Poland. The Polish treatment of her minorities in �60 SLOVAKIA particular appears paradoxical in relation to the demands that Warsaw made on Prague regarding the Polish minority in Teschen" - p. (188). It is hardly the task of an objective historian to act the role of apologist, but Roucek obviously seemed to forget that. The fact is that Czecho-Slovakia's fate was determined in a very large measure by the way the Masaryk and Benes regimes treated their minorities, and especially their "equal partners," the Slovaks. The "Czecho-Slovak" treatment of minorities and the Slovaks cannot be justified by the argument that the Germans and Poles treated their minorities less justly or more harshly. The historical fact remains that after twenty years of Czech rule, under Masaryk and Benes, all neighboring states hated Czecho-Slovakia, and her citizens, the Czechs included, refused to fire a single shot in her defense. And that tells us just about everything: Czecho-Slovakia was not worth fighting for! • • • "The only democratic country in a world of fascist and semifascist central and eastern European states, Czecho-Slovakia consistently suppressed ant-Jewish manifestations" - (p. 189). Roucek said it and Kerner published it in his "Czechoslovakia," but students of history should demand a bill of full particulars of at least some such actual manifestations. And, of course, we might also ask the "experts" on CzechoSlovakia whether the Masaryk-Benes "democracy" consistently suppressed anti-Christian and, particularly, anti-Catholic manifestations? Such manifestations evidently did not merit attention of Roucek and other pro-Czech historians. • • • After quoting statistics from "official" Czech sources t o explain population trends in Czecho-Slovakia, which, naturally, favored the Czechs at the expense of the minorities and the Slovaks, Mr. Roucek concludes his chapter (IX in Kerner's "Czechoslovakia") with this propagandistic extravaganza : "The inescapable conclusion is that the problem of Czecho-Slovakia's minorities was not so serious as the German and Magyar propaganda led others to believe; furthermore, that it could have been solved gradually and peacefully if Prague had been allowed to run its own affairs . . . . Did Czecho-Slovakia make a mistake in try- �SLOVAKIA 61 iing to solve her problem of minorities by de1T1ocratic, rather than by brutal and violent, methods, as her neighbors have done?" (p 192). • How naive can one get? We know that the Czechs (Prague) ran not only their own affairs, but also the affairs of the Slovaks, Magyars, Poles, Germans and Ruthenians, in the Czecho-Slovak Republic. The Masaryk-Benes regimes were anti-Slovak and anti-minority, but pro-Soviet at the same time. Hence, the problem of the minorities was more serious than pictured by Roucek, since, in the end, the Slovaks and all minorities were not willing to commit national suicide. The policies of Masaryk and Benes determined the fate of Czecho-Slovakia. By what "democratic" methods did the Masaryk-Benes regimes try to solve the problem of Czecho-Slovakia's minorities? Confiscation and censorship of the press, repudiation of natural rights and the right of free assembly, economic and political oppression - are these the "democratic" methods alluded to by Roucek? And what could have been more brutal and violent than the forced, inhumane expulsion of three and a half million Germans and hundreds of thousands of Magyars, and the complete sell-out of the Czech and Slovak nations by Benes to Stalin? • • • • • • Chapter X of Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" was contrib, uted by Lucy E. Textor (Vassar College); it is titled "Agriculture and Agrarian Reform." The biblography given at the end of the chapter is dominated by Czech authors. Scandals arising from the Land Reform act, as set up and executed by the Czechs, particularly by leading Czech politicians, are carefully omitted. "Czechoslovakia's Economic Development and Achievements" - Chapter XII of the book under consideration was written by Gerhard Schacher, member of the faculty of Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University. There was no other country in central Europe which was to such a degree able and willing to modernize and rationalize its entire economic system by its own means and almost entirely without foreign support," says Schacher, and "that this was done in Czechoslovakia without aiming at �62 SLOVAKIA self-sufficiency was one of the greatest economic achievements in central Europe after the World War" - (p. 240). Just how Czecho-Slovakia was able to do that, however, is not clearly explained by Mr. Schacher. To him "Czechoslovakia" apparently means "Czech" (Czech: goods, labor, trade, imports, exports, manufacturers, businessmen, workers, armament, plants, crown, etc.). The rise of CZECH industry was phenomenal, indeed, but the professor somehow forgot to put down for the record what hapened to SLOVAK industry, which had existed in the land of the Slovaks during the Hungarian State. The tendency here, as elsewhere, is only too obvious . • • • • • • Brackett Lewis - A.B., Oberlin College; "engaged in war service with the Y. M. C. A. in Russia and in post-war service in central Russia, Archangel, Odessa, Vladivostok, Constantinople, and in Riga, Latvia, 1917-1928; director of the Y. M. C. A. of Czechoslovakia and secretary of the American Institute in Prague, 1928-1938" - wrote Chapter Xill entitled 'Social Reform and Social Legislation." He proves, even though I doubt he did it consciously, that Czecho-Slovkia was a socialistic state from the start. According to Lewis "a democratic outlook, which has been the characteristic of the Czechs since 1848, seemed to pervade all classes, and found expression in literature, education, and the professions, as well as in political life" (p. 253). While in Prague (1928-1938), Mr. Lewis was supposed to have made "special" studies of social and labor legislation and of the political system of the Republic, which resulted in his writing the book "Facts About Democray in Czechoslovakia" (Prague, 1938). The studies must have been "special," indeed, since Mr. Lewis apparently remained quite ignorant about the Slovaks and their country; his "facts" are for the most part Czech propaganda and not objective history. Chapter XIV - "Humanitarian Progress" - is the brain-child of Herbert Adolphus Miller (vd. Chapter V), according to whom: "The seeds that produced the social program of Czechoslovakia lie deep in history. The moral integrity of Hus and the democratic �SLOVAKIA 63 educational theories of Comenius (Komensky) were combined with many other forces through the ages to prepare the people for what they accomplished after 1918. The Declaration of Independence, written by Masaryk, not only embodied his own philosophy but also reflected the past and foreshadowed a future of which his countrymen approved" - (p. 271). But the fact is that "the seeds that produced the social program of Czechoslovakia" do not lie deep in SLOVAK history; the social program was strictly according to Masaryk and Benes and their followers, who tried even to "remake" Czech history. The "moral integrity" of Hus and the democratic educational theories" of Comenius, to: gether with "many other forces," may have prepared T. G. Masaryk, Edward Benes, and other Czech socialists for what they accomplished after 1918, and especially after 1945. We know what happened. Genuine Slovak patriots, however, preferred ta repudiate these "progressive" forces and were content to remain the nation of Sts. Cyril and Methodius. • • • "The Declaration of Independence," according to Miller in his Chapter on "Humanitarian Progress," was written by Masaryk, but what did this same Herbert Adolphus Miller say about this Declaration in a previous Chapter of the same book (pp. 83-86)? For the edification of present and future historians, and in the interest of historical truth, I believe a reproduction is in order. Mr. Miller said: "According to William E. Dodd" (Woodrow Wilson and His Work, p. 278), " 'on July 4, 1918, a mass meeting of the Czechoslovaks in Independence Hall in Philadelphia, issued a formal Declaration of Independence. President Wilson lent his support to this movement and finally announced American recognition of Czechoslovakia on September 2, 1918.' Mr. Dodd confused the frequent claims for independence by an unauthorized group with the official Declaration made by Masaryk, which was dated October 18, 1918. There is, however, a widespread and erroneous belief that Masaryk proclaimed it from Independence Hall. "The facts are as follows. Early in October, through the Swedish Minister, President Wilson had received a communication from Emperor Charles of Austria, proposing a reorganization of the empire. Wilson, as has been stated earlier, had told Masaryk that no decisions would be arrived at about Austria-Hungary without consult- �64 SLOVAKIA ing him. Wilson knew at this time that a Czechoslovak Declaration, of Independence was being prepared by Professor Masaryk. "About four o'clock on the afternoon of October 16, Mr. Cisar, Professor Masaryk's secretary, came to the room of the present writer (Herbert Adolphus Miller) in the Powhatan Hotel and, handing him an envelope, said: 'This is the Czechoslovak Declaration of Independence. The professor wants you to put it into good English.• On reading it over, the present writer decided that its style would be quite without appeal to the American public which it, in part, sought to influence, and that it needed complete revision. Accordingly, through chance assistance, he gathered together seven men,. including two lawyers and Mr. Cisar, and set to work. "Great care was taken to keep all the meaning of the original and at the same time to give a vigor of statement that would appeal to Americans. Every word and every sentence was weighed. The original typewritten copy was cut into more than a hundred pieces and pasted together in different order and then revised again and again. The group worked from seven-thirty in the evening until one- thirty in the morning of October 17, 1918. "Later in the forenoon, with Mr. Calfee, a Cleveland lawyer who had been present the previous evening, the present writer went to Professor Masaryk's residence, where again a detailed study was made of form and content, modifications being made wherever the meaning had been changed in the work of the night before. The rest of the day was spent in working on the text and about two o'clock on the morning of the eighteenth the Declaration was cabled to Dr. Benes in Paris. "In the forenoon of October 18, the present writer had a number of copies multigraphed and a special typewritten copy made for President Wilson. These are the only ORIGINAL copies of the Declaration that ever existed; even the copy that was given to the multigrapher has been lost. The question of when the Declaration should be published, whether in the morning or in the evening papers, was carefully weighed and it was finally decided to have it published in the morning papers, October 19. It was deliberately held until 4:00 P. M. of the eighteenth, for two reasons : that gave time enough for the Declaration to be cabled from Paris, where it was technically issued on October 18, and made its release too late for the evening papers. "In the meantime, President Wilson had been preparing his reply to Emperor Charles. Benes had feared some yielding, but, after receiving the Declaration from Masaryk, Wilson informed Benes in a letter that he was greatly touched by the proclamation and that Masaryk would be satisfied with the reply that was being sent to Austria-Hungary . ... (Continued) � SLOVAKIA 59 In 900 A. D. the Germans _again invaded Mojmir's territory, this time aided by the Czechs. After a terrific battle Mojmir II was forced to sue for peace, because his country was completely exhausted from constant warfare. After a peace was negotiated with the Germans, Mojmir sought to renew the church organization in the land of the Slovaks. After the expulsion of the disciples of Methodius and the death of Bishop Wiching, the Church was in a state of collapse. Mojmir II sent a special delegation to Rome with his request for aid. Pope John IX heard his plea and appointed an archbishop and two bishops to take over the burdens of the Church in the land of the Slovaks. Mojmir :LI worked assiduously and courageously to save his country from impending doom, but the odds were against him. To the danger from the west was added the menace from the east. The fierce Magyars, who from 896 had settled in the valley of the lower Danube and made continual attacks on their neighbors, tore into Slovakia in 902. Mojmir rallied his forces and successfully repulsed the Magyar hordes. But the nomadic Mongols were not to be denied. After every setback, they retreated and prepared for a new attack. The Slovaks defended the independence of their country heroically, but finally were overpowered by the overwhelming forces of their enemies. In 906 Moj.mir's state collapsed and the Slovak nation lost its independence. (Continu ed) • • • Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" (Cont'd.) HISTORY OR PROPAGANDA? P.A. HROBAK "The tragedy of Czecho-Slovakia's fate hinged, of course, not on whether this democracy treated her minorities 'justly' or not, but on the fact that the minorities were used as 'Trojan horses' for the aggressive policies of the neighboring Powers. After all, it is not even debatable that Germany's minorities, and particularly the Jews, have been treated with much less 'justice' than Czecho-Slovakia's minorities. The same statement applies to the fate of the minirities in Hungary and Poland. The Polish treatment of her minorities in �60 SLOVAKIA particular appears paradoxical in relation to the demands that Warsaw made on Prague regarding the Polish minority in Teschen" - p. (188). It is hardly the task of an objective historian to act the role of apologist, but Roucek obviously seemed to forget that. The fact is that Czecho-Slovakia's fate was determined in a very large measure by the way the Masaryk and Benes regimes treated their minorities, and especially their "equal partners," the Slovaks. The "Czecho-Slovak" treatment of minorities and the Slovaks cannot be justified by the argument that the Germans and Poles treated their minorities less justly or more harshly. The historical fact remains that after twenty years of Czech rule, under Masaryk and Benes, all neighboring states hated Czecho-Slovakia, and her citizens, the Czechs included, refused to fire a single shot in her defense. And that tells us just about everything: Czecho-Slovakia was not worth fighting for! • • • "The only democratic country in a world of fascist and semifascist central and eastern European states, Czecho-Slovakia consistently suppressed ant-Jewish manifestations" - (p. 189). Roucek said it and Kerner published it in his "Czechoslovakia," but students of history should demand a bill of full particulars of at least some such actual manifestations. And, of course, we might also ask the "experts" on CzechoSlovakia whether the Masaryk-Benes "democracy" consistently suppressed anti-Christian and, particularly, anti-Catholic manifestations? Such manifestations evidently did not merit attention of Roucek and other pro-Czech historians. • • • After quoting statistics from "official" Czech sources t o explain population trends in Czecho-Slovakia, which, naturally, favored the Czechs at the expense of the minorities and the Slovaks, Mr. Roucek concludes his chapter (IX in Kerner's "Czechoslovakia") with this propagandistic extravaganza : "The inescapable conclusion is that the problem of Czecho-Slovakia's minorities was not so serious as the German and Magyar propaganda led others to believe; furthermore, that it could have been solved gradually and peacefully if Prague had been allowed to run its own affairs . . . . Did Czecho-Slovakia make a mistake in try- �SLOVAKIA 61 iing to solve her problem of minorities by de1T1ocratic, rather than by brutal and violent, methods, as her neighbors have done?" (p 192). • How naive can one get? We know that the Czechs (Prague) ran not only their own affairs, but also the affairs of the Slovaks, Magyars, Poles, Germans and Ruthenians, in the Czecho-Slovak Republic. The Masaryk-Benes regimes were anti-Slovak and anti-minority, but pro-Soviet at the same time. Hence, the problem of the minorities was more serious than pictured by Roucek, since, in the end, the Slovaks and all minorities were not willing to commit national suicide. The policies of Masaryk and Benes determined the fate of Czecho-Slovakia. By what "democratic" methods did the Masaryk-Benes regimes try to solve the problem of Czecho-Slovakia's minorities? Confiscation and censorship of the press, repudiation of natural rights and the right of free assembly, economic and political oppression - are these the "democratic" methods alluded to by Roucek? And what could have been more brutal and violent than the forced, inhumane expulsion of three and a half million Germans and hundreds of thousands of Magyars, and the complete sell-out of the Czech and Slovak nations by Benes to Stalin? • • • • • • Chapter X of Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" was contrib, uted by Lucy E. Textor (Vassar College); it is titled "Agriculture and Agrarian Reform." The biblography given at the end of the chapter is dominated by Czech authors. Scandals arising from the Land Reform act, as set up and executed by the Czechs, particularly by leading Czech politicians, are carefully omitted. "Czechoslovakia's Economic Development and Achievements" - Chapter XII of the book under consideration was written by Gerhard Schacher, member of the faculty of Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University. There was no other country in central Europe which was to such a degree able and willing to modernize and rationalize its entire economic system by its own means and almost entirely without foreign support," says Schacher, and "that this was done in Czechoslovakia without aiming at �62 SLOVAKIA self-sufficiency was one of the greatest economic achievements in central Europe after the World War" - (p. 240). Just how Czecho-Slovakia was able to do that, however, is not clearly explained by Mr. Schacher. To him "Czechoslovakia" apparently means "Czech" (Czech: goods, labor, trade, imports, exports, manufacturers, businessmen, workers, armament, plants, crown, etc.). The rise of CZECH industry was phenomenal, indeed, but the professor somehow forgot to put down for the record what hapened to SLOVAK industry, which had existed in the land of the Slovaks during the Hungarian State. The tendency here, as elsewhere, is only too obvious . • • • • • • Brackett Lewis - A.B., Oberlin College; "engaged in war service with the Y. M. C. A. in Russia and in post-war service in central Russia, Archangel, Odessa, Vladivostok, Constantinople, and in Riga, Latvia, 1917-1928; director of the Y. M. C. A. of Czechoslovakia and secretary of the American Institute in Prague, 1928-1938" - wrote Chapter Xill entitled 'Social Reform and Social Legislation." He proves, even though I doubt he did it consciously, that Czecho-Slovkia was a socialistic state from the start. According to Lewis "a democratic outlook, which has been the characteristic of the Czechs since 1848, seemed to pervade all classes, and found expression in literature, education, and the professions, as well as in political life" (p. 253). While in Prague (1928-1938), Mr. Lewis was supposed to have made "special" studies of social and labor legislation and of the political system of the Republic, which resulted in his writing the book "Facts About Democray in Czechoslovakia" (Prague, 1938). The studies must have been "special," indeed, since Mr. Lewis apparently remained quite ignorant about the Slovaks and their country; his "facts" are for the most part Czech propaganda and not objective history. Chapter XIV - "Humanitarian Progress" - is the brain-child of Herbert Adolphus Miller (vd. Chapter V), according to whom: "The seeds that produced the social program of Czechoslovakia lie deep in history. The moral integrity of Hus and the democratic �SLOVAKIA 63 educational theories of Comenius (Komensky) were combined with many other forces through the ages to prepare the people for what they accomplished after 1918. The Declaration of Independence, written by Masaryk, not only embodied his own philosophy but also reflected the past and foreshadowed a future of which his countrymen approved" - (p. 271). But the fact is that "the seeds that produced the social program of Czechoslovakia" do not lie deep in SLOVAK history; the social program was strictly according to Masaryk and Benes and their followers, who tried even to "remake" Czech history. The "moral integrity" of Hus and the democratic educational theories" of Comenius, to: gether with "many other forces," may have prepared T. G. Masaryk, Edward Benes, and other Czech socialists for what they accomplished after 1918, and especially after 1945. We know what happened. Genuine Slovak patriots, however, preferred ta repudiate these "progressive" forces and were content to remain the nation of Sts. Cyril and Methodius. • • • "The Declaration of Independence," according to Miller in his Chapter on "Humanitarian Progress," was written by Masaryk, but what did this same Herbert Adolphus Miller say about this Declaration in a previous Chapter of the same book (pp. 83-86)? For the edification of present and future historians, and in the interest of historical truth, I believe a reproduction is in order. Mr. Miller said: "According to William E. Dodd" (Woodrow Wilson and His Work, p. 278), " 'on July 4, 1918, a mass meeting of the Czechoslovaks in Independence Hall in Philadelphia, issued a formal Declaration of Independence. President Wilson lent his support to this movement and finally announced American recognition of Czechoslovakia on September 2, 1918.' Mr. Dodd confused the frequent claims for independence by an unauthorized group with the official Declaration made by Masaryk, which was dated October 18, 1918. There is, however, a widespread and erroneous belief that Masaryk proclaimed it from Independence Hall. "The facts are as follows. Early in October, through the Swedish Minister, President Wilson had received a communication from Emperor Charles of Austria, proposing a reorganization of the empire. Wilson, as has been stated earlier, had told Masaryk that no decisions would be arrived at about Austria-Hungary without consult- �64 SLOVAKIA ing him. Wilson knew at this time that a Czechoslovak Declaration, of Independence was being prepared by Professor Masaryk. "About four o'clock on the afternoon of October 16, Mr. Cisar, Professor Masaryk's secretary, came to the room of the present writer (Herbert Adolphus Miller) in the Powhatan Hotel and, handing him an envelope, said: 'This is the Czechoslovak Declaration of Independence. The professor wants you to put it into good English.• On reading it over, the present writer decided that its style would be quite without appeal to the American public which it, in part, sought to influence, and that it needed complete revision. Accordingly, through chance assistance, he gathered together seven men,. including two lawyers and Mr. Cisar, and set to work. "Great care was taken to keep all the meaning of the original and at the same time to give a vigor of statement that would appeal to Americans. Every word and every sentence was weighed. The original typewritten copy was cut into more than a hundred pieces and pasted together in different order and then revised again and again. The group worked from seven-thirty in the evening until one- thirty in the morning of October 17, 1918. "Later in the forenoon, with Mr. Calfee, a Cleveland lawyer who had been present the previous evening, the present writer went to Professor Masaryk's residence, where again a detailed study was made of form and content, modifications being made wherever the meaning had been changed in the work of the night before. The rest of the day was spent in working on the text and about two o'clock on the morning of the eighteenth the Declaration was cabled to Dr. Benes in Paris. "In the forenoon of October 18, the present writer had a number of copies multigraphed and a special typewritten copy made for President Wilson. These are the only ORIGINAL copies of the Declaration that ever existed; even the copy that was given to the multigrapher has been lost. The question of when the Declaration should be published, whether in the morning or in the evening papers, was carefully weighed and it was finally decided to have it published in the morning papers, October 19. It was deliberately held until 4:00 P. M. of the eighteenth, for two reasons : that gave time enough for the Declaration to be cabled from Paris, where it was technically issued on October 18, and made its release too late for the evening papers. "In the meantime, President Wilson had been preparing his reply to Emperor Charles. Benes had feared some yielding, but, after receiving the Declaration from Masaryk, Wilson informed Benes in a letter that he was greatly touched by the proclamation and that Masaryk would be satisfied with the reply that was being sent to Austria-Hungary . ... (Continued) � 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 1957, Vol. 7 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 1 (No. 22), March 1957.</li> <li>Issue 2 (No. 23), June 1957.</li> <li>Issue 3-4 (No. 24-25), September-December 1957.</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 1957 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 In 900 A. D. the Germans _again invaded Mojmir's territory, this time aided by the Czechs. After a terrific battle Mojmir II was forced to sue for peace, because his country was completely exhausted from constant warfare. After a peace was negotiated with the Germans, Mojmir sought to renew the church organization in the land of the Slovaks. After the expulsion of the disciples of Methodius and the death of Bishop Wiching, the Church was in a state of collapse. Mojmir II sent a special delegation to Rome with his request for aid. Pope John IX heard his plea and appointed an archbishop and two bishops to take over the burdens of the Church in the land of the Slovaks. Mojmir :LI worked assiduously and courageously to save his country from impending doom, but the odds were against him. To the danger from the west was added the menace from the east. The fierce Magyars, who from 896 had settled in the valley of the lower Danube and made continual attacks on their neighbors, tore into Slovakia in 902. Mojmir rallied his forces and successfully repulsed the Magyar hordes. But the nomadic Mongols were not to be denied. After every setback, they retreated and prepared for a new attack. The Slovaks defended the independence of their country heroically, but finally were overpowered by the overwhelming forces of their enemies. In 906 Moj.mir's state collapsed and the Slovak nation lost its independence. (Continu ed) • • • Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" (Cont'd.) HISTORY OR PROPAGANDA? P.A. HROBAK "The tragedy of Czecho-Slovakia's fate hinged, of course, not on whether this democracy treated her minorities 'justly' or not, but on the fact that the minorities were used as 'Trojan horses' for the aggressive policies of the neighboring Powers. After all, it is not even debatable that Germany's minorities, and particularly the Jews, have been treated with much less 'justice' than Czecho-Slovakia's minorities. The same statement applies to the fate of the minirities in Hungary and Poland. The Polish treatment of her minorities in 60 SLOVAKIA particular appears paradoxical in relation to the demands that Warsaw made on Prague regarding the Polish minority in Teschen" - p. (188). It is hardly the task of an objective historian to act the role of apologist, but Roucek obviously seemed to forget that. The fact is that Czecho-Slovakia's fate was determined in a very large measure by the way the Masaryk and Benes regimes treated their minorities, and especially their "equal partners," the Slovaks. The "Czecho-Slovak" treatment of minorities and the Slovaks cannot be justified by the argument that the Germans and Poles treated their minorities less justly or more harshly. The historical fact remains that after twenty years of Czech rule, under Masaryk and Benes, all neighboring states hated Czecho-Slovakia, and her citizens, the Czechs included, refused to fire a single shot in her defense. And that tells us just about everything: Czecho-Slovakia was not worth fighting for! • • • "The only democratic country in a world of fascist and semifascist central and eastern European states, Czecho-Slovakia consistently suppressed ant-Jewish manifestations" - (p. 189). Roucek said it and Kerner published it in his "Czechoslovakia," but students of history should demand a bill of full particulars of at least some such actual manifestations. And, of course, we might also ask the "experts" on CzechoSlovakia whether the Masaryk-Benes "democracy" consistently suppressed anti-Christian and, particularly, anti-Catholic manifestations? Such manifestations evidently did not merit attention of Roucek and other pro-Czech historians. • • • After quoting statistics from "official" Czech sources t o explain population trends in Czecho-Slovakia, which, naturally, favored the Czechs at the expense of the minorities and the Slovaks, Mr. Roucek concludes his chapter (IX in Kerner's "Czechoslovakia") with this propagandistic extravaganza : "The inescapable conclusion is that the problem of Czecho-Slovakia's minorities was not so serious as the German and Magyar propaganda led others to believe; furthermore, that it could have been solved gradually and peacefully if Prague had been allowed to run its own affairs . . . . Did Czecho-Slovakia make a mistake in try- SLOVAKIA 61 iing to solve her problem of minorities by de1T1ocratic, rather than by brutal and violent, methods, as her neighbors have done?" (p 192). • How naive can one get? We know that the Czechs (Prague) ran not only their own affairs, but also the affairs of the Slovaks, Magyars, Poles, Germans and Ruthenians, in the Czecho-Slovak Republic. The Masaryk-Benes regimes were anti-Slovak and anti-minority, but pro-Soviet at the same time. Hence, the problem of the minorities was more serious than pictured by Roucek, since, in the end, the Slovaks and all minorities were not willing to commit national suicide. The policies of Masaryk and Benes determined the fate of Czecho-Slovakia. By what "democratic" methods did the Masaryk-Benes regimes try to solve the problem of Czecho-Slovakia's minorities? Confiscation and censorship of the press, repudiation of natural rights and the right of free assembly, economic and political oppression - are these the "democratic" methods alluded to by Roucek? And what could have been more brutal and violent than the forced, inhumane expulsion of three and a half million Germans and hundreds of thousands of Magyars, and the complete sell-out of the Czech and Slovak nations by Benes to Stalin? • • • • • • Chapter X of Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" was contrib, uted by Lucy E. Textor (Vassar College); it is titled "Agriculture and Agrarian Reform." The biblography given at the end of the chapter is dominated by Czech authors. Scandals arising from the Land Reform act, as set up and executed by the Czechs, particularly by leading Czech politicians, are carefully omitted. "Czechoslovakia's Economic Development and Achievements" - Chapter XII of the book under consideration was written by Gerhard Schacher, member of the faculty of Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University. There was no other country in central Europe which was to such a degree able and willing to modernize and rationalize its entire economic system by its own means and almost entirely without foreign support," says Schacher, and "that this was done in Czechoslovakia without aiming at 62 SLOVAKIA self-sufficiency was one of the greatest economic achievements in central Europe after the World War" - (p. 240). Just how Czecho-Slovakia was able to do that, however, is not clearly explained by Mr. Schacher. To him "Czechoslovakia" apparently means "Czech" (Czech: goods, labor, trade, imports, exports, manufacturers, businessmen, workers, armament, plants, crown, etc.). The rise of CZECH industry was phenomenal, indeed, but the professor somehow forgot to put down for the record what hapened to SLOVAK industry, which had existed in the land of the Slovaks during the Hungarian State. The tendency here, as elsewhere, is only too obvious . • • • • • • Brackett Lewis - A.B., Oberlin College; "engaged in war service with the Y. M. C. A. in Russia and in post-war service in central Russia, Archangel, Odessa, Vladivostok, Constantinople, and in Riga, Latvia, 1917-1928; director of the Y. M. C. A. of Czechoslovakia and secretary of the American Institute in Prague, 1928-1938" - wrote Chapter Xill entitled 'Social Reform and Social Legislation." He proves, even though I doubt he did it consciously, that Czecho-Slovkia was a socialistic state from the start. According to Lewis "a democratic outlook, which has been the characteristic of the Czechs since 1848, seemed to pervade all classes, and found expression in literature, education, and the professions, as well as in political life" (p. 253). While in Prague (1928-1938), Mr. Lewis was supposed to have made "special" studies of social and labor legislation and of the political system of the Republic, which resulted in his writing the book "Facts About Democray in Czechoslovakia" (Prague, 1938). The studies must have been "special," indeed, since Mr. Lewis apparently remained quite ignorant about the Slovaks and their country; his "facts" are for the most part Czech propaganda and not objective history. Chapter XIV - "Humanitarian Progress" - is the brain-child of Herbert Adolphus Miller (vd. Chapter V), according to whom: "The seeds that produced the social program of Czechoslovakia lie deep in history. The moral integrity of Hus and the democratic SLOVAKIA 63 educational theories of Comenius (Komensky) were combined with many other forces through the ages to prepare the people for what they accomplished after 1918. The Declaration of Independence, written by Masaryk, not only embodied his own philosophy but also reflected the past and foreshadowed a future of which his countrymen approved" - (p. 271). But the fact is that "the seeds that produced the social program of Czechoslovakia" do not lie deep in SLOVAK history; the social program was strictly according to Masaryk and Benes and their followers, who tried even to "remake" Czech history. The "moral integrity" of Hus and the democratic educational theories" of Comenius, to: gether with "many other forces," may have prepared T. G. Masaryk, Edward Benes, and other Czech socialists for what they accomplished after 1918, and especially after 1945. We know what happened. Genuine Slovak patriots, however, preferred ta repudiate these "progressive" forces and were content to remain the nation of Sts. Cyril and Methodius. • • • "The Declaration of Independence," according to Miller in his Chapter on "Humanitarian Progress," was written by Masaryk, but what did this same Herbert Adolphus Miller say about this Declaration in a previous Chapter of the same book (pp. 83-86)? For the edification of present and future historians, and in the interest of historical truth, I believe a reproduction is in order. Mr. Miller said: "According to William E. Dodd" (Woodrow Wilson and His Work, p. 278), " 'on July 4, 1918, a mass meeting of the Czechoslovaks in Independence Hall in Philadelphia, issued a formal Declaration of Independence. President Wilson lent his support to this movement and finally announced American recognition of Czechoslovakia on September 2, 1918.' Mr. Dodd confused the frequent claims for independence by an unauthorized group with the official Declaration made by Masaryk, which was dated October 18, 1918. There is, however, a widespread and erroneous belief that Masaryk proclaimed it from Independence Hall. "The facts are as follows. Early in October, through the Swedish Minister, President Wilson had received a communication from Emperor Charles of Austria, proposing a reorganization of the empire. Wilson, as has been stated earlier, had told Masaryk that no decisions would be arrived at about Austria-Hungary without consult- 64 SLOVAKIA ing him. Wilson knew at this time that a Czechoslovak Declaration, of Independence was being prepared by Professor Masaryk. "About four o'clock on the afternoon of October 16, Mr. Cisar, Professor Masaryk's secretary, came to the room of the present writer (Herbert Adolphus Miller) in the Powhatan Hotel and, handing him an envelope, said: 'This is the Czechoslovak Declaration of Independence. The professor wants you to put it into good English.• On reading it over, the present writer decided that its style would be quite without appeal to the American public which it, in part, sought to influence, and that it needed complete revision. Accordingly, through chance assistance, he gathered together seven men,. including two lawyers and Mr. Cisar, and set to work. "Great care was taken to keep all the meaning of the original and at the same time to give a vigor of statement that would appeal to Americans. Every word and every sentence was weighed. The original typewritten copy was cut into more than a hundred pieces and pasted together in different order and then revised again and again. The group worked from seven-thirty in the evening until one- thirty in the morning of October 17, 1918. "Later in the forenoon, with Mr. Calfee, a Cleveland lawyer who had been present the previous evening, the present writer went to Professor Masaryk's residence, where again a detailed study was made of form and content, modifications being made wherever the meaning had been changed in the work of the night before. The rest of the day was spent in working on the text and about two o'clock on the morning of the eighteenth the Declaration was cabled to Dr. Benes in Paris. "In the forenoon of October 18, the present writer had a number of copies multigraphed and a special typewritten copy made for President Wilson. These are the only ORIGINAL copies of the Declaration that ever existed; even the copy that was given to the multigrapher has been lost. The question of when the Declaration should be published, whether in the morning or in the evening papers, was carefully weighed and it was finally decided to have it published in the morning papers, October 19. It was deliberately held until 4:00 P. M. of the eighteenth, for two reasons : that gave time enough for the Declaration to be cabled from Paris, where it was technically issued on October 18, and made its release too late for the evening papers. "In the meantime, President Wilson had been preparing his reply to Emperor Charles. Benes had feared some yielding, but, after receiving the Declaration from Masaryk, Wilson informed Benes in a letter that he was greatly touched by the proclamation and that Masaryk would be satisfied with the reply that was being sent to Austria-Hungary . ... (Continued)  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 Professor Kerner's "CZECHOSLOVAKIA": History or Propaganda? (6/8) Description An account of the resource P. A. Hrobak Slovakia, Vol. 7, No. 1 (22), March 1957 pp. 59-64 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hrobak, Philip Anthony, 1904-1964 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource March 1957 Relation A related resource continued from <a href="/items/show/197">Vol. 6, No. 3-4 (20-21), pp. 88-96</a><br />continues in <a href="/items/show/242">Vol. 7, No. 2 (23), pp. 52-57</a> LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/91797ad8dc1a42a6d66cf715ce19aa5d.pdf 4ee80f354a36993b46b464a98aa44135 PDF Text Text 52 SLOVAKIA Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" (Cont'd.) IDSTORY OR PROPAGANDA? P.A. HROBAK "The Czechoslovak Declaration and the letter to Emperor Charles were published in the Saturday morning papers, October 19, 1918, the two appearing in many papers in parallel columns; the reply of President Wilson quoted above came on the Monday following. "It was still thought that American public opinion was not sufficiently informed; while the men mentioned above were trying to devise what to do next, the suggestion was made that, if a declaration were issued from Independence Hall in Philadelphia, it would make a striking impression on the American people. They immediately consulted the State Department and obtained its approval, provided Professor Masaryk took the leadership. The members of the Mid-European Union were immediately summoned on Saturday morning, the nineteenth, and a preliminary draft of a declaration was made. The following Wednesday, the Union met in Independence Hall and continued in session until Saturday noon, with Masaryk as chairman. The discussion, which was heated at times, was concentrated on controversies between the various groups. "Because of the prominence attained by Professor Masaryk through the Declaration on Saturday, the press gave the meeting much space, and minimized the often bitter discussion. Saturday noon a Declaration of Common Aims was read by Professor Masaryk in the courtyard back of Independence Hall. This Declaration was realJy the first statement leading to the Little Entente." It would be interesting, indeed, if a copy of Masaryk's "original" draft of the Declaration were available. It is significant, however, that many less valuable and important documents were preserved and recorded by T. G. Masaryk in their original forms. Masaryk made less of the Declaration than did Mr. Miller. Referring to it in his "SVETOVA REVOLUCE" (p. 364), Masaryk said: " ... the form was chosen in such a way as to remind Americans -of their own beautiful Declaration; ultimately its value was tactical . ... In the Declaration, I repudiated Charles' late attempt to promote an Austrian pseudo-federation and outlined the essential principles on which the Provisional Government was building the foundations of the new state. The first outline I gave to read to a group ~f my own friends (among them Brandeis and editor Bennet); an objective and formal criticism of it was undertaken by a small com- �SLOVAKIA 53 mittee, which made the final revision along formal and legal lines (Mr. Calffee, a remarkable expert and lawyer, was a member of it); this was a nice example of harmonious cooperation and, at the /same time, the first state act of great style, made under my direction. I delivered the Declaration to State Secretary Lansing so that I might insure agreement of the American Government beforehand; •lso so that even at the last moment before his reply to Austria I might remind Wilson of our stand." Who was right: Masaryk or Miller? Of course, they could both be right - each in his own way: the main thing was to sell Masaryk and Czecho-Slovakia to the American public, and especially to President Wilson and his advisers. Masaryk's draft of the "Czechoslovak Declaration of Independence," according to Mr. Miller, was scrapped - "the original typewritten copy was cut into more than a hundred pieces and pasted together in different order and then revised again and again" - but "great care was taken to keep all the meaning of the original"! And great care was taken to destroy Masaryk's original, of course! From all this it is obvious that Masaryk, despite arguments to the contrary notwithstanding, knew little about American democracy, which he wanted to exploit so that he might create his own special brand of "Czechoslovak" democracy. But why did Mr. Herbert Adolphus Miller, in the light of statements above, state categorically: "The Declaration of Independence, written by Masaryk, not only embodied his own philosophy but also reflected the past and foreshadowed a future of which his countrymen approved"? Are we to believe that is why Masaryk's version was scrapped and the committee's accepted?? CHAPTER XV - "The Religious Situation in Czechoslovakia" - by Matthew Spinka, B.D., Ph.D., "Associate Professor of Church History in the Chicago Theological Seminary and in the Divinity School of the University of Chicago; editor of Church History, published by the American Society of Church History, and the Society's Studies in Church History; author of: The Church and the Russian Revolution (1927); A History of Christianity in the Balkans (1933); Christianity Confronts Communism (1936-1938); Chronicle of John Malalas (1940); and numerous articles." Spinka's account, partial and notoriously biased against �SLOVAKIA 54 the Catholic Church, is not a true account of "the religious situation in Czecho-Slovakia." In it one finds, for the most part, the Protestant or "Hussite" version of the "progressive" CZECHS, which purposefully tends to falsify and confuse the true picture. In the entire 18 pages of the chapter, Slovakia and the Slovaks are limited to several sentences, which clearly indicate that the author was not interested in presenting a factual account. In reading this chapter, readers should bear this in mind, otherwise they may fall for a distorted and biased version of a situation that did not prevail even in the Czech lands, and so much the less in Slovakia. "Furthermore, there was likewise a considerable difference In the character of Slovak and Czech Catholicism, which manifested itself in the continuous and sometimes violent political opposition to the Czechs. This opposition was led chiefly by the priesthood, with the famous Msgr. Andrej Hlinka, the papal prothonotary and a member of the Czechoslovak Senate at their head. It is significant that the instrument of the violent rupture between Slovakia and Bohemia-Moravia which occurred in March, 1939, was a Roman Catholic priest, Dr. Tiso" - (p. 289). Indeed, it is significant, that Spinka conveniently forgot to back this statement with proof of the "violence" resorted to by the Slovaks. The tendency is only too obvious. The fact is that Msgr. Hlinka and Msgr. Tiso, were not the instruments of the "violent" rupture between Slovakia and Bohemia-Moravia in 1939. But even if we grant that they were, who was more responsible for the situation that obtained in Czecho-Slovakia in 1939 than the Benes Czechs? • • • "When the Pact of Munich delivered the CZECH nation into the hands of the Nazi regime of the Reich, unfortunately a faction within the Catholic Church thought it an opportune moment to further their program. This was a militant, aggressive group of Catholics, with Jaroslav Durych as one of their leaders, who once more identified their cause with the opposition to the democratic Masaryk orientation of CZECH culture. This noisy, denunciatory, fanatical faction tried to substitute the ultramontane policies symbolized in CZECH history by St. Vaclav for the liberal, Protestant-inspired poli• cies represented by the tradition of Jan Hus, and Jan Amos Comenius, AS REPRESENTED BY PRESIDENT MASARYK. But with the setting up of the "Protectorate" in March, 1939, the momentary flare-up of religious intolerance subsided. It should be stressed that the responsible political leaders of the Catholics, such as Msgr. Dr. �SLOVAKIA 55 ~ramek, did not share the views of the militant group, and remained loyal and faithful to the Masaryk-Benes orientation" - (p. 292). Please note well: The CZECHS, including "responsible political leaders of the Catholics, SUCH AS MSGR. DR. SRAMEK," scrapped the traditions of St. Wenceslaus for the policies of Hus and Comenius, "AS INTERPRETED BY PRESIDENT MASARYK"! What, then, does non-Catholic Spinka use as a yardstick for "responsible political leaders" of CZECH Catholics? • • • "Of those (CZECHS) who seceded from the Roman Church after the setting up of the Republic, the majority organized themselves into an anti-papal, nationalistic Czechoslovak Church. This body had its inception in the efforts of the "Unity of (CZECH) Catholic Clergy," which in 1919 undertook to wrest from the papal curia certain reforms which had been formulated two years earlier. . . . Seeing the hopelessness of the task of obtaining their demands, the (CZECH) leaders of the reformists decided upon the radical measure of setting up a new (CZECH) national church. At the convention of the (CZECH) reformist clergy held on January 8, 1920, the Czechoslovak Church was organized" - (p. 293). This paragraph and others following on the "Czechoslovak National Church" significantly lack the qualification "CZECH" for reasons best known to Mr. Spinka. The parenthetical inclusions here and below ( CZECH) are not Spinka's, but mine, to indicate clearly that the "Czechoslovak National Church" - which had the blessing of Masaryk and Benes and their socialistic followers was strictly a CZECH venture, nothing SLOVAK about it. • • • "The new (CZECH) Czechoslovak Church grew with astonishing rapidity. . . . The movement at first was (CZECH) Catholic, even though modernist and nationalist in character, but distinctly and bitterly anti-papal and anti-Roman. It was in no sense a Protestant body, and at first did not wish to be so considered, although in the course of time it joined the ranks of Protestant communions" (p. 294-295). • I • • "As for the cultural and religious life of the nation, despite its relative numerical inferiority, the Protestant element has played a role far beyond its strength in numbers. The president-liberator, Thomas G. Masaryk, had become early in life, a convert to Protestantism, and remained a member of the Czech Brethren Church to the end. A large number of other political leaders were and are �56 SLOVAKIA likewise members of one or another Protestant communion: Stefanik, the leader of the Slovaks during the struggle for independence; Premier Hodia, who served during the critical period in 1938; and Ivan Derer, who was minister of education in the Hodfa cabinet; in this group also are to be found ministers Slavik, Hurban, and Osusky all of whom are grouped about Dr. Eduard Benes in his struggle for the restoration of Czechoslovak independence" - (p. 300). If the "Protestant element" played "a role far beyond its strength in numbers" in a country that was predominantly Catholic (over 75 percent). there must have been some reason for it. The same element practically had a monopoly on political life. Masaryk, Spinka told us, was a member of the CZECH Brethren, while the Slovaks mentioned were Protestants, but he conveniently forgot to tell us just what Freemason Benes was. According to Spinka, Slovak Catholicism manifested itself in "violent" opposition, but he failed to mention the fact that the MasarykBenes Czechs, sworn enemies of the Roman Catholic Church, the faith of the vast majority of the population of CzechoSlovakia, were also "violent" in their opposition. In his blinded hatred for the Catholic population, especially the Slovaks, Benes, sold out Czecho-Slovakia to Hitler in 1938 and to Stalin in 1943. The Slovaks, as a nation, were opposed to the restoration of "Czechoslovak" independence, because it meant enslavement by the Marxist Czechs. It was thoughtful of Mr. Spinka to mention the fact that "the two outstanding CZECH philosophers, both pupils and disciples of Masaryk" also are Protestants: "Professor E. Ra.di, whose originality in the treatment of ideas has made him justly famous; and Professor Jan B. Kozak, the son of an outstanding minister and himself formerly a minister of the Czech Brethren Church, who was until recently the leading member of the philosophical faculty of the University of Prague. He is at present teaching at Oberlin College." Likewise that "among the theologians, none is more outstanding than Professor J. L. Hromadka, of the Jan Hus Theological Faculty, at present a member of the faculty of Princeton Theological Seminary.... " All these "outstanding CZECH philosophers" - pupils and disciples of Hus and Masaryk - are doing nicely, thank you, under the �57 SLOVAKIA Red Czech regime of Prague. Hromadka returned to Prague ten years ago to head the "Czechoslovak National Church; when the Czech Reds took over all power in February 1948, Hromadka and his Czech church voluntarily offered to co·Operate 100 percent! It would seem that the Czech "reformers" are continually reforming against Christianity! (Continued) • • • The History of Slovakia: By PHILIP A. HROBAK . CHAPTER THREE AFTER THE FALL OF GREAT MORAVIA There are no clear and reliable reports in historical sources to tell us when and under what circumstances Mojmir's country lost its independence. It is possible that the Slovak army, which clashed with the enemy so frequently, together with courageous Mojmir II, the last of the early Slovak rulers, perished in a final battle for the freedom of Slovakland. However, it is also possible that Mojmir IT, exhausted by constant warfare and without outside help in sight, did not venture into another war which he could not possibly win. Mojmir Il in his ten-year reign proved on more than one occasion that he was a sagacious ruler, and we can be certain that in those trying times he did what he deemed best for his country. From reliable sources we can learn only that in 906 A. D. Mojmir's country no longer was an independent state, because the Magyars marched through Slovakia in that year to aid the Slovanic Glomaches in their fight against the Saxons. Slovakia did not immediately fall prey to the Magyars who passed through it into neighboring countries on foraging expeditions. Slovakia only ceased to be an independent state. She no longer had her own ruler and could no longer defend herself, but she did not as yet belong under the rule of a foreign state. The German empire, exposed to the at- � 52 SLOVAKIA Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" (Cont'd.) IDSTORY OR PROPAGANDA? P.A. HROBAK "The Czechoslovak Declaration and the letter to Emperor Charles were published in the Saturday morning papers, October 19, 1918, the two appearing in many papers in parallel columns; the reply of President Wilson quoted above came on the Monday following. "It was still thought that American public opinion was not sufficiently informed; while the men mentioned above were trying to devise what to do next, the suggestion was made that, if a declaration were issued from Independence Hall in Philadelphia, it would make a striking impression on the American people. They immediately consulted the State Department and obtained its approval, provided Professor Masaryk took the leadership. The members of the Mid-European Union were immediately summoned on Saturday morning, the nineteenth, and a preliminary draft of a declaration was made. The following Wednesday, the Union met in Independence Hall and continued in session until Saturday noon, with Masaryk as chairman. The discussion, which was heated at times, was concentrated on controversies between the various groups. "Because of the prominence attained by Professor Masaryk through the Declaration on Saturday, the press gave the meeting much space, and minimized the often bitter discussion. Saturday noon a Declaration of Common Aims was read by Professor Masaryk in the courtyard back of Independence Hall. This Declaration was realJy the first statement leading to the Little Entente." It would be interesting, indeed, if a copy of Masaryk's "original" draft of the Declaration were available. It is significant, however, that many less valuable and important documents were preserved and recorded by T. G. Masaryk in their original forms. Masaryk made less of the Declaration than did Mr. Miller. Referring to it in his "SVETOVA REVOLUCE" (p. 364), Masaryk said: " ... the form was chosen in such a way as to remind Americans -of their own beautiful Declaration; ultimately its value was tactical . ... In the Declaration, I repudiated Charles' late attempt to promote an Austrian pseudo-federation and outlined the essential principles on which the Provisional Government was building the foundations of the new state. The first outline I gave to read to a group ~f my own friends (among them Brandeis and editor Bennet); an objective and formal criticism of it was undertaken by a small com- �SLOVAKIA 53 mittee, which made the final revision along formal and legal lines (Mr. Calffee, a remarkable expert and lawyer, was a member of it); this was a nice example of harmonious cooperation and, at the /same time, the first state act of great style, made under my direction. I delivered the Declaration to State Secretary Lansing so that I might insure agreement of the American Government beforehand; •lso so that even at the last moment before his reply to Austria I might remind Wilson of our stand." Who was right: Masaryk or Miller? Of course, they could both be right - each in his own way: the main thing was to sell Masaryk and Czecho-Slovakia to the American public, and especially to President Wilson and his advisers. Masaryk's draft of the "Czechoslovak Declaration of Independence," according to Mr. Miller, was scrapped - "the original typewritten copy was cut into more than a hundred pieces and pasted together in different order and then revised again and again" - but "great care was taken to keep all the meaning of the original"! And great care was taken to destroy Masaryk's original, of course! From all this it is obvious that Masaryk, despite arguments to the contrary notwithstanding, knew little about American democracy, which he wanted to exploit so that he might create his own special brand of "Czechoslovak" democracy. But why did Mr. Herbert Adolphus Miller, in the light of statements above, state categorically: "The Declaration of Independence, written by Masaryk, not only embodied his own philosophy but also reflected the past and foreshadowed a future of which his countrymen approved"? Are we to believe that is why Masaryk's version was scrapped and the committee's accepted?? CHAPTER XV - "The Religious Situation in Czechoslovakia" - by Matthew Spinka, B.D., Ph.D., "Associate Professor of Church History in the Chicago Theological Seminary and in the Divinity School of the University of Chicago; editor of Church History, published by the American Society of Church History, and the Society's Studies in Church History; author of: The Church and the Russian Revolution (1927); A History of Christianity in the Balkans (1933); Christianity Confronts Communism (1936-1938); Chronicle of John Malalas (1940); and numerous articles." Spinka's account, partial and notoriously biased against �SLOVAKIA 54 the Catholic Church, is not a true account of "the religious situation in Czecho-Slovakia." In it one finds, for the most part, the Protestant or "Hussite" version of the "progressive" CZECHS, which purposefully tends to falsify and confuse the true picture. In the entire 18 pages of the chapter, Slovakia and the Slovaks are limited to several sentences, which clearly indicate that the author was not interested in presenting a factual account. In reading this chapter, readers should bear this in mind, otherwise they may fall for a distorted and biased version of a situation that did not prevail even in the Czech lands, and so much the less in Slovakia. "Furthermore, there was likewise a considerable difference In the character of Slovak and Czech Catholicism, which manifested itself in the continuous and sometimes violent political opposition to the Czechs. This opposition was led chiefly by the priesthood, with the famous Msgr. Andrej Hlinka, the papal prothonotary and a member of the Czechoslovak Senate at their head. It is significant that the instrument of the violent rupture between Slovakia and Bohemia-Moravia which occurred in March, 1939, was a Roman Catholic priest, Dr. Tiso" - (p. 289). Indeed, it is significant, that Spinka conveniently forgot to back this statement with proof of the "violence" resorted to by the Slovaks. The tendency is only too obvious. The fact is that Msgr. Hlinka and Msgr. Tiso, were not the instruments of the "violent" rupture between Slovakia and Bohemia-Moravia in 1939. But even if we grant that they were, who was more responsible for the situation that obtained in Czecho-Slovakia in 1939 than the Benes Czechs? • • • "When the Pact of Munich delivered the CZECH nation into the hands of the Nazi regime of the Reich, unfortunately a faction within the Catholic Church thought it an opportune moment to further their program. This was a militant, aggressive group of Catholics, with Jaroslav Durych as one of their leaders, who once more identified their cause with the opposition to the democratic Masaryk orientation of CZECH culture. This noisy, denunciatory, fanatical faction tried to substitute the ultramontane policies symbolized in CZECH history by St. Vaclav for the liberal, Protestant-inspired poli• cies represented by the tradition of Jan Hus, and Jan Amos Comenius, AS REPRESENTED BY PRESIDENT MASARYK. But with the setting up of the "Protectorate" in March, 1939, the momentary flare-up of religious intolerance subsided. It should be stressed that the responsible political leaders of the Catholics, such as Msgr. Dr. �SLOVAKIA 55 ~ramek, did not share the views of the militant group, and remained loyal and faithful to the Masaryk-Benes orientation" - (p. 292). Please note well: The CZECHS, including "responsible political leaders of the Catholics, SUCH AS MSGR. DR. SRAMEK," scrapped the traditions of St. Wenceslaus for the policies of Hus and Comenius, "AS INTERPRETED BY PRESIDENT MASARYK"! What, then, does non-Catholic Spinka use as a yardstick for "responsible political leaders" of CZECH Catholics? • • • "Of those (CZECHS) who seceded from the Roman Church after the setting up of the Republic, the majority organized themselves into an anti-papal, nationalistic Czechoslovak Church. This body had its inception in the efforts of the "Unity of (CZECH) Catholic Clergy," which in 1919 undertook to wrest from the papal curia certain reforms which had been formulated two years earlier. . . . Seeing the hopelessness of the task of obtaining their demands, the (CZECH) leaders of the reformists decided upon the radical measure of setting up a new (CZECH) national church. At the convention of the (CZECH) reformist clergy held on January 8, 1920, the Czechoslovak Church was organized" - (p. 293). This paragraph and others following on the "Czechoslovak National Church" significantly lack the qualification "CZECH" for reasons best known to Mr. Spinka. The parenthetical inclusions here and below ( CZECH) are not Spinka's, but mine, to indicate clearly that the "Czechoslovak National Church" - which had the blessing of Masaryk and Benes and their socialistic followers was strictly a CZECH venture, nothing SLOVAK about it. • • • "The new (CZECH) Czechoslovak Church grew with astonishing rapidity. . . . The movement at first was (CZECH) Catholic, even though modernist and nationalist in character, but distinctly and bitterly anti-papal and anti-Roman. It was in no sense a Protestant body, and at first did not wish to be so considered, although in the course of time it joined the ranks of Protestant communions" (p. 294-295). • I • • "As for the cultural and religious life of the nation, despite its relative numerical inferiority, the Protestant element has played a role far beyond its strength in numbers. The president-liberator, Thomas G. Masaryk, had become early in life, a convert to Protestantism, and remained a member of the Czech Brethren Church to the end. A large number of other political leaders were and are �56 SLOVAKIA likewise members of one or another Protestant communion: Stefanik, the leader of the Slovaks during the struggle for independence; Premier Hodia, who served during the critical period in 1938; and Ivan Derer, who was minister of education in the Hodfa cabinet; in this group also are to be found ministers Slavik, Hurban, and Osusky all of whom are grouped about Dr. Eduard Benes in his struggle for the restoration of Czechoslovak independence" - (p. 300). If the "Protestant element" played "a role far beyond its strength in numbers" in a country that was predominantly Catholic (over 75 percent). there must have been some reason for it. The same element practically had a monopoly on political life. Masaryk, Spinka told us, was a member of the CZECH Brethren, while the Slovaks mentioned were Protestants, but he conveniently forgot to tell us just what Freemason Benes was. According to Spinka, Slovak Catholicism manifested itself in "violent" opposition, but he failed to mention the fact that the MasarykBenes Czechs, sworn enemies of the Roman Catholic Church, the faith of the vast majority of the population of CzechoSlovakia, were also "violent" in their opposition. In his blinded hatred for the Catholic population, especially the Slovaks, Benes, sold out Czecho-Slovakia to Hitler in 1938 and to Stalin in 1943. The Slovaks, as a nation, were opposed to the restoration of "Czechoslovak" independence, because it meant enslavement by the Marxist Czechs. It was thoughtful of Mr. Spinka to mention the fact that "the two outstanding CZECH philosophers, both pupils and disciples of Masaryk" also are Protestants: "Professor E. Ra.di, whose originality in the treatment of ideas has made him justly famous; and Professor Jan B. Kozak, the son of an outstanding minister and himself formerly a minister of the Czech Brethren Church, who was until recently the leading member of the philosophical faculty of the University of Prague. He is at present teaching at Oberlin College." Likewise that "among the theologians, none is more outstanding than Professor J. L. Hromadka, of the Jan Hus Theological Faculty, at present a member of the faculty of Princeton Theological Seminary.... " All these "outstanding CZECH philosophers" - pupils and disciples of Hus and Masaryk - are doing nicely, thank you, under the �57 SLOVAKIA Red Czech regime of Prague. Hromadka returned to Prague ten years ago to head the "Czechoslovak National Church; when the Czech Reds took over all power in February 1948, Hromadka and his Czech church voluntarily offered to co·Operate 100 percent! It would seem that the Czech "reformers" are continually reforming against Christianity! (Continued) • • • The History of Slovakia: By PHILIP A. HROBAK . CHAPTER THREE AFTER THE FALL OF GREAT MORAVIA There are no clear and reliable reports in historical sources to tell us when and under what circumstances Mojmir's country lost its independence. It is possible that the Slovak army, which clashed with the enemy so frequently, together with courageous Mojmir II, the last of the early Slovak rulers, perished in a final battle for the freedom of Slovakland. However, it is also possible that Mojmir IT, exhausted by constant warfare and without outside help in sight, did not venture into another war which he could not possibly win. Mojmir Il in his ten-year reign proved on more than one occasion that he was a sagacious ruler, and we can be certain that in those trying times he did what he deemed best for his country. From reliable sources we can learn only that in 906 A. D. Mojmir's country no longer was an independent state, because the Magyars marched through Slovakia in that year to aid the Slovanic Glomaches in their fight against the Saxons. Slovakia did not immediately fall prey to the Magyars who passed through it into neighboring countries on foraging expeditions. Slovakia only ceased to be an independent state. She no longer had her own ruler and could no longer defend herself, but she did not as yet belong under the rule of a foreign state. The German empire, exposed to the at- � 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 1957, Vol. 7 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 1 (No. 22), March 1957.</li> <li>Issue 2 (No. 23), June 1957.</li> <li>Issue 3-4 (No. 24-25), September-December 1957.</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 1957 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 52 SLOVAKIA Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" (Cont'd.) IDSTORY OR PROPAGANDA? P.A. HROBAK "The Czechoslovak Declaration and the letter to Emperor Charles were published in the Saturday morning papers, October 19, 1918, the two appearing in many papers in parallel columns; the reply of President Wilson quoted above came on the Monday following. "It was still thought that American public opinion was not sufficiently informed; while the men mentioned above were trying to devise what to do next, the suggestion was made that, if a declaration were issued from Independence Hall in Philadelphia, it would make a striking impression on the American people. They immediately consulted the State Department and obtained its approval, provided Professor Masaryk took the leadership. The members of the Mid-European Union were immediately summoned on Saturday morning, the nineteenth, and a preliminary draft of a declaration was made. The following Wednesday, the Union met in Independence Hall and continued in session until Saturday noon, with Masaryk as chairman. The discussion, which was heated at times, was concentrated on controversies between the various groups. "Because of the prominence attained by Professor Masaryk through the Declaration on Saturday, the press gave the meeting much space, and minimized the often bitter discussion. Saturday noon a Declaration of Common Aims was read by Professor Masaryk in the courtyard back of Independence Hall. This Declaration was realJy the first statement leading to the Little Entente." It would be interesting, indeed, if a copy of Masaryk's "original" draft of the Declaration were available. It is significant, however, that many less valuable and important documents were preserved and recorded by T. G. Masaryk in their original forms. Masaryk made less of the Declaration than did Mr. Miller. Referring to it in his "SVETOVA REVOLUCE" (p. 364), Masaryk said: " ... the form was chosen in such a way as to remind Americans -of their own beautiful Declaration; ultimately its value was tactical . ... In the Declaration, I repudiated Charles' late attempt to promote an Austrian pseudo-federation and outlined the essential principles on which the Provisional Government was building the foundations of the new state. The first outline I gave to read to a group ~f my own friends (among them Brandeis and editor Bennet); an objective and formal criticism of it was undertaken by a small com- SLOVAKIA 53 mittee, which made the final revision along formal and legal lines (Mr. Calffee, a remarkable expert and lawyer, was a member of it); this was a nice example of harmonious cooperation and, at the /same time, the first state act of great style, made under my direction. I delivered the Declaration to State Secretary Lansing so that I might insure agreement of the American Government beforehand; •lso so that even at the last moment before his reply to Austria I might remind Wilson of our stand." Who was right: Masaryk or Miller? Of course, they could both be right - each in his own way: the main thing was to sell Masaryk and Czecho-Slovakia to the American public, and especially to President Wilson and his advisers. Masaryk's draft of the "Czechoslovak Declaration of Independence," according to Mr. Miller, was scrapped - "the original typewritten copy was cut into more than a hundred pieces and pasted together in different order and then revised again and again" - but "great care was taken to keep all the meaning of the original"! And great care was taken to destroy Masaryk's original, of course! From all this it is obvious that Masaryk, despite arguments to the contrary notwithstanding, knew little about American democracy, which he wanted to exploit so that he might create his own special brand of "Czechoslovak" democracy. But why did Mr. Herbert Adolphus Miller, in the light of statements above, state categorically: "The Declaration of Independence, written by Masaryk, not only embodied his own philosophy but also reflected the past and foreshadowed a future of which his countrymen approved"? Are we to believe that is why Masaryk's version was scrapped and the committee's accepted?? CHAPTER XV - "The Religious Situation in Czechoslovakia" - by Matthew Spinka, B.D., Ph.D., "Associate Professor of Church History in the Chicago Theological Seminary and in the Divinity School of the University of Chicago; editor of Church History, published by the American Society of Church History, and the Society's Studies in Church History; author of: The Church and the Russian Revolution (1927); A History of Christianity in the Balkans (1933); Christianity Confronts Communism (1936-1938); Chronicle of John Malalas (1940); and numerous articles." Spinka's account, partial and notoriously biased against SLOVAKIA 54 the Catholic Church, is not a true account of "the religious situation in Czecho-Slovakia." In it one finds, for the most part, the Protestant or "Hussite" version of the "progressive" CZECHS, which purposefully tends to falsify and confuse the true picture. In the entire 18 pages of the chapter, Slovakia and the Slovaks are limited to several sentences, which clearly indicate that the author was not interested in presenting a factual account. In reading this chapter, readers should bear this in mind, otherwise they may fall for a distorted and biased version of a situation that did not prevail even in the Czech lands, and so much the less in Slovakia. "Furthermore, there was likewise a considerable difference In the character of Slovak and Czech Catholicism, which manifested itself in the continuous and sometimes violent political opposition to the Czechs. This opposition was led chiefly by the priesthood, with the famous Msgr. Andrej Hlinka, the papal prothonotary and a member of the Czechoslovak Senate at their head. It is significant that the instrument of the violent rupture between Slovakia and Bohemia-Moravia which occurred in March, 1939, was a Roman Catholic priest, Dr. Tiso" - (p. 289). Indeed, it is significant, that Spinka conveniently forgot to back this statement with proof of the "violence" resorted to by the Slovaks. The tendency is only too obvious. The fact is that Msgr. Hlinka and Msgr. Tiso, were not the instruments of the "violent" rupture between Slovakia and Bohemia-Moravia in 1939. But even if we grant that they were, who was more responsible for the situation that obtained in Czecho-Slovakia in 1939 than the Benes Czechs? • • • "When the Pact of Munich delivered the CZECH nation into the hands of the Nazi regime of the Reich, unfortunately a faction within the Catholic Church thought it an opportune moment to further their program. This was a militant, aggressive group of Catholics, with Jaroslav Durych as one of their leaders, who once more identified their cause with the opposition to the democratic Masaryk orientation of CZECH culture. This noisy, denunciatory, fanatical faction tried to substitute the ultramontane policies symbolized in CZECH history by St. Vaclav for the liberal, Protestant-inspired poli• cies represented by the tradition of Jan Hus, and Jan Amos Comenius, AS REPRESENTED BY PRESIDENT MASARYK. But with the setting up of the "Protectorate" in March, 1939, the momentary flare-up of religious intolerance subsided. It should be stressed that the responsible political leaders of the Catholics, such as Msgr. Dr. SLOVAKIA 55 ~ramek, did not share the views of the militant group, and remained loyal and faithful to the Masaryk-Benes orientation" - (p. 292). Please note well: The CZECHS, including "responsible political leaders of the Catholics, SUCH AS MSGR. DR. SRAMEK," scrapped the traditions of St. Wenceslaus for the policies of Hus and Comenius, "AS INTERPRETED BY PRESIDENT MASARYK"! What, then, does non-Catholic Spinka use as a yardstick for "responsible political leaders" of CZECH Catholics? • • • "Of those (CZECHS) who seceded from the Roman Church after the setting up of the Republic, the majority organized themselves into an anti-papal, nationalistic Czechoslovak Church. This body had its inception in the efforts of the "Unity of (CZECH) Catholic Clergy," which in 1919 undertook to wrest from the papal curia certain reforms which had been formulated two years earlier. . . . Seeing the hopelessness of the task of obtaining their demands, the (CZECH) leaders of the reformists decided upon the radical measure of setting up a new (CZECH) national church. At the convention of the (CZECH) reformist clergy held on January 8, 1920, the Czechoslovak Church was organized" - (p. 293). This paragraph and others following on the "Czechoslovak National Church" significantly lack the qualification "CZECH" for reasons best known to Mr. Spinka. The parenthetical inclusions here and below ( CZECH) are not Spinka's, but mine, to indicate clearly that the "Czechoslovak National Church" - which had the blessing of Masaryk and Benes and their socialistic followers was strictly a CZECH venture, nothing SLOVAK about it. • • • "The new (CZECH) Czechoslovak Church grew with astonishing rapidity. . . . The movement at first was (CZECH) Catholic, even though modernist and nationalist in character, but distinctly and bitterly anti-papal and anti-Roman. It was in no sense a Protestant body, and at first did not wish to be so considered, although in the course of time it joined the ranks of Protestant communions" (p. 294-295). • I • • "As for the cultural and religious life of the nation, despite its relative numerical inferiority, the Protestant element has played a role far beyond its strength in numbers. The president-liberator, Thomas G. Masaryk, had become early in life, a convert to Protestantism, and remained a member of the Czech Brethren Church to the end. A large number of other political leaders were and are 56 SLOVAKIA likewise members of one or another Protestant communion: Stefanik, the leader of the Slovaks during the struggle for independence; Premier Hodia, who served during the critical period in 1938; and Ivan Derer, who was minister of education in the Hodfa cabinet; in this group also are to be found ministers Slavik, Hurban, and Osusky all of whom are grouped about Dr. Eduard Benes in his struggle for the restoration of Czechoslovak independence" - (p. 300). If the "Protestant element" played "a role far beyond its strength in numbers" in a country that was predominantly Catholic (over 75 percent). there must have been some reason for it. The same element practically had a monopoly on political life. Masaryk, Spinka told us, was a member of the CZECH Brethren, while the Slovaks mentioned were Protestants, but he conveniently forgot to tell us just what Freemason Benes was. According to Spinka, Slovak Catholicism manifested itself in "violent" opposition, but he failed to mention the fact that the MasarykBenes Czechs, sworn enemies of the Roman Catholic Church, the faith of the vast majority of the population of CzechoSlovakia, were also "violent" in their opposition. In his blinded hatred for the Catholic population, especially the Slovaks, Benes, sold out Czecho-Slovakia to Hitler in 1938 and to Stalin in 1943. The Slovaks, as a nation, were opposed to the restoration of "Czechoslovak" independence, because it meant enslavement by the Marxist Czechs. It was thoughtful of Mr. Spinka to mention the fact that "the two outstanding CZECH philosophers, both pupils and disciples of Masaryk" also are Protestants: "Professor E. Ra.di, whose originality in the treatment of ideas has made him justly famous; and Professor Jan B. Kozak, the son of an outstanding minister and himself formerly a minister of the Czech Brethren Church, who was until recently the leading member of the philosophical faculty of the University of Prague. He is at present teaching at Oberlin College." Likewise that "among the theologians, none is more outstanding than Professor J. L. Hromadka, of the Jan Hus Theological Faculty, at present a member of the faculty of Princeton Theological Seminary.... " All these "outstanding CZECH philosophers" - pupils and disciples of Hus and Masaryk - are doing nicely, thank you, under the 57 SLOVAKIA Red Czech regime of Prague. Hromadka returned to Prague ten years ago to head the "Czechoslovak National Church; when the Czech Reds took over all power in February 1948, Hromadka and his Czech church voluntarily offered to co·Operate 100 percent! It would seem that the Czech "reformers" are continually reforming against Christianity! (Continued) • • • The History of Slovakia: By PHILIP A. HROBAK . CHAPTER THREE AFTER THE FALL OF GREAT MORAVIA There are no clear and reliable reports in historical sources to tell us when and under what circumstances Mojmir's country lost its independence. It is possible that the Slovak army, which clashed with the enemy so frequently, together with courageous Mojmir II, the last of the early Slovak rulers, perished in a final battle for the freedom of Slovakland. However, it is also possible that Mojmir IT, exhausted by constant warfare and without outside help in sight, did not venture into another war which he could not possibly win. Mojmir Il in his ten-year reign proved on more than one occasion that he was a sagacious ruler, and we can be certain that in those trying times he did what he deemed best for his country. From reliable sources we can learn only that in 906 A. D. Mojmir's country no longer was an independent state, because the Magyars marched through Slovakia in that year to aid the Slovanic Glomaches in their fight against the Saxons. Slovakia did not immediately fall prey to the Magyars who passed through it into neighboring countries on foraging expeditions. Slovakia only ceased to be an independent state. She no longer had her own ruler and could no longer defend herself, but she did not as yet belong under the rule of a foreign state. The German empire, exposed to the at-  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 Professor Kerner's "CZECHOSLOVAKIA": History or Propaganda? (7/8) Description An account of the resource P. A. Hrobak Slovakia, Vol. 7, No. 2 (23), June 1957 pp. 52-57 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hrobak, Philip Anthony, 1904-1964 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource June 1957 Relation A related resource continued from <a href="/items/show/251">Vol. 7, No. 1 (22), pp. 59-64</a><br />continues in <a href="/items/show/231">Vol. 7, No. 3-4 (24-25), pp. 69-83</a> LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/19cc29dc671ed57026f77a344cd990a3.pdf c767cd80b279ce3ed0fb10eb30272023 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 69 Mr. Secretary, and Mr. Ambassador, your personal as well as official support. As loyal sons and daughters of this great Republic, we beseech God's blessings upon You and your efforts to bring about His greater honor and glory, and we convey to each of You our sincerest and warmest personal regards. In witness whereof, we have unanimously adopted the above sentiments at this historic 35th Congress at Cleveland, Ohio, on May 26, 1957, the 50th anniversary of the first enunciation of these principles by our predecessors, of happy memory, our founding fathers and the organizers of the Slovak League of America. The Memorandum Committee of the Slovak League: (Signatures) JOHN J. SIROTNAK (Pa.) JOHN J . LESKOVJANSKY (Ohio) EDWARD J. BEHUNCIK (Conn.) JOHN B. HASSAY (Ohio) ELIZABETH ANDREJKO (Pa.) PHILIP A. HROBAK, President The Slovak League of America • • • Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" (Cont'd.) IDSTORY OR PROPAGANDA? P.A.HROBAK CHAPTER XVI - "Education in a Democracy" - by Francis H . Stuerm, Ph.D.; "Member, faculty of New York University; educated in Switzerland and the United States; Ph.D., New York University; author of Training in Democracy: The New Schools of Czechoslovakia (1938), published under the auspices of the Progressive Education Association." Another "progressive" report by a "progressive" professor! Thirteen pages, all of them devoted to the Czechs (Bohemia-Moravia), except this single paragraph which contained the word "Slovakia": "One of the Republic's lar gest educational tasks was to set up a complete system of education in the provinces of Slovakia and Sub- �70 SLOVAKIA Carpathian Ruthenia. In these former had been no universities or secondary cular, and not enough primary schools teach more than half the population for provinces of Hungary there schools taught in the vernaconducted in any language to four school years" - (p. 305). How many universities and secondary schools "taught in the vernacular" there were in Slovakia twenty years after the Czechs took over, Mr. Stuerm strangely fails to disclose which in itself is quite significant. The fact is that there was only one, the Comenius University in Bratislava, and this "only one" was completely under CZECH control! • • • "When the Czechoslovak Republic took over the schools of the former provinces of Austria-Hungary from which it was formed, its CZECH citizens were already democrats through inclination and generations of training. However, this training had not been gained in the schools. The CZECHS were democratic because their former Habsburg ruler had made them classless, three centuries before, by decimating their nobility and because for generations they had learned cooperation in united opposition to the Habsburgs" - (p. 302). The fact is that the "Czechoslovak Republic" did not take any schools over, but the CZECHS did and made them over in the CZECH image. "United opposition" to the Habsburgs? The historical fact is that the Czechs served the Habsburgs most loyally! The non-Czech citizens evidently were not "democratic" according to Mr. Stuerm. We know how the " democracy" of the Benes Czechs dealt with them. • • • "The Austrian schools had been developed under a central administration determined tu discipline the young people for satisfied subjection to the Habsburgs" - (p. 302). In like manner, the Czecho-Slovak schools had been developed under a central administration from Prague determined to discipline the young people of the various nations of the Republic for satisfied subjection to the Czechs. The "progressive" Czechs, however, went wide of their determination and found to their regret that young Slovaks were discipilined for dissatisfied subjection to the Czechs, upholding the principle that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Result? A greater degree of Slovak nationalism - Slovak solidarity! • • • "One of the fruits of CZECH political victories had been a continual expansion of the number of CZECH schools in which instruc- �SLOVAKIA 71 tion was given in the CZECH language . .. CZECH teachers had led the empire's educators in studying and advocating innovations of method (p. 303).... After the Republic was established, (CZECH) teachers who were interested in liberalization of method soon took advantage of their newly gained freedom to make study trips abroad. They attended PROGRESSIVE schools of pedagogy and observed PROGRESSIVE teaching in the United States, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, England, and in the NEW RUSSIA. They returned home filled with ideas and enthusiasm (p. 304). . . . During the Republic's early years there was a young CZECH educator, dr. Vaclav Prihoda, who was studying in the United States (Chicago U.; Columbia U.). . . . and became profoundly influenced by the ideas of Dewey and Thorndike . .. (he) was appointed chairman of this governmental committee (Reform Committee at the School of Higher Pedagogical Studies) (pp. 306-307).... The CZECHS have always considered the maintenance of the national culture as a duty sacred in its importance. . . . It was this strong practical strain in the CZECH character which caused initial reluctance among the citizens to permit changes in schools which they knew were good (pp. 308-309) . . .. During the golden age of CZECH democracy under the Republic, children cooperated freely in their classroom in the singing of (Czech) patriotic songs and in the artistic speaking chorus, all which heightened their feeling of national unity (p. 311).... The emotional basis of CZECH democracy was the same inherent staying power which had maintained the nation in its precarious geographical situation since early tribal times (p. 313).. . the CZECHS had built up in their character centuries-old habits of independent individual thought and public cooperation. . . . In Austrian times, the training in the schools overlaid the CZECH'S democratic character with a surface attitude of acquiescent passivity. When the establishment of the Republic gave CZECH democracy opportunity to flourish unhampered in its action, PROGRESSIVE educators developed a new method, which gave it direct expression" (p. 314). Mr. Stuerm certainly was hep on the "progressive" CZECH business, the only thing, according to him, and others, which figured in the "CZECH democracy" of Czecho-Slovakia - in which the progressive "truth" of Masaryk-Benes prevailed. In the end "CZECH democracy" had no trouble in becoming CZECH "PEOPLE'S Democracy!" • • • CHAPTER XVII "Czechoslovakia's Contribution to Science" - by Gerald Druce, D.R.N., M.Sc.; Fellow London Chemical Society (1915-) ; Fellow Institute of Chemistry (1925-) ; honorary and foreign member Masaryk Academy of Work (1928-) ; M.Sc., University of London; D.R.N., Charles University, Prague; authority on CZECH science; author of books and articles, among them: Wan- �72 SL'.) VAKIA derings in Czechoslovakia (1930) In the Heart of Europe - Life in Czechoslovakia (1936). Another misnomered chapter which should be entitled: CZECH contribution to science. The very first sentence of Mr. Druce's contribution to Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" has no historical basis in fact; in it he claims that "the Czechoslovak State REGAINED its independence in 1918" - the ridiculous story the Benes Czechs promoted and still propagate. The "Czecho-Slovak State" never existed until 1918 ! A few samplings for the edification of historians interested in the history of the Slovaks and Czechs: " . ... contemporary mineralogical and alchemical works in the CZECH language . .. the greatest CZECH educator, Comenius ... the CZECH national revival . . . The National Museum . . . widened its scope to become a rallying point of all CZECH culture .... Purkyne lectured in CZECH ... CZECH men of science ... distinguished CZECH chemists ... CZECH scientific literature . . . Modern scientific and technical works in CZECH . .. . It was in the biological sciences that CZECH men of science made noteworthy advances a century ago . .. . Count Kaspar Sternberg ... was a patron of CZECH science at the time of the national awakening .. . ." The CZECH men of science get all the play; General Milan Stefanik, "the Slovak astronomer," was the only Slovak to rate - one sentence! The "selected Bibliography" at the end of the chapter is strictly CZECH. So, "Czechoslovakia's Contributions to Science" really winds up to be: CZECH contributions to science - according to the formula of the Benes Czechs. • • • CHAPTER XVIII - "Czechoslovak Music, Art, and by Jaroslav E. Vojan, J.D.; "President, Literature" Bohemian Arts Club (1912-); J.D., Charles University, Prague; Professor of Economics, College of Commerce, Prague (1899); editor, NEW CZECH Review (Prague, 1903-1904) ; editor, Svojan, (1928-) ; editor, Free Czechoslovakia (1939-) ; author of Czech-American Epistles (1910) ... " As one might suspect, in this chapter, too, just about everything "Czechoslovak" means "CZECH": composers, artists, sculptors, writers, poets, et al. Slovaks, however, rate a bit better than they did in the previous chapter (by �SLOVAKIA 73 Druce): Mr. Vojan generously allows them three sentences in a total of 18 pages ! • • • CHAPTER XIX - "Diplomatic Origins and Foreign Policy" - by Felix J. Vondracek, Ph.D.; "Professor of European History University of North Dakota; Ph.D. , Columbia University; author of "The Foreign Policy of Czechoslovakia (1937) ." "The best efforts of a vigilant Austro-Hungarian police and spy system had not been able to prevent patriotic Czechoslovaks in the homelands from communicating with the exiles through the efficient (Czech) 'Maffia' organization. Both groups of patriots well knew that success could be attained only through cooperation" (pp. 349-350). Professor Vondracek, like other Benes Czechs and their hired propagandists, promotes the false thesis of a "united CZECHOSLOVAK nation." What "patriotic Czechoslovaks" at a time when the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia did not exist? Why then talk about "both groups" of patriots? Who were the "SLOVAK patriots" who communicated with the CZECH exiles (Masaryk and Benes) through the CZECH "MAFFIA"? We know that most Slovak patriots and many CZECH patriots knew practically nothing about what Masaryk and Benes were cooking up for them in exile. Masaryk and Benes themselves figured that the fewer Slovak and Czech "patriots" in on their plan, the better the chances for the success of their CZECH cause, promoted under the guise of a "CZECHOSLOVAK" cause. Mr. Vondracek, CZECH "expert" on CZECHO-SLOVAK diplomacy and foreign policy, hinted at this when he said: "The efforts of the predominantly CZECH revolutionary leaders in Paris and Prague were supported by other Slavic groups" (p. 350). Of course, Mr. Vondracek very conveniently forgot to spell out the "other Slavic groups" who really knew something about the efforts of Benes, Masaryk, and the CZECH "Maffia" at that time . "On June • • • 30, 1918, American-CZECH and American-SLOVAK leaders in the United States signed the DECLARATION OF PITTSBURGH, whereby, in the Czechoslovakia-to-be, THE SLOVAK PEO- �74 SLOVAKIA PLE WERE GUARANTEED THEIR OWN ASSEMBLY, COURTS, AND ADMINISTRATION. Similarly, by the D'l!daration of Turcian• sky Sv. Martin, signed on October 30, the :ilovaks in the homeland associated themselves with the new State" - (p . 350). The Pittsburgh Convention or Agree!nent was drafted and signed by T. G. Masaryk and representatives of American Slovak and Czech organizations on May 30, 1918 - and not on JUNE 30, 1918 (See Chapter IX above). It is significant that :M:r. Vondracek fails to mention the historic:11 fact tha: Masaryk repudiated the Pittsburgh Conver.tion, calling it but a "scrap of paper." And note th:1t the 'Slovaks in the homeland associated themselves with the ~ew State" TWO DAYS AFTER the Prague declaration of independence! This is evidence of how much "Slovak patriots" really knew about what was cooking in the CZECH kitchen of Masaryk and Benes! • • • "At the termination of the war, Cechoslovak forces totaled 182,000 men, of which number 12,000 were serving in France, 78,000 in Italy, and 92,000 in Russia. The last of these armies had been particularly valuable to the Allies" - (p. 351). The figures are undoubtedly based on CZECH mathematics authored by the Benes Czechs, which is based on the principle of at least "doubling" numbers in such cases. And the fact is that the "Czechoslovak forces" in Russia were not at all valuable to the Allies since they refused to follow their orders. Masaryk conjured the "Siberian rabbit" out of his black felt hat to create a favorable impression in America. Czechs and pro-Czechs love to indulge in the legend cooked up by Masaryk. But the truth is something else again. "The Czechs," Robert Ingrim tells us ("After Hitler Stalin?"), "were offered the 'short route' to France, via Murmansk and Archangel, but they preferred the long way via Siberia to Vladivostok. . . . They were not interested in fighting the Bolsheviks or anyone else. . . . Their policy was, as their spokesman said, 'the railroad and to go home'.... They did very little fighting, and when the Reds had overcome their initial disorganization and had become a serious military force, the Czechs withdrew eastward." Just how the "Czechoslovak army performed for the Allies services more valuable than the same forces could �SLOVAKIA 75 have rendered in France ... through control of the Volga area and the Transsiberian Railway," Mr. Vondracek does · not explain. We know that Masaryk and Benes did not want their Czech legions in Siberia to fight the Bolsheviks. We also know that the Allies insisted that "the Czechs stop their retreat and support the Regent," Admiral Koltschak, supreme commander of the anti-Bolshevik forces - "otherwise they would not get ships over the Pacific." The Czechs yielded to this threat reluctantly, but when the Reds had shown their superiority, "the Czechs helped them capture the admiral"! Mr. Vondracek, in typical Czech fashion, tells us, however, that: "Enmeshed in the Russian domestic chaos, and forced to continue the struggle against the Bolsheviks after the World War had terminated, the Czechoslovak Legions became unwilling tools of a French and British diplomacy that wished to keep them in Siberia indefinitely." Why British and French diplomacy really wanted to keep the "Czechoslovak" Legions in Siberia INDEFINITELY, Mr. Vondracek does not say. We know, however, for that British and, particularly, French diplomacy which Masaryk and Benes became WILLING TOOLS had very much to do with the establishment of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. • • • How Benes felt about the Soviet Union is, surprisingly, factually reported by Mr. Vondracek (pp. 356-362): "Benes was a pioneer in advocating the recognition of Soviet Russia long before public opinion either in Czechoslovakia or elsewhere in Europe became converted to such a step." The foreign policy of Czecho-Slovakia was Dr. Eduard Benes, and Benes, a thorough Socialist, was completely pro-Soviet and for the socialistic system of the U. S. S. R. His policy led to the logical conclusion we all witnessed after the war (1945-1948): a complete surrender to Communism. Benes and Masaryk undoubtedly persuaded their people, the Czechs, to recognize Soviet Russia, but they certainly could not persuade the Slovaks to do so. The Slovak nation, as a whole, remained faithful to its thoroughly Christian tradition, opposing collaboration with the godless forces of the Soviet Union to the very bitter end. �76 SLOVAKIA The Munich debacle is treated in the typical fashion of the Benes Czechs by Mr. Vondracek: Benes and his Czechs were above reproach; the culprits were Britain, France, the Germans, the Slovaks, Poles, Magyars, and Ruthenes (pp. 364-366). "Faced with the ruin of his life's work, Benes wisely resigned and went into voluntary exile," Mr. Vondracek says tersely, but nary a word that Benes had surrendered his country to Hitler without consulting parliament and thereby had incurred the just wrath of both Slovaks and Czechs, who probably would have hung him had he not fled to England. The fact is that Benes was a coward; the surrender of Czecho-Slovakia to Hitler, without consulting the representatives of the nations concerned, was criminal. The Benes Czechs did not and still do not want the world to know the truth why Benes did capitulate to Hitler. Robert Ingrim, however, hit the nail on the head when he said: "The allegation that the Czechs surrendered without firing a shot, because England and France asked them to do so, is purely fictitious. They chose to surrender 'at the behest of their faithless friends,' because an attempt to fight would have revealed to the world that the German-Slovak-Magyar-Polish-Ruthenian majority of the population was not prepared to die for a State that had treated them as second-class citizens." • • • After Hitler attacked Poland, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany, and World War II was on, "for which," Mr. Vondracek says, "many CZECHOSLOVAKS had been praying as their one hope of salvation after Munich." But this is only Mr. Vondracek's opinion and not fact. The truth is that the overwhelming majority of Slovaks did not pray for war but for peace. Mr. Vondracek has no proof to offer that even many Czechs, the majority of whom, we are told, are Catholics, prayed for war either. And he undoubtedly knew that the Slovak Republic, after the legal autonomous Slovak Government had declared Slovakia an independent State (March 14, 1939), was recognized DE JURE and./or DE FACTO by twenty-seven states, yet, in Kerner's "Czechoslovakia," he chose to write the following historical lie: "The Czechoslovak Republic continued to exist de jure, if not de facto. The United States, Great Britain, France, Soviet Russia and Poland in particular had not recognized the annexation by Germany". �SLOVAKIA 77 The historical truth is that Great Britain, France, Soviet Russia, as well as Poland (until Hitler attacked it, September 1, 1939) - and twenty-three other countries - did recognize the independent Slovak State and, hence, must have also recognized the collapse of Czecho-Slovakia. The U. S., it is true, did not recognize independent Slovakia, but the Slovaks were quite certain that it would, if war did not break out for another year or two - and that is what they were praying for at that time. They were through with Benes's 'Czechoslovak" democracy then and did not want his "new Czechoslovakia" - the "people's democracy" in 1945. They are adamantly opposed to her today and will be as long as she exists! • • • CHAPTER XX - "The Little Entente and the Balkan Entente" - by Harry Nicholas Howard, Ph.D., "Professor of History, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio; Ph.D., University of California; member, Institut Balkanique (Belgrade; American contributing editor, Bibliographie Balkanique (Paris)," etc. Professor Howard, like the many other distinguished scholars who contributed chapters to Kerner's "Czechoslovakia," succumbed to the charms of the Masaryk and Benes Czechs, lapped up their propaganda, then presented it as "history." The Little Entente was formed, Mr. Howard states, "in the light of such a practical philosophy" - the latter being expressed by Dr. Eduard Benes (p. 372). Of course, neither Benes nor Mr. Howard could even dare mention a cordon sanitaire against Germany! Having adopted Benes's "practical philosophy" for the formation of the Little Entente, Mr. Howard continued: " One of the keystones of the foreign policy of Czechoslovakia was the organization in 1920-1921 of the Little Entente, composed of Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia and Rumania. Czechoslovakia played a principal and even a dominant role in the Little Entente .... Dr. Eduard Benes, as foreign minister and later as president of Czechoslovakia, was the major statesman of the Little Entente, not only within its inner circles, but in the League of Nations, and, therefore, in the councils of European diplomacy" - (p. 368). Big Socialist and little man Benes played " big" politics in the Little Entente, while Czecho-Slovakia, outside of being Benes's kingdom, meant little. The "major statesman" was �78 SLOVAKIA deflated completely by the first great crisis ·that hit CzechoSlovakia and the Little Entente. Mr. Howard knew that but he continued to ramble on: "When the great crisis came in September, 1938, it is interesting to note that both Jugoslavia, thanks to popular pressure on behalf of Czechoslovakia, and Rumania, as members of the Little Entente, rallied to the support of the harassed Republic. They remained true to their obligations, and were ready to stand to arms, as long as they had any confidence in France and Great Britain . .. Only the Munich 'Accord' of September 29-30 finally destroyed the Little Entente" - (p. 383). "The Little Entente, despite determined efforts, was unable to organize an effective, inclusive political and economic collaboration in central Europe, embracing Auslria and Hungary" - (p. 384). We are supposed to believe that without the "Munich Accord" the Little Entente would not have been destroyed, according to Mr. Howard. The Little Entente, Mr. Howard could have told us if he were honest, was just so much horse play. Why embrace only Austria and Hungary (as if Benes wanted to!) to organize effective collaboration in Central Europe, and not the rest of the countries "in that area? The fact is that after twenty years of Benes foreign policy, not a single neighboring country was really on friendly terms with Czecho-Slovakia. Jingos and chauvinists usually wear blinkers. The French (Clemenceau and Poincare), however, were not blind to the new dangers of the new distribution of power on the European Continent. When they decided to destroy Austria-Hungary, they undoubtedly were familiar with the objections to this program: their plan was to replace Austro-German and Magyar leadership on the Danube by Czech imperialism, combined with the Serbian and Rumanian brands. Years later the result was the Little Entente (Czecho-Slovakia, Rumania, Yugoslavia), "the memory of which," according to Robert Ingrim, "produces a smile an every European's lips, a smile tinged with scorn," because "you cannot square a circle, and, unlike distant Americans, people on the spot could not be persuaded to admire as progress the replacement of one mixed state by three no less mixed ones." Viscount D' Abernon, showing how Versailles had destroyed Europe's equilibrium- ("An Ambassador of Peace" - 1929), predicted: "The Czech satellite will revert to the orbit of the Moscow planet as soon �SLOVAKIA 79 as disturbing forces cease to operate as powerfully as today." We know that he was right. When the "big crisis" came the Little Entente, including Benes's Czecho-Slovakia, folded up. • • • CHAPTER XXI - "Hitler and Hitlerism" - by (Henry) Wickham Steed, LL.D., "Editor, London Times (19191922); correspondent, London Times, at Berlin (1896); at Rome (1897-1902); at Vienna (1902-1913); foreign editor (1914-1919); proprietor and editor, The Review of Reviews (1923-1930); educated at universities of Jena, Berlin, and Paris; LL.D., universities of Strasbourg and Cluj; Lecturer on Central European History, King's College, University of London (1925-1938); author of numerous books and articles ... ", etc. Probably no individual helped T. G. Masaryk and Eduard Benes - and their "CZECH cause" - as much as Mr. Steed of London, man of letters and contacts and, therefore, a man of great influence. With his valuable assistance and the backing of the "progressive" forces of Socialism and Freemasonry, Masaryk and Benes, who were political unknowns before World War I, in a very short time became "political wizards, outstanding statesmen, experts on Central Europe and Germany and Russia, and pre-eminently political philosophers." It all came about by propaganda - as did Czecho-Slovakia, the political monstrosity of Masaryk and Benes. And Mr. H. Wickham Steed was quite a propagandist for a new order in "Christian" Europe - an order divorced from things eternal, from God Himself. His attempt to help Masaryk and Benes "remake" the history of the Slovak and Czech nations to suit the pattern of "the ideas of Masaryk" is quite obvious in his chapter of Kerner's "Czechoslovakia": "The Czechoslovak State had been fashioned and inspired by the ideas of Thomas G. Masaryk. . . . Masaryk looked upon that war (1914-1918) as a struggle between the ideas of the West and the ideas of Germany. The ideas of the West, he argued, are legacies of the Renaissance and the Reformation with their outcome in the English, American, and French revolutions, the parents of democra• cy. He defined democracy as an attempt to organize mankind intensively, as distinguished from the theocracy of the Holy Roman Empire which tried to organize European mankind extensively" (p. 402). �80 SLOVAKIA This probably explains why Czecho-Slovakia collapsed in 1938: the ideas of T. G. Masaryk were of themselves insufficient for the life of the nations contained within Masaryk's "CZECH" democracy. It is significant that even the Czechs did not fire a shot in the defense of Masaryk's democracy in 1938 or in 1948 ! • • • his World Revolution, Masaryk declared that there is only one remedy for abuses and defects in the life of the State truth and truthfulness, coupled with freedom to speak and to write the truth. Democracy, he insisted, should mean moral renovation in politics, in education, and throughout the whole range of public and private life" - (p. 405). "In This sounds regular, coming from an admirer and promoter of Masaryk, but the fact remains that T. G. M. often did not do as he preached. What did he say and write about the Slovaks and their country? Why did he deceive them and defraud them of the autonomy he and Benes had promised in Czecho-Slovakia? What about the "Siberian legend"? And White Mountain? Moral renovation? Based on what fundamentals? The state built by Masaryk and Benes was a fraud, because they were frauds at war with the Author of all genuine truth, justice, and morality. • • • "Peace can be founded only upon a community of free, democratic, and ethically minded peoples resolved to work together as equals in the spirit of Masaryk's faith. Hitlerism, in the broadest sense, is the foe of civilized humanity; and in nothing was Masaryk greater than in his insistance that the idea of his people must be : "Jesus, not Caesar" - (p. 408). Even if the whole world works "in the spirit of Masaryk's faith," no true and lasting peace will ever result. There was no genuine peace in Masaryk's own State. And what was the difference between Masarykism and Hitlerism? Hitler promoted German National Socialism, while Masaryk and Benes promoted CZECH National Socialism. Masarky did use the slogan "Jesus, not Caesar," but he did not live up to it, serving rather the enemies of Jesus, the Caesars of the forces of darkness. The cross of Jesus was forcefully removed from schools, the Marian Column was torn down in Prague, and the Church established by Jesus, the Roman Catholic Church, was harrassed and persecu- �SLOVAKlA 81 ted by Masaryk and his followers, who promoted the Czech National Church and shrieked: "Away from Rome - Rome must be put on trial and convicted!" Democracy, Masaryk said, 'is not alone a form of State and of administration. It is a philosophy of life and an outlook upon the world" ( (p. 406). What was the ethical basis of his politics? T. G. M. said: "The ethical basis of all politics is humanity, and humanity is an international program. It is a new word for the old love of our fellow-men" (p. 406). Humanity, "the new word," was then substituted by Masaryk for the old word, God and Jesus, as the ethical basis of his politics. We know what it led to: Chaos and ruin. • • • CHAPTER XXII - "The Road to Munich and Beyond" - by Bernadotte E. Schmitt, Ph.D. , "Andrew MacLeish Distinguished Service Professor of Modern History, University of Chicago; B.A., M.A., Oxford (Rhodes Scholar from Tennessee); Ph.D., Wisconscin; Guggenheim Fellow (1927) ; Pulitzer Prize winner (1931) ; editor, Journal of Modern History, Chicago, 1929-) ," etc. This chapter, in the main, follows the usual line of the Benes Czechs: Benes was clean; the Czechs were "ready, even eager, to fight," but Great Britain and France would not let them; "IF Dr. Benes, with whom the ultimate decision rested, yielded to the demands of Britain and France, the explanation appears to be two-fold - Benes wished to spare his people the horrors of war and, then, he feared, "if Czechoslovakia fought only with Russia as an ally she would be labeled as a RED state (however preposterous that might seem) ... " As for the Slovaks: Hlinka's autonomists supported the demands of the Sudeten German Party, while the Czecho-Slovakia of 1918-1938 "was satisfactory to the Czechs and to a majority of the Slovaks, but not to a considerable section of the German and Magyar minorities, the inclusion of whom was necessary to make the State economically viable." The truth is that the majority of the Slovaks were not satisfied with the Czecho-Slovakia of 1918-1938. • • • CHAPTER XXIII - "Czechoslovak Democracy: Was It Worth While?" - by James T. Shotwell, Ph.D., LL.D., �82 SLOVAKIA "Bryce Professor of the History of International Relations, Columbia University . .. president League of Nations Association (1935-) ... commander, Order of the White Lion (Czechoslovak ia) ... " etc. (about a half page!). Mr. Shotwell is another of the "Masaryk-Ben es-coulddo-no-wrong" chain gang. The majority of the population of Czecho-Slovak ia was opposed to "Czechoslovak" democracy - a pseudodemoc racy - but Shotwell says it was worth while, stating categorically: "There can be no doubt that the history of Europe and of Western civilization has been immensely enriched by the philosophy and statesmanship of President Masaryk. Neither can there be any doubt that the Czechoslovak Republic has left a remarkable record in the annals of history; one which, with all its mis- takes - and they must be admitted - proved the competence of this branch of the Slavic peoples in the art and science of government" - (p. 441). The fact is, however, that the socialistic State of Czecho-Slovakia proved beyond a doubt that it does not pay to collaborate with the Soviet Union and the Reds. The world would be healthier today minus the "philosophy and statesmanship " of Masaryk who falsified and distorted Czech and Slovak history to create the political monstrosity of Czecho-Slovakia. Another of Shotwell's "facts": "His (Masaryk's) effort to teach the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson not only to his own people but to the others of east-central Europe did not wholly succeed; for the task was well-nigh impossible. The Austrian system of government under which the Czechs had lived, and still more Hungary's rule of the Slavs within its frontiers, were both far removed from the American democratic federalism, which was the basis of Masaryk's political philosophy. Although the Habsburg's had been forced to recognize the different national stocks which composed their varied empire, the bureaucracy and the army held these peoples together in a way which failed utterly to satisfy their aspirations for political self-expression. True federalism flourishes only under a regime of liberty, and that was something foreign to the Habsburg tradition" - (pp. 446-447). Masaryk's Czecho-Slovakia, however, proved that Masaryk was not interested in or impressed by "American democratic federalism." The "Czechoslova k" democratic system was as far removed from American democratic federalism as were the Austrian and Hungarian systems. The Czech bureaucracy and chauvinism of Masaryk and Benes �SLOVAKIA 83 failed utterly to satisfy the aspirations of the Slovaks and other non-Czech nations of Czecho-Slovakia for political self-expression. Twenty years of Masaryk-Benes rule in Czecho-Slovakia definitely proved that true liberty was more foreign to the Masaryk and Benes regimes than it was to the Habsburgs, hence, the seed of federalism was not even planted by them. Czecho-Slovakia was supposed to be patterned after Switzerland or the United States, but the fact is that she was not. (The End.) • • • THE SLOVAKS WERE THERE : MAJOR JOHN L. POLERECKY FOUGHT FOR AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE In 1781, when the defeated army of Cornwallis surrendered its arms to General George Washington at Yorktown, Va., among the "French Hussars" who encircled the defeated, as the ceremony of "surrendering arms" took place, was a son of Slovakia, Major John L. Polerecky, whose father hailed from Polerieka, Turiec Province, Slovakia. The story of John Polerecky's participation in the American Revolution for the independence of America was unfolded by Dr. Joseph Cincik, Ph.D., professor of history and art, Cleveland, Ohio, and a member of the Slovak Institute there. Mr. Cincik, a distant relative of Major Polerecky, spent much time and money in travel and research to gather the facts of the Polerecky story. When the complete story of Polerecky is published, it will be fully documented with photocopies of original documents from Slovakia, France, and the National Archives in Washington, D. C. What is presented here is from a portion of Dr. Cincik's manuscript on Major Polerecky. When Francis Rakoczy of Hungary revolted against the Habsburgs and lost, he was forced to flee for his life in 1711. He fled to Poland and later made his way to France. Rakoczy was not through with his fight against Vienna, and Louis XIV was happy to accept his services when he offered them to him in 1713. Rakoczy was ac- � SLOVAKIA 69 Mr. Secretary, and Mr. Ambassador, your personal as well as official support. As loyal sons and daughters of this great Republic, we beseech God's blessings upon You and your efforts to bring about His greater honor and glory, and we convey to each of You our sincerest and warmest personal regards. In witness whereof, we have unanimously adopted the above sentiments at this historic 35th Congress at Cleveland, Ohio, on May 26, 1957, the 50th anniversary of the first enunciation of these principles by our predecessors, of happy memory, our founding fathers and the organizers of the Slovak League of America. The Memorandum Committee of the Slovak League: (Signatures) JOHN J. SIROTNAK (Pa.) JOHN J . LESKOVJANSKY (Ohio) EDWARD J. BEHUNCIK (Conn.) JOHN B. HASSAY (Ohio) ELIZABETH ANDREJKO (Pa.) PHILIP A. HROBAK, President The Slovak League of America • • • Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" (Cont'd.) IDSTORY OR PROPAGANDA? P.A.HROBAK CHAPTER XVI - "Education in a Democracy" - by Francis H . Stuerm, Ph.D.; "Member, faculty of New York University; educated in Switzerland and the United States; Ph.D., New York University; author of Training in Democracy: The New Schools of Czechoslovakia (1938), published under the auspices of the Progressive Education Association." Another "progressive" report by a "progressive" professor! Thirteen pages, all of them devoted to the Czechs (Bohemia-Moravia), except this single paragraph which contained the word "Slovakia": "One of the Republic's lar gest educational tasks was to set up a complete system of education in the provinces of Slovakia and Sub- �70 SLOVAKIA Carpathian Ruthenia. In these former had been no universities or secondary cular, and not enough primary schools teach more than half the population for provinces of Hungary there schools taught in the vernaconducted in any language to four school years" - (p. 305). How many universities and secondary schools "taught in the vernacular" there were in Slovakia twenty years after the Czechs took over, Mr. Stuerm strangely fails to disclose which in itself is quite significant. The fact is that there was only one, the Comenius University in Bratislava, and this "only one" was completely under CZECH control! • • • "When the Czechoslovak Republic took over the schools of the former provinces of Austria-Hungary from which it was formed, its CZECH citizens were already democrats through inclination and generations of training. However, this training had not been gained in the schools. The CZECHS were democratic because their former Habsburg ruler had made them classless, three centuries before, by decimating their nobility and because for generations they had learned cooperation in united opposition to the Habsburgs" - (p. 302). The fact is that the "Czechoslovak Republic" did not take any schools over, but the CZECHS did and made them over in the CZECH image. "United opposition" to the Habsburgs? The historical fact is that the Czechs served the Habsburgs most loyally! The non-Czech citizens evidently were not "democratic" according to Mr. Stuerm. We know how the " democracy" of the Benes Czechs dealt with them. • • • "The Austrian schools had been developed under a central administration determined tu discipline the young people for satisfied subjection to the Habsburgs" - (p. 302). In like manner, the Czecho-Slovak schools had been developed under a central administration from Prague determined to discipline the young people of the various nations of the Republic for satisfied subjection to the Czechs. The "progressive" Czechs, however, went wide of their determination and found to their regret that young Slovaks were discipilined for dissatisfied subjection to the Czechs, upholding the principle that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Result? A greater degree of Slovak nationalism - Slovak solidarity! • • • "One of the fruits of CZECH political victories had been a continual expansion of the number of CZECH schools in which instruc- �SLOVAKIA 71 tion was given in the CZECH language . .. CZECH teachers had led the empire's educators in studying and advocating innovations of method (p. 303).... After the Republic was established, (CZECH) teachers who were interested in liberalization of method soon took advantage of their newly gained freedom to make study trips abroad. They attended PROGRESSIVE schools of pedagogy and observed PROGRESSIVE teaching in the United States, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, England, and in the NEW RUSSIA. They returned home filled with ideas and enthusiasm (p. 304). . . . During the Republic's early years there was a young CZECH educator, dr. Vaclav Prihoda, who was studying in the United States (Chicago U.; Columbia U.). . . . and became profoundly influenced by the ideas of Dewey and Thorndike . .. (he) was appointed chairman of this governmental committee (Reform Committee at the School of Higher Pedagogical Studies) (pp. 306-307).... The CZECHS have always considered the maintenance of the national culture as a duty sacred in its importance. . . . It was this strong practical strain in the CZECH character which caused initial reluctance among the citizens to permit changes in schools which they knew were good (pp. 308-309) . . .. During the golden age of CZECH democracy under the Republic, children cooperated freely in their classroom in the singing of (Czech) patriotic songs and in the artistic speaking chorus, all which heightened their feeling of national unity (p. 311).... The emotional basis of CZECH democracy was the same inherent staying power which had maintained the nation in its precarious geographical situation since early tribal times (p. 313).. . the CZECHS had built up in their character centuries-old habits of independent individual thought and public cooperation. . . . In Austrian times, the training in the schools overlaid the CZECH'S democratic character with a surface attitude of acquiescent passivity. When the establishment of the Republic gave CZECH democracy opportunity to flourish unhampered in its action, PROGRESSIVE educators developed a new method, which gave it direct expression" (p. 314). Mr. Stuerm certainly was hep on the "progressive" CZECH business, the only thing, according to him, and others, which figured in the "CZECH democracy" of Czecho-Slovakia - in which the progressive "truth" of Masaryk-Benes prevailed. In the end "CZECH democracy" had no trouble in becoming CZECH "PEOPLE'S Democracy!" • • • CHAPTER XVII "Czechoslovakia's Contribution to Science" - by Gerald Druce, D.R.N., M.Sc.; Fellow London Chemical Society (1915-) ; Fellow Institute of Chemistry (1925-) ; honorary and foreign member Masaryk Academy of Work (1928-) ; M.Sc., University of London; D.R.N., Charles University, Prague; authority on CZECH science; author of books and articles, among them: Wan- �72 SL'.) VAKIA derings in Czechoslovakia (1930) In the Heart of Europe - Life in Czechoslovakia (1936). Another misnomered chapter which should be entitled: CZECH contribution to science. The very first sentence of Mr. Druce's contribution to Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" has no historical basis in fact; in it he claims that "the Czechoslovak State REGAINED its independence in 1918" - the ridiculous story the Benes Czechs promoted and still propagate. The "Czecho-Slovak State" never existed until 1918 ! A few samplings for the edification of historians interested in the history of the Slovaks and Czechs: " . ... contemporary mineralogical and alchemical works in the CZECH language . .. the greatest CZECH educator, Comenius ... the CZECH national revival . . . The National Museum . . . widened its scope to become a rallying point of all CZECH culture .... Purkyne lectured in CZECH ... CZECH men of science ... distinguished CZECH chemists ... CZECH scientific literature . . . Modern scientific and technical works in CZECH . .. . It was in the biological sciences that CZECH men of science made noteworthy advances a century ago . .. . Count Kaspar Sternberg ... was a patron of CZECH science at the time of the national awakening .. . ." The CZECH men of science get all the play; General Milan Stefanik, "the Slovak astronomer," was the only Slovak to rate - one sentence! The "selected Bibliography" at the end of the chapter is strictly CZECH. So, "Czechoslovakia's Contributions to Science" really winds up to be: CZECH contributions to science - according to the formula of the Benes Czechs. • • • CHAPTER XVIII - "Czechoslovak Music, Art, and by Jaroslav E. Vojan, J.D.; "President, Literature" Bohemian Arts Club (1912-); J.D., Charles University, Prague; Professor of Economics, College of Commerce, Prague (1899); editor, NEW CZECH Review (Prague, 1903-1904) ; editor, Svojan, (1928-) ; editor, Free Czechoslovakia (1939-) ; author of Czech-American Epistles (1910) ... " As one might suspect, in this chapter, too, just about everything "Czechoslovak" means "CZECH": composers, artists, sculptors, writers, poets, et al. Slovaks, however, rate a bit better than they did in the previous chapter (by �SLOVAKIA 73 Druce): Mr. Vojan generously allows them three sentences in a total of 18 pages ! • • • CHAPTER XIX - "Diplomatic Origins and Foreign Policy" - by Felix J. Vondracek, Ph.D.; "Professor of European History University of North Dakota; Ph.D. , Columbia University; author of "The Foreign Policy of Czechoslovakia (1937) ." "The best efforts of a vigilant Austro-Hungarian police and spy system had not been able to prevent patriotic Czechoslovaks in the homelands from communicating with the exiles through the efficient (Czech) 'Maffia' organization. Both groups of patriots well knew that success could be attained only through cooperation" (pp. 349-350). Professor Vondracek, like other Benes Czechs and their hired propagandists, promotes the false thesis of a "united CZECHOSLOVAK nation." What "patriotic Czechoslovaks" at a time when the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia did not exist? Why then talk about "both groups" of patriots? Who were the "SLOVAK patriots" who communicated with the CZECH exiles (Masaryk and Benes) through the CZECH "MAFFIA"? We know that most Slovak patriots and many CZECH patriots knew practically nothing about what Masaryk and Benes were cooking up for them in exile. Masaryk and Benes themselves figured that the fewer Slovak and Czech "patriots" in on their plan, the better the chances for the success of their CZECH cause, promoted under the guise of a "CZECHOSLOVAK" cause. Mr. Vondracek, CZECH "expert" on CZECHO-SLOVAK diplomacy and foreign policy, hinted at this when he said: "The efforts of the predominantly CZECH revolutionary leaders in Paris and Prague were supported by other Slavic groups" (p. 350). Of course, Mr. Vondracek very conveniently forgot to spell out the "other Slavic groups" who really knew something about the efforts of Benes, Masaryk, and the CZECH "Maffia" at that time . "On June • • • 30, 1918, American-CZECH and American-SLOVAK leaders in the United States signed the DECLARATION OF PITTSBURGH, whereby, in the Czechoslovakia-to-be, THE SLOVAK PEO- �74 SLOVAKIA PLE WERE GUARANTEED THEIR OWN ASSEMBLY, COURTS, AND ADMINISTRATION. Similarly, by the D'l!daration of Turcian• sky Sv. Martin, signed on October 30, the :ilovaks in the homeland associated themselves with the new State" - (p . 350). The Pittsburgh Convention or Agree!nent was drafted and signed by T. G. Masaryk and representatives of American Slovak and Czech organizations on May 30, 1918 - and not on JUNE 30, 1918 (See Chapter IX above). It is significant that :M:r. Vondracek fails to mention the historic:11 fact tha: Masaryk repudiated the Pittsburgh Conver.tion, calling it but a "scrap of paper." And note th:1t the 'Slovaks in the homeland associated themselves with the ~ew State" TWO DAYS AFTER the Prague declaration of independence! This is evidence of how much "Slovak patriots" really knew about what was cooking in the CZECH kitchen of Masaryk and Benes! • • • "At the termination of the war, Cechoslovak forces totaled 182,000 men, of which number 12,000 were serving in France, 78,000 in Italy, and 92,000 in Russia. The last of these armies had been particularly valuable to the Allies" - (p. 351). The figures are undoubtedly based on CZECH mathematics authored by the Benes Czechs, which is based on the principle of at least "doubling" numbers in such cases. And the fact is that the "Czechoslovak forces" in Russia were not at all valuable to the Allies since they refused to follow their orders. Masaryk conjured the "Siberian rabbit" out of his black felt hat to create a favorable impression in America. Czechs and pro-Czechs love to indulge in the legend cooked up by Masaryk. But the truth is something else again. "The Czechs," Robert Ingrim tells us ("After Hitler Stalin?"), "were offered the 'short route' to France, via Murmansk and Archangel, but they preferred the long way via Siberia to Vladivostok. . . . They were not interested in fighting the Bolsheviks or anyone else. . . . Their policy was, as their spokesman said, 'the railroad and to go home'.... They did very little fighting, and when the Reds had overcome their initial disorganization and had become a serious military force, the Czechs withdrew eastward." Just how the "Czechoslovak army performed for the Allies services more valuable than the same forces could �SLOVAKIA 75 have rendered in France ... through control of the Volga area and the Transsiberian Railway," Mr. Vondracek does · not explain. We know that Masaryk and Benes did not want their Czech legions in Siberia to fight the Bolsheviks. We also know that the Allies insisted that "the Czechs stop their retreat and support the Regent," Admiral Koltschak, supreme commander of the anti-Bolshevik forces - "otherwise they would not get ships over the Pacific." The Czechs yielded to this threat reluctantly, but when the Reds had shown their superiority, "the Czechs helped them capture the admiral"! Mr. Vondracek, in typical Czech fashion, tells us, however, that: "Enmeshed in the Russian domestic chaos, and forced to continue the struggle against the Bolsheviks after the World War had terminated, the Czechoslovak Legions became unwilling tools of a French and British diplomacy that wished to keep them in Siberia indefinitely." Why British and French diplomacy really wanted to keep the "Czechoslovak" Legions in Siberia INDEFINITELY, Mr. Vondracek does not say. We know, however, for that British and, particularly, French diplomacy which Masaryk and Benes became WILLING TOOLS had very much to do with the establishment of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. • • • How Benes felt about the Soviet Union is, surprisingly, factually reported by Mr. Vondracek (pp. 356-362): "Benes was a pioneer in advocating the recognition of Soviet Russia long before public opinion either in Czechoslovakia or elsewhere in Europe became converted to such a step." The foreign policy of Czecho-Slovakia was Dr. Eduard Benes, and Benes, a thorough Socialist, was completely pro-Soviet and for the socialistic system of the U. S. S. R. His policy led to the logical conclusion we all witnessed after the war (1945-1948): a complete surrender to Communism. Benes and Masaryk undoubtedly persuaded their people, the Czechs, to recognize Soviet Russia, but they certainly could not persuade the Slovaks to do so. The Slovak nation, as a whole, remained faithful to its thoroughly Christian tradition, opposing collaboration with the godless forces of the Soviet Union to the very bitter end. �76 SLOVAKIA The Munich debacle is treated in the typical fashion of the Benes Czechs by Mr. Vondracek: Benes and his Czechs were above reproach; the culprits were Britain, France, the Germans, the Slovaks, Poles, Magyars, and Ruthenes (pp. 364-366). "Faced with the ruin of his life's work, Benes wisely resigned and went into voluntary exile," Mr. Vondracek says tersely, but nary a word that Benes had surrendered his country to Hitler without consulting parliament and thereby had incurred the just wrath of both Slovaks and Czechs, who probably would have hung him had he not fled to England. The fact is that Benes was a coward; the surrender of Czecho-Slovakia to Hitler, without consulting the representatives of the nations concerned, was criminal. The Benes Czechs did not and still do not want the world to know the truth why Benes did capitulate to Hitler. Robert Ingrim, however, hit the nail on the head when he said: "The allegation that the Czechs surrendered without firing a shot, because England and France asked them to do so, is purely fictitious. They chose to surrender 'at the behest of their faithless friends,' because an attempt to fight would have revealed to the world that the German-Slovak-Magyar-Polish-Ruthenian majority of the population was not prepared to die for a State that had treated them as second-class citizens." • • • After Hitler attacked Poland, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany, and World War II was on, "for which," Mr. Vondracek says, "many CZECHOSLOVAKS had been praying as their one hope of salvation after Munich." But this is only Mr. Vondracek's opinion and not fact. The truth is that the overwhelming majority of Slovaks did not pray for war but for peace. Mr. Vondracek has no proof to offer that even many Czechs, the majority of whom, we are told, are Catholics, prayed for war either. And he undoubtedly knew that the Slovak Republic, after the legal autonomous Slovak Government had declared Slovakia an independent State (March 14, 1939), was recognized DE JURE and./or DE FACTO by twenty-seven states, yet, in Kerner's "Czechoslovakia," he chose to write the following historical lie: "The Czechoslovak Republic continued to exist de jure, if not de facto. The United States, Great Britain, France, Soviet Russia and Poland in particular had not recognized the annexation by Germany". �SLOVAKIA 77 The historical truth is that Great Britain, France, Soviet Russia, as well as Poland (until Hitler attacked it, September 1, 1939) - and twenty-three other countries - did recognize the independent Slovak State and, hence, must have also recognized the collapse of Czecho-Slovakia. The U. S., it is true, did not recognize independent Slovakia, but the Slovaks were quite certain that it would, if war did not break out for another year or two - and that is what they were praying for at that time. They were through with Benes's 'Czechoslovak" democracy then and did not want his "new Czechoslovakia" - the "people's democracy" in 1945. They are adamantly opposed to her today and will be as long as she exists! • • • CHAPTER XX - "The Little Entente and the Balkan Entente" - by Harry Nicholas Howard, Ph.D., "Professor of History, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio; Ph.D., University of California; member, Institut Balkanique (Belgrade; American contributing editor, Bibliographie Balkanique (Paris)," etc. Professor Howard, like the many other distinguished scholars who contributed chapters to Kerner's "Czechoslovakia," succumbed to the charms of the Masaryk and Benes Czechs, lapped up their propaganda, then presented it as "history." The Little Entente was formed, Mr. Howard states, "in the light of such a practical philosophy" - the latter being expressed by Dr. Eduard Benes (p. 372). Of course, neither Benes nor Mr. Howard could even dare mention a cordon sanitaire against Germany! Having adopted Benes's "practical philosophy" for the formation of the Little Entente, Mr. Howard continued: " One of the keystones of the foreign policy of Czechoslovakia was the organization in 1920-1921 of the Little Entente, composed of Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia and Rumania. Czechoslovakia played a principal and even a dominant role in the Little Entente .... Dr. Eduard Benes, as foreign minister and later as president of Czechoslovakia, was the major statesman of the Little Entente, not only within its inner circles, but in the League of Nations, and, therefore, in the councils of European diplomacy" - (p. 368). Big Socialist and little man Benes played " big" politics in the Little Entente, while Czecho-Slovakia, outside of being Benes's kingdom, meant little. The "major statesman" was �78 SLOVAKIA deflated completely by the first great crisis ·that hit CzechoSlovakia and the Little Entente. Mr. Howard knew that but he continued to ramble on: "When the great crisis came in September, 1938, it is interesting to note that both Jugoslavia, thanks to popular pressure on behalf of Czechoslovakia, and Rumania, as members of the Little Entente, rallied to the support of the harassed Republic. They remained true to their obligations, and were ready to stand to arms, as long as they had any confidence in France and Great Britain . .. Only the Munich 'Accord' of September 29-30 finally destroyed the Little Entente" - (p. 383). "The Little Entente, despite determined efforts, was unable to organize an effective, inclusive political and economic collaboration in central Europe, embracing Auslria and Hungary" - (p. 384). We are supposed to believe that without the "Munich Accord" the Little Entente would not have been destroyed, according to Mr. Howard. The Little Entente, Mr. Howard could have told us if he were honest, was just so much horse play. Why embrace only Austria and Hungary (as if Benes wanted to!) to organize effective collaboration in Central Europe, and not the rest of the countries "in that area? The fact is that after twenty years of Benes foreign policy, not a single neighboring country was really on friendly terms with Czecho-Slovakia. Jingos and chauvinists usually wear blinkers. The French (Clemenceau and Poincare), however, were not blind to the new dangers of the new distribution of power on the European Continent. When they decided to destroy Austria-Hungary, they undoubtedly were familiar with the objections to this program: their plan was to replace Austro-German and Magyar leadership on the Danube by Czech imperialism, combined with the Serbian and Rumanian brands. Years later the result was the Little Entente (Czecho-Slovakia, Rumania, Yugoslavia), "the memory of which," according to Robert Ingrim, "produces a smile an every European's lips, a smile tinged with scorn," because "you cannot square a circle, and, unlike distant Americans, people on the spot could not be persuaded to admire as progress the replacement of one mixed state by three no less mixed ones." Viscount D' Abernon, showing how Versailles had destroyed Europe's equilibrium- ("An Ambassador of Peace" - 1929), predicted: "The Czech satellite will revert to the orbit of the Moscow planet as soon �SLOVAKIA 79 as disturbing forces cease to operate as powerfully as today." We know that he was right. When the "big crisis" came the Little Entente, including Benes's Czecho-Slovakia, folded up. • • • CHAPTER XXI - "Hitler and Hitlerism" - by (Henry) Wickham Steed, LL.D., "Editor, London Times (19191922); correspondent, London Times, at Berlin (1896); at Rome (1897-1902); at Vienna (1902-1913); foreign editor (1914-1919); proprietor and editor, The Review of Reviews (1923-1930); educated at universities of Jena, Berlin, and Paris; LL.D., universities of Strasbourg and Cluj; Lecturer on Central European History, King's College, University of London (1925-1938); author of numerous books and articles ... ", etc. Probably no individual helped T. G. Masaryk and Eduard Benes - and their "CZECH cause" - as much as Mr. Steed of London, man of letters and contacts and, therefore, a man of great influence. With his valuable assistance and the backing of the "progressive" forces of Socialism and Freemasonry, Masaryk and Benes, who were political unknowns before World War I, in a very short time became "political wizards, outstanding statesmen, experts on Central Europe and Germany and Russia, and pre-eminently political philosophers." It all came about by propaganda - as did Czecho-Slovakia, the political monstrosity of Masaryk and Benes. And Mr. H. Wickham Steed was quite a propagandist for a new order in "Christian" Europe - an order divorced from things eternal, from God Himself. His attempt to help Masaryk and Benes "remake" the history of the Slovak and Czech nations to suit the pattern of "the ideas of Masaryk" is quite obvious in his chapter of Kerner's "Czechoslovakia": "The Czechoslovak State had been fashioned and inspired by the ideas of Thomas G. Masaryk. . . . Masaryk looked upon that war (1914-1918) as a struggle between the ideas of the West and the ideas of Germany. The ideas of the West, he argued, are legacies of the Renaissance and the Reformation with their outcome in the English, American, and French revolutions, the parents of democra• cy. He defined democracy as an attempt to organize mankind intensively, as distinguished from the theocracy of the Holy Roman Empire which tried to organize European mankind extensively" (p. 402). �80 SLOVAKIA This probably explains why Czecho-Slovakia collapsed in 1938: the ideas of T. G. Masaryk were of themselves insufficient for the life of the nations contained within Masaryk's "CZECH" democracy. It is significant that even the Czechs did not fire a shot in the defense of Masaryk's democracy in 1938 or in 1948 ! • • • his World Revolution, Masaryk declared that there is only one remedy for abuses and defects in the life of the State truth and truthfulness, coupled with freedom to speak and to write the truth. Democracy, he insisted, should mean moral renovation in politics, in education, and throughout the whole range of public and private life" - (p. 405). "In This sounds regular, coming from an admirer and promoter of Masaryk, but the fact remains that T. G. M. often did not do as he preached. What did he say and write about the Slovaks and their country? Why did he deceive them and defraud them of the autonomy he and Benes had promised in Czecho-Slovakia? What about the "Siberian legend"? And White Mountain? Moral renovation? Based on what fundamentals? The state built by Masaryk and Benes was a fraud, because they were frauds at war with the Author of all genuine truth, justice, and morality. • • • "Peace can be founded only upon a community of free, democratic, and ethically minded peoples resolved to work together as equals in the spirit of Masaryk's faith. Hitlerism, in the broadest sense, is the foe of civilized humanity; and in nothing was Masaryk greater than in his insistance that the idea of his people must be : "Jesus, not Caesar" - (p. 408). Even if the whole world works "in the spirit of Masaryk's faith," no true and lasting peace will ever result. There was no genuine peace in Masaryk's own State. And what was the difference between Masarykism and Hitlerism? Hitler promoted German National Socialism, while Masaryk and Benes promoted CZECH National Socialism. Masarky did use the slogan "Jesus, not Caesar," but he did not live up to it, serving rather the enemies of Jesus, the Caesars of the forces of darkness. The cross of Jesus was forcefully removed from schools, the Marian Column was torn down in Prague, and the Church established by Jesus, the Roman Catholic Church, was harrassed and persecu- �SLOVAKlA 81 ted by Masaryk and his followers, who promoted the Czech National Church and shrieked: "Away from Rome - Rome must be put on trial and convicted!" Democracy, Masaryk said, 'is not alone a form of State and of administration. It is a philosophy of life and an outlook upon the world" ( (p. 406). What was the ethical basis of his politics? T. G. M. said: "The ethical basis of all politics is humanity, and humanity is an international program. It is a new word for the old love of our fellow-men" (p. 406). Humanity, "the new word," was then substituted by Masaryk for the old word, God and Jesus, as the ethical basis of his politics. We know what it led to: Chaos and ruin. • • • CHAPTER XXII - "The Road to Munich and Beyond" - by Bernadotte E. Schmitt, Ph.D. , "Andrew MacLeish Distinguished Service Professor of Modern History, University of Chicago; B.A., M.A., Oxford (Rhodes Scholar from Tennessee); Ph.D., Wisconscin; Guggenheim Fellow (1927) ; Pulitzer Prize winner (1931) ; editor, Journal of Modern History, Chicago, 1929-) ," etc. This chapter, in the main, follows the usual line of the Benes Czechs: Benes was clean; the Czechs were "ready, even eager, to fight," but Great Britain and France would not let them; "IF Dr. Benes, with whom the ultimate decision rested, yielded to the demands of Britain and France, the explanation appears to be two-fold - Benes wished to spare his people the horrors of war and, then, he feared, "if Czechoslovakia fought only with Russia as an ally she would be labeled as a RED state (however preposterous that might seem) ... " As for the Slovaks: Hlinka's autonomists supported the demands of the Sudeten German Party, while the Czecho-Slovakia of 1918-1938 "was satisfactory to the Czechs and to a majority of the Slovaks, but not to a considerable section of the German and Magyar minorities, the inclusion of whom was necessary to make the State economically viable." The truth is that the majority of the Slovaks were not satisfied with the Czecho-Slovakia of 1918-1938. • • • CHAPTER XXIII - "Czechoslovak Democracy: Was It Worth While?" - by James T. Shotwell, Ph.D., LL.D., �82 SLOVAKIA "Bryce Professor of the History of International Relations, Columbia University . .. president League of Nations Association (1935-) ... commander, Order of the White Lion (Czechoslovak ia) ... " etc. (about a half page!). Mr. Shotwell is another of the "Masaryk-Ben es-coulddo-no-wrong" chain gang. The majority of the population of Czecho-Slovak ia was opposed to "Czechoslovak" democracy - a pseudodemoc racy - but Shotwell says it was worth while, stating categorically: "There can be no doubt that the history of Europe and of Western civilization has been immensely enriched by the philosophy and statesmanship of President Masaryk. Neither can there be any doubt that the Czechoslovak Republic has left a remarkable record in the annals of history; one which, with all its mis- takes - and they must be admitted - proved the competence of this branch of the Slavic peoples in the art and science of government" - (p. 441). The fact is, however, that the socialistic State of Czecho-Slovakia proved beyond a doubt that it does not pay to collaborate with the Soviet Union and the Reds. The world would be healthier today minus the "philosophy and statesmanship " of Masaryk who falsified and distorted Czech and Slovak history to create the political monstrosity of Czecho-Slovakia. Another of Shotwell's "facts": "His (Masaryk's) effort to teach the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson not only to his own people but to the others of east-central Europe did not wholly succeed; for the task was well-nigh impossible. The Austrian system of government under which the Czechs had lived, and still more Hungary's rule of the Slavs within its frontiers, were both far removed from the American democratic federalism, which was the basis of Masaryk's political philosophy. Although the Habsburg's had been forced to recognize the different national stocks which composed their varied empire, the bureaucracy and the army held these peoples together in a way which failed utterly to satisfy their aspirations for political self-expression. True federalism flourishes only under a regime of liberty, and that was something foreign to the Habsburg tradition" - (pp. 446-447). Masaryk's Czecho-Slovakia, however, proved that Masaryk was not interested in or impressed by "American democratic federalism." The "Czechoslova k" democratic system was as far removed from American democratic federalism as were the Austrian and Hungarian systems. The Czech bureaucracy and chauvinism of Masaryk and Benes �SLOVAKIA 83 failed utterly to satisfy the aspirations of the Slovaks and other non-Czech nations of Czecho-Slovakia for political self-expression. Twenty years of Masaryk-Benes rule in Czecho-Slovakia definitely proved that true liberty was more foreign to the Masaryk and Benes regimes than it was to the Habsburgs, hence, the seed of federalism was not even planted by them. Czecho-Slovakia was supposed to be patterned after Switzerland or the United States, but the fact is that she was not. (The End.) • • • THE SLOVAKS WERE THERE : MAJOR JOHN L. POLERECKY FOUGHT FOR AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE In 1781, when the defeated army of Cornwallis surrendered its arms to General George Washington at Yorktown, Va., among the "French Hussars" who encircled the defeated, as the ceremony of "surrendering arms" took place, was a son of Slovakia, Major John L. Polerecky, whose father hailed from Polerieka, Turiec Province, Slovakia. The story of John Polerecky's participation in the American Revolution for the independence of America was unfolded by Dr. Joseph Cincik, Ph.D., professor of history and art, Cleveland, Ohio, and a member of the Slovak Institute there. Mr. Cincik, a distant relative of Major Polerecky, spent much time and money in travel and research to gather the facts of the Polerecky story. When the complete story of Polerecky is published, it will be fully documented with photocopies of original documents from Slovakia, France, and the National Archives in Washington, D. C. What is presented here is from a portion of Dr. Cincik's manuscript on Major Polerecky. When Francis Rakoczy of Hungary revolted against the Habsburgs and lost, he was forced to flee for his life in 1711. He fled to Poland and later made his way to France. Rakoczy was not through with his fight against Vienna, and Louis XIV was happy to accept his services when he offered them to him in 1713. Rakoczy was ac- � 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 1957, Vol. 7 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 1 (No. 22), March 1957.</li> <li>Issue 2 (No. 23), June 1957.</li> <li>Issue 3-4 (No. 24-25), September-December 1957.</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 1957 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 Mr. Secretary, and Mr. Ambassador, your personal as well as official support. As loyal sons and daughters of this great Republic, we beseech God's blessings upon You and your efforts to bring about His greater honor and glory, and we convey to each of You our sincerest and warmest personal regards. In witness whereof, we have unanimously adopted the above sentiments at this historic 35th Congress at Cleveland, Ohio, on May 26, 1957, the 50th anniversary of the first enunciation of these principles by our predecessors, of happy memory, our founding fathers and the organizers of the Slovak League of America. The Memorandum Committee of the Slovak League: (Signatures) JOHN J. SIROTNAK (Pa.) JOHN J . LESKOVJANSKY (Ohio) EDWARD J. BEHUNCIK (Conn.) JOHN B. HASSAY (Ohio) ELIZABETH ANDREJKO (Pa.) PHILIP A. HROBAK, President The Slovak League of America • • • Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" (Cont'd.) IDSTORY OR PROPAGANDA? P.A.HROBAK CHAPTER XVI - "Education in a Democracy" - by Francis H . Stuerm, Ph.D.; "Member, faculty of New York University; educated in Switzerland and the United States; Ph.D., New York University; author of Training in Democracy: The New Schools of Czechoslovakia (1938), published under the auspices of the Progressive Education Association." Another "progressive" report by a "progressive" professor! Thirteen pages, all of them devoted to the Czechs (Bohemia-Moravia), except this single paragraph which contained the word "Slovakia": "One of the Republic's lar gest educational tasks was to set up a complete system of education in the provinces of Slovakia and Sub- 70 SLOVAKIA Carpathian Ruthenia. In these former had been no universities or secondary cular, and not enough primary schools teach more than half the population for provinces of Hungary there schools taught in the vernaconducted in any language to four school years" - (p. 305). How many universities and secondary schools "taught in the vernacular" there were in Slovakia twenty years after the Czechs took over, Mr. Stuerm strangely fails to disclose which in itself is quite significant. The fact is that there was only one, the Comenius University in Bratislava, and this "only one" was completely under CZECH control! • • • "When the Czechoslovak Republic took over the schools of the former provinces of Austria-Hungary from which it was formed, its CZECH citizens were already democrats through inclination and generations of training. However, this training had not been gained in the schools. The CZECHS were democratic because their former Habsburg ruler had made them classless, three centuries before, by decimating their nobility and because for generations they had learned cooperation in united opposition to the Habsburgs" - (p. 302). The fact is that the "Czechoslovak Republic" did not take any schools over, but the CZECHS did and made them over in the CZECH image. "United opposition" to the Habsburgs? The historical fact is that the Czechs served the Habsburgs most loyally! The non-Czech citizens evidently were not "democratic" according to Mr. Stuerm. We know how the " democracy" of the Benes Czechs dealt with them. • • • "The Austrian schools had been developed under a central administration determined tu discipline the young people for satisfied subjection to the Habsburgs" - (p. 302). In like manner, the Czecho-Slovak schools had been developed under a central administration from Prague determined to discipline the young people of the various nations of the Republic for satisfied subjection to the Czechs. The "progressive" Czechs, however, went wide of their determination and found to their regret that young Slovaks were discipilined for dissatisfied subjection to the Czechs, upholding the principle that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Result? A greater degree of Slovak nationalism - Slovak solidarity! • • • "One of the fruits of CZECH political victories had been a continual expansion of the number of CZECH schools in which instruc- SLOVAKIA 71 tion was given in the CZECH language . .. CZECH teachers had led the empire's educators in studying and advocating innovations of method (p. 303).... After the Republic was established, (CZECH) teachers who were interested in liberalization of method soon took advantage of their newly gained freedom to make study trips abroad. They attended PROGRESSIVE schools of pedagogy and observed PROGRESSIVE teaching in the United States, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, England, and in the NEW RUSSIA. They returned home filled with ideas and enthusiasm (p. 304). . . . During the Republic's early years there was a young CZECH educator, dr. Vaclav Prihoda, who was studying in the United States (Chicago U.; Columbia U.). . . . and became profoundly influenced by the ideas of Dewey and Thorndike . .. (he) was appointed chairman of this governmental committee (Reform Committee at the School of Higher Pedagogical Studies) (pp. 306-307).... The CZECHS have always considered the maintenance of the national culture as a duty sacred in its importance. . . . It was this strong practical strain in the CZECH character which caused initial reluctance among the citizens to permit changes in schools which they knew were good (pp. 308-309) . . .. During the golden age of CZECH democracy under the Republic, children cooperated freely in their classroom in the singing of (Czech) patriotic songs and in the artistic speaking chorus, all which heightened their feeling of national unity (p. 311).... The emotional basis of CZECH democracy was the same inherent staying power which had maintained the nation in its precarious geographical situation since early tribal times (p. 313).. . the CZECHS had built up in their character centuries-old habits of independent individual thought and public cooperation. . . . In Austrian times, the training in the schools overlaid the CZECH'S democratic character with a surface attitude of acquiescent passivity. When the establishment of the Republic gave CZECH democracy opportunity to flourish unhampered in its action, PROGRESSIVE educators developed a new method, which gave it direct expression" (p. 314). Mr. Stuerm certainly was hep on the "progressive" CZECH business, the only thing, according to him, and others, which figured in the "CZECH democracy" of Czecho-Slovakia - in which the progressive "truth" of Masaryk-Benes prevailed. In the end "CZECH democracy" had no trouble in becoming CZECH "PEOPLE'S Democracy!" • • • CHAPTER XVII "Czechoslovakia's Contribution to Science" - by Gerald Druce, D.R.N., M.Sc.; Fellow London Chemical Society (1915-) ; Fellow Institute of Chemistry (1925-) ; honorary and foreign member Masaryk Academy of Work (1928-) ; M.Sc., University of London; D.R.N., Charles University, Prague; authority on CZECH science; author of books and articles, among them: Wan- 72 SL'.) VAKIA derings in Czechoslovakia (1930) In the Heart of Europe - Life in Czechoslovakia (1936). Another misnomered chapter which should be entitled: CZECH contribution to science. The very first sentence of Mr. Druce's contribution to Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" has no historical basis in fact; in it he claims that "the Czechoslovak State REGAINED its independence in 1918" - the ridiculous story the Benes Czechs promoted and still propagate. The "Czecho-Slovak State" never existed until 1918 ! A few samplings for the edification of historians interested in the history of the Slovaks and Czechs: " . ... contemporary mineralogical and alchemical works in the CZECH language . .. the greatest CZECH educator, Comenius ... the CZECH national revival . . . The National Museum . . . widened its scope to become a rallying point of all CZECH culture .... Purkyne lectured in CZECH ... CZECH men of science ... distinguished CZECH chemists ... CZECH scientific literature . . . Modern scientific and technical works in CZECH . .. . It was in the biological sciences that CZECH men of science made noteworthy advances a century ago . .. . Count Kaspar Sternberg ... was a patron of CZECH science at the time of the national awakening .. . ." The CZECH men of science get all the play; General Milan Stefanik, "the Slovak astronomer," was the only Slovak to rate - one sentence! The "selected Bibliography" at the end of the chapter is strictly CZECH. So, "Czechoslovakia's Contributions to Science" really winds up to be: CZECH contributions to science - according to the formula of the Benes Czechs. • • • CHAPTER XVIII - "Czechoslovak Music, Art, and by Jaroslav E. Vojan, J.D.; "President, Literature" Bohemian Arts Club (1912-); J.D., Charles University, Prague; Professor of Economics, College of Commerce, Prague (1899); editor, NEW CZECH Review (Prague, 1903-1904) ; editor, Svojan, (1928-) ; editor, Free Czechoslovakia (1939-) ; author of Czech-American Epistles (1910) ... " As one might suspect, in this chapter, too, just about everything "Czechoslovak" means "CZECH": composers, artists, sculptors, writers, poets, et al. Slovaks, however, rate a bit better than they did in the previous chapter (by SLOVAKIA 73 Druce): Mr. Vojan generously allows them three sentences in a total of 18 pages ! • • • CHAPTER XIX - "Diplomatic Origins and Foreign Policy" - by Felix J. Vondracek, Ph.D.; "Professor of European History University of North Dakota; Ph.D. , Columbia University; author of "The Foreign Policy of Czechoslovakia (1937) ." "The best efforts of a vigilant Austro-Hungarian police and spy system had not been able to prevent patriotic Czechoslovaks in the homelands from communicating with the exiles through the efficient (Czech) 'Maffia' organization. Both groups of patriots well knew that success could be attained only through cooperation" (pp. 349-350). Professor Vondracek, like other Benes Czechs and their hired propagandists, promotes the false thesis of a "united CZECHOSLOVAK nation." What "patriotic Czechoslovaks" at a time when the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia did not exist? Why then talk about "both groups" of patriots? Who were the "SLOVAK patriots" who communicated with the CZECH exiles (Masaryk and Benes) through the CZECH "MAFFIA"? We know that most Slovak patriots and many CZECH patriots knew practically nothing about what Masaryk and Benes were cooking up for them in exile. Masaryk and Benes themselves figured that the fewer Slovak and Czech "patriots" in on their plan, the better the chances for the success of their CZECH cause, promoted under the guise of a "CZECHOSLOVAK" cause. Mr. Vondracek, CZECH "expert" on CZECHO-SLOVAK diplomacy and foreign policy, hinted at this when he said: "The efforts of the predominantly CZECH revolutionary leaders in Paris and Prague were supported by other Slavic groups" (p. 350). Of course, Mr. Vondracek very conveniently forgot to spell out the "other Slavic groups" who really knew something about the efforts of Benes, Masaryk, and the CZECH "Maffia" at that time . "On June • • • 30, 1918, American-CZECH and American-SLOVAK leaders in the United States signed the DECLARATION OF PITTSBURGH, whereby, in the Czechoslovakia-to-be, THE SLOVAK PEO- 74 SLOVAKIA PLE WERE GUARANTEED THEIR OWN ASSEMBLY, COURTS, AND ADMINISTRATION. Similarly, by the D'l!daration of Turcian• sky Sv. Martin, signed on October 30, the :ilovaks in the homeland associated themselves with the new State" - (p . 350). The Pittsburgh Convention or Agree!nent was drafted and signed by T. G. Masaryk and representatives of American Slovak and Czech organizations on May 30, 1918 - and not on JUNE 30, 1918 (See Chapter IX above). It is significant that :M:r. Vondracek fails to mention the historic:11 fact tha: Masaryk repudiated the Pittsburgh Conver.tion, calling it but a "scrap of paper." And note th:1t the 'Slovaks in the homeland associated themselves with the ~ew State" TWO DAYS AFTER the Prague declaration of independence! This is evidence of how much "Slovak patriots" really knew about what was cooking in the CZECH kitchen of Masaryk and Benes! • • • "At the termination of the war, Cechoslovak forces totaled 182,000 men, of which number 12,000 were serving in France, 78,000 in Italy, and 92,000 in Russia. The last of these armies had been particularly valuable to the Allies" - (p. 351). The figures are undoubtedly based on CZECH mathematics authored by the Benes Czechs, which is based on the principle of at least "doubling" numbers in such cases. And the fact is that the "Czechoslovak forces" in Russia were not at all valuable to the Allies since they refused to follow their orders. Masaryk conjured the "Siberian rabbit" out of his black felt hat to create a favorable impression in America. Czechs and pro-Czechs love to indulge in the legend cooked up by Masaryk. But the truth is something else again. "The Czechs," Robert Ingrim tells us ("After Hitler Stalin?"), "were offered the 'short route' to France, via Murmansk and Archangel, but they preferred the long way via Siberia to Vladivostok. . . . They were not interested in fighting the Bolsheviks or anyone else. . . . Their policy was, as their spokesman said, 'the railroad and to go home'.... They did very little fighting, and when the Reds had overcome their initial disorganization and had become a serious military force, the Czechs withdrew eastward." Just how the "Czechoslovak army performed for the Allies services more valuable than the same forces could SLOVAKIA 75 have rendered in France ... through control of the Volga area and the Transsiberian Railway," Mr. Vondracek does · not explain. We know that Masaryk and Benes did not want their Czech legions in Siberia to fight the Bolsheviks. We also know that the Allies insisted that "the Czechs stop their retreat and support the Regent," Admiral Koltschak, supreme commander of the anti-Bolshevik forces - "otherwise they would not get ships over the Pacific." The Czechs yielded to this threat reluctantly, but when the Reds had shown their superiority, "the Czechs helped them capture the admiral"! Mr. Vondracek, in typical Czech fashion, tells us, however, that: "Enmeshed in the Russian domestic chaos, and forced to continue the struggle against the Bolsheviks after the World War had terminated, the Czechoslovak Legions became unwilling tools of a French and British diplomacy that wished to keep them in Siberia indefinitely." Why British and French diplomacy really wanted to keep the "Czechoslovak" Legions in Siberia INDEFINITELY, Mr. Vondracek does not say. We know, however, for that British and, particularly, French diplomacy which Masaryk and Benes became WILLING TOOLS had very much to do with the establishment of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. • • • How Benes felt about the Soviet Union is, surprisingly, factually reported by Mr. Vondracek (pp. 356-362): "Benes was a pioneer in advocating the recognition of Soviet Russia long before public opinion either in Czechoslovakia or elsewhere in Europe became converted to such a step." The foreign policy of Czecho-Slovakia was Dr. Eduard Benes, and Benes, a thorough Socialist, was completely pro-Soviet and for the socialistic system of the U. S. S. R. His policy led to the logical conclusion we all witnessed after the war (1945-1948): a complete surrender to Communism. Benes and Masaryk undoubtedly persuaded their people, the Czechs, to recognize Soviet Russia, but they certainly could not persuade the Slovaks to do so. The Slovak nation, as a whole, remained faithful to its thoroughly Christian tradition, opposing collaboration with the godless forces of the Soviet Union to the very bitter end. 76 SLOVAKIA The Munich debacle is treated in the typical fashion of the Benes Czechs by Mr. Vondracek: Benes and his Czechs were above reproach; the culprits were Britain, France, the Germans, the Slovaks, Poles, Magyars, and Ruthenes (pp. 364-366). "Faced with the ruin of his life's work, Benes wisely resigned and went into voluntary exile," Mr. Vondracek says tersely, but nary a word that Benes had surrendered his country to Hitler without consulting parliament and thereby had incurred the just wrath of both Slovaks and Czechs, who probably would have hung him had he not fled to England. The fact is that Benes was a coward; the surrender of Czecho-Slovakia to Hitler, without consulting the representatives of the nations concerned, was criminal. The Benes Czechs did not and still do not want the world to know the truth why Benes did capitulate to Hitler. Robert Ingrim, however, hit the nail on the head when he said: "The allegation that the Czechs surrendered without firing a shot, because England and France asked them to do so, is purely fictitious. They chose to surrender 'at the behest of their faithless friends,' because an attempt to fight would have revealed to the world that the German-Slovak-Magyar-Polish-Ruthenian majority of the population was not prepared to die for a State that had treated them as second-class citizens." • • • After Hitler attacked Poland, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany, and World War II was on, "for which," Mr. Vondracek says, "many CZECHOSLOVAKS had been praying as their one hope of salvation after Munich." But this is only Mr. Vondracek's opinion and not fact. The truth is that the overwhelming majority of Slovaks did not pray for war but for peace. Mr. Vondracek has no proof to offer that even many Czechs, the majority of whom, we are told, are Catholics, prayed for war either. And he undoubtedly knew that the Slovak Republic, after the legal autonomous Slovak Government had declared Slovakia an independent State (March 14, 1939), was recognized DE JURE and./or DE FACTO by twenty-seven states, yet, in Kerner's "Czechoslovakia," he chose to write the following historical lie: "The Czechoslovak Republic continued to exist de jure, if not de facto. The United States, Great Britain, France, Soviet Russia and Poland in particular had not recognized the annexation by Germany". SLOVAKIA 77 The historical truth is that Great Britain, France, Soviet Russia, as well as Poland (until Hitler attacked it, September 1, 1939) - and twenty-three other countries - did recognize the independent Slovak State and, hence, must have also recognized the collapse of Czecho-Slovakia. The U. S., it is true, did not recognize independent Slovakia, but the Slovaks were quite certain that it would, if war did not break out for another year or two - and that is what they were praying for at that time. They were through with Benes's 'Czechoslovak" democracy then and did not want his "new Czechoslovakia" - the "people's democracy" in 1945. They are adamantly opposed to her today and will be as long as she exists! • • • CHAPTER XX - "The Little Entente and the Balkan Entente" - by Harry Nicholas Howard, Ph.D., "Professor of History, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio; Ph.D., University of California; member, Institut Balkanique (Belgrade; American contributing editor, Bibliographie Balkanique (Paris)," etc. Professor Howard, like the many other distinguished scholars who contributed chapters to Kerner's "Czechoslovakia," succumbed to the charms of the Masaryk and Benes Czechs, lapped up their propaganda, then presented it as "history." The Little Entente was formed, Mr. Howard states, "in the light of such a practical philosophy" - the latter being expressed by Dr. Eduard Benes (p. 372). Of course, neither Benes nor Mr. Howard could even dare mention a cordon sanitaire against Germany! Having adopted Benes's "practical philosophy" for the formation of the Little Entente, Mr. Howard continued: " One of the keystones of the foreign policy of Czechoslovakia was the organization in 1920-1921 of the Little Entente, composed of Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia and Rumania. Czechoslovakia played a principal and even a dominant role in the Little Entente .... Dr. Eduard Benes, as foreign minister and later as president of Czechoslovakia, was the major statesman of the Little Entente, not only within its inner circles, but in the League of Nations, and, therefore, in the councils of European diplomacy" - (p. 368). Big Socialist and little man Benes played " big" politics in the Little Entente, while Czecho-Slovakia, outside of being Benes's kingdom, meant little. The "major statesman" was 78 SLOVAKIA deflated completely by the first great crisis ·that hit CzechoSlovakia and the Little Entente. Mr. Howard knew that but he continued to ramble on: "When the great crisis came in September, 1938, it is interesting to note that both Jugoslavia, thanks to popular pressure on behalf of Czechoslovakia, and Rumania, as members of the Little Entente, rallied to the support of the harassed Republic. They remained true to their obligations, and were ready to stand to arms, as long as they had any confidence in France and Great Britain . .. Only the Munich 'Accord' of September 29-30 finally destroyed the Little Entente" - (p. 383). "The Little Entente, despite determined efforts, was unable to organize an effective, inclusive political and economic collaboration in central Europe, embracing Auslria and Hungary" - (p. 384). We are supposed to believe that without the "Munich Accord" the Little Entente would not have been destroyed, according to Mr. Howard. The Little Entente, Mr. Howard could have told us if he were honest, was just so much horse play. Why embrace only Austria and Hungary (as if Benes wanted to!) to organize effective collaboration in Central Europe, and not the rest of the countries "in that area? The fact is that after twenty years of Benes foreign policy, not a single neighboring country was really on friendly terms with Czecho-Slovakia. Jingos and chauvinists usually wear blinkers. The French (Clemenceau and Poincare), however, were not blind to the new dangers of the new distribution of power on the European Continent. When they decided to destroy Austria-Hungary, they undoubtedly were familiar with the objections to this program: their plan was to replace Austro-German and Magyar leadership on the Danube by Czech imperialism, combined with the Serbian and Rumanian brands. Years later the result was the Little Entente (Czecho-Slovakia, Rumania, Yugoslavia), "the memory of which," according to Robert Ingrim, "produces a smile an every European's lips, a smile tinged with scorn," because "you cannot square a circle, and, unlike distant Americans, people on the spot could not be persuaded to admire as progress the replacement of one mixed state by three no less mixed ones." Viscount D' Abernon, showing how Versailles had destroyed Europe's equilibrium- ("An Ambassador of Peace" - 1929), predicted: "The Czech satellite will revert to the orbit of the Moscow planet as soon SLOVAKIA 79 as disturbing forces cease to operate as powerfully as today." We know that he was right. When the "big crisis" came the Little Entente, including Benes's Czecho-Slovakia, folded up. • • • CHAPTER XXI - "Hitler and Hitlerism" - by (Henry) Wickham Steed, LL.D., "Editor, London Times (19191922); correspondent, London Times, at Berlin (1896); at Rome (1897-1902); at Vienna (1902-1913); foreign editor (1914-1919); proprietor and editor, The Review of Reviews (1923-1930); educated at universities of Jena, Berlin, and Paris; LL.D., universities of Strasbourg and Cluj; Lecturer on Central European History, King's College, University of London (1925-1938); author of numerous books and articles ... ", etc. Probably no individual helped T. G. Masaryk and Eduard Benes - and their "CZECH cause" - as much as Mr. Steed of London, man of letters and contacts and, therefore, a man of great influence. With his valuable assistance and the backing of the "progressive" forces of Socialism and Freemasonry, Masaryk and Benes, who were political unknowns before World War I, in a very short time became "political wizards, outstanding statesmen, experts on Central Europe and Germany and Russia, and pre-eminently political philosophers." It all came about by propaganda - as did Czecho-Slovakia, the political monstrosity of Masaryk and Benes. And Mr. H. Wickham Steed was quite a propagandist for a new order in "Christian" Europe - an order divorced from things eternal, from God Himself. His attempt to help Masaryk and Benes "remake" the history of the Slovak and Czech nations to suit the pattern of "the ideas of Masaryk" is quite obvious in his chapter of Kerner's "Czechoslovakia": "The Czechoslovak State had been fashioned and inspired by the ideas of Thomas G. Masaryk. . . . Masaryk looked upon that war (1914-1918) as a struggle between the ideas of the West and the ideas of Germany. The ideas of the West, he argued, are legacies of the Renaissance and the Reformation with their outcome in the English, American, and French revolutions, the parents of democra• cy. He defined democracy as an attempt to organize mankind intensively, as distinguished from the theocracy of the Holy Roman Empire which tried to organize European mankind extensively" (p. 402). 80 SLOVAKIA This probably explains why Czecho-Slovakia collapsed in 1938: the ideas of T. G. Masaryk were of themselves insufficient for the life of the nations contained within Masaryk's "CZECH" democracy. It is significant that even the Czechs did not fire a shot in the defense of Masaryk's democracy in 1938 or in 1948 ! • • • his World Revolution, Masaryk declared that there is only one remedy for abuses and defects in the life of the State truth and truthfulness, coupled with freedom to speak and to write the truth. Democracy, he insisted, should mean moral renovation in politics, in education, and throughout the whole range of public and private life" - (p. 405). "In This sounds regular, coming from an admirer and promoter of Masaryk, but the fact remains that T. G. M. often did not do as he preached. What did he say and write about the Slovaks and their country? Why did he deceive them and defraud them of the autonomy he and Benes had promised in Czecho-Slovakia? What about the "Siberian legend"? And White Mountain? Moral renovation? Based on what fundamentals? The state built by Masaryk and Benes was a fraud, because they were frauds at war with the Author of all genuine truth, justice, and morality. • • • "Peace can be founded only upon a community of free, democratic, and ethically minded peoples resolved to work together as equals in the spirit of Masaryk's faith. Hitlerism, in the broadest sense, is the foe of civilized humanity; and in nothing was Masaryk greater than in his insistance that the idea of his people must be : "Jesus, not Caesar" - (p. 408). Even if the whole world works "in the spirit of Masaryk's faith," no true and lasting peace will ever result. There was no genuine peace in Masaryk's own State. And what was the difference between Masarykism and Hitlerism? Hitler promoted German National Socialism, while Masaryk and Benes promoted CZECH National Socialism. Masarky did use the slogan "Jesus, not Caesar," but he did not live up to it, serving rather the enemies of Jesus, the Caesars of the forces of darkness. The cross of Jesus was forcefully removed from schools, the Marian Column was torn down in Prague, and the Church established by Jesus, the Roman Catholic Church, was harrassed and persecu- SLOVAKlA 81 ted by Masaryk and his followers, who promoted the Czech National Church and shrieked: "Away from Rome - Rome must be put on trial and convicted!" Democracy, Masaryk said, 'is not alone a form of State and of administration. It is a philosophy of life and an outlook upon the world" ( (p. 406). What was the ethical basis of his politics? T. G. M. said: "The ethical basis of all politics is humanity, and humanity is an international program. It is a new word for the old love of our fellow-men" (p. 406). Humanity, "the new word," was then substituted by Masaryk for the old word, God and Jesus, as the ethical basis of his politics. We know what it led to: Chaos and ruin. • • • CHAPTER XXII - "The Road to Munich and Beyond" - by Bernadotte E. Schmitt, Ph.D. , "Andrew MacLeish Distinguished Service Professor of Modern History, University of Chicago; B.A., M.A., Oxford (Rhodes Scholar from Tennessee); Ph.D., Wisconscin; Guggenheim Fellow (1927) ; Pulitzer Prize winner (1931) ; editor, Journal of Modern History, Chicago, 1929-) ," etc. This chapter, in the main, follows the usual line of the Benes Czechs: Benes was clean; the Czechs were "ready, even eager, to fight," but Great Britain and France would not let them; "IF Dr. Benes, with whom the ultimate decision rested, yielded to the demands of Britain and France, the explanation appears to be two-fold - Benes wished to spare his people the horrors of war and, then, he feared, "if Czechoslovakia fought only with Russia as an ally she would be labeled as a RED state (however preposterous that might seem) ... " As for the Slovaks: Hlinka's autonomists supported the demands of the Sudeten German Party, while the Czecho-Slovakia of 1918-1938 "was satisfactory to the Czechs and to a majority of the Slovaks, but not to a considerable section of the German and Magyar minorities, the inclusion of whom was necessary to make the State economically viable." The truth is that the majority of the Slovaks were not satisfied with the Czecho-Slovakia of 1918-1938. • • • CHAPTER XXIII - "Czechoslovak Democracy: Was It Worth While?" - by James T. Shotwell, Ph.D., LL.D., 82 SLOVAKIA "Bryce Professor of the History of International Relations, Columbia University . .. president League of Nations Association (1935-) ... commander, Order of the White Lion (Czechoslovak ia) ... " etc. (about a half page!). Mr. Shotwell is another of the "Masaryk-Ben es-coulddo-no-wrong" chain gang. The majority of the population of Czecho-Slovak ia was opposed to "Czechoslovak" democracy - a pseudodemoc racy - but Shotwell says it was worth while, stating categorically: "There can be no doubt that the history of Europe and of Western civilization has been immensely enriched by the philosophy and statesmanship of President Masaryk. Neither can there be any doubt that the Czechoslovak Republic has left a remarkable record in the annals of history; one which, with all its mis- takes - and they must be admitted - proved the competence of this branch of the Slavic peoples in the art and science of government" - (p. 441). The fact is, however, that the socialistic State of Czecho-Slovakia proved beyond a doubt that it does not pay to collaborate with the Soviet Union and the Reds. The world would be healthier today minus the "philosophy and statesmanship " of Masaryk who falsified and distorted Czech and Slovak history to create the political monstrosity of Czecho-Slovakia. Another of Shotwell's "facts": "His (Masaryk's) effort to teach the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson not only to his own people but to the others of east-central Europe did not wholly succeed; for the task was well-nigh impossible. The Austrian system of government under which the Czechs had lived, and still more Hungary's rule of the Slavs within its frontiers, were both far removed from the American democratic federalism, which was the basis of Masaryk's political philosophy. Although the Habsburg's had been forced to recognize the different national stocks which composed their varied empire, the bureaucracy and the army held these peoples together in a way which failed utterly to satisfy their aspirations for political self-expression. True federalism flourishes only under a regime of liberty, and that was something foreign to the Habsburg tradition" - (pp. 446-447). Masaryk's Czecho-Slovakia, however, proved that Masaryk was not interested in or impressed by "American democratic federalism." The "Czechoslova k" democratic system was as far removed from American democratic federalism as were the Austrian and Hungarian systems. The Czech bureaucracy and chauvinism of Masaryk and Benes SLOVAKIA 83 failed utterly to satisfy the aspirations of the Slovaks and other non-Czech nations of Czecho-Slovakia for political self-expression. Twenty years of Masaryk-Benes rule in Czecho-Slovakia definitely proved that true liberty was more foreign to the Masaryk and Benes regimes than it was to the Habsburgs, hence, the seed of federalism was not even planted by them. Czecho-Slovakia was supposed to be patterned after Switzerland or the United States, but the fact is that she was not. (The End.) • • • THE SLOVAKS WERE THERE : MAJOR JOHN L. POLERECKY FOUGHT FOR AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE In 1781, when the defeated army of Cornwallis surrendered its arms to General George Washington at Yorktown, Va., among the "French Hussars" who encircled the defeated, as the ceremony of "surrendering arms" took place, was a son of Slovakia, Major John L. Polerecky, whose father hailed from Polerieka, Turiec Province, Slovakia. The story of John Polerecky's participation in the American Revolution for the independence of America was unfolded by Dr. Joseph Cincik, Ph.D., professor of history and art, Cleveland, Ohio, and a member of the Slovak Institute there. Mr. Cincik, a distant relative of Major Polerecky, spent much time and money in travel and research to gather the facts of the Polerecky story. When the complete story of Polerecky is published, it will be fully documented with photocopies of original documents from Slovakia, France, and the National Archives in Washington, D. C. What is presented here is from a portion of Dr. Cincik's manuscript on Major Polerecky. When Francis Rakoczy of Hungary revolted against the Habsburgs and lost, he was forced to flee for his life in 1711. He fled to Poland and later made his way to France. Rakoczy was not through with his fight against Vienna, and Louis XIV was happy to accept his services when he offered them to him in 1713. Rakoczy was ac-  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 Professor Kerner's "CZECHOSLOVAKIA": History or Propaganda? (8/8) Description An account of the resource P. A. Hrobak Slovakia, Vol. 7, No. 3-4 (24-25), September-December 1957 pp. 69-83 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hrobak, Philip Anthony, 1904-1964 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource September-December 1957 Relation A related resource continued from <a href="/items/show/242">Vol. 7, No. 2 (23), pp. 52-57</a> LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/a8e4c120a965fe6fc5adad0f88bd8a57.pdf e138109b7e80df4f68854303cfc04b2d PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 86 PROFILE ON AN EXILE POLITICIAN By Kurt Glaser The Communist strategy for seizing central IDurope after World War II was that of the "popular front." So Jong as suibstantial U. S. forces remained on the Continent an 3.4YI>arent shrure of power was allowed to "non-Communist liberals." The appearance of out-and-out Communist governments might haNe led the United States to reverse its policy of withdrawal and demobilization. As the time became riJpe, first in Rumania, then in Poland and Hungary and finally in Czecho-Slovakia, the "liberals" were eased out af oiffice. Those who fled to the U. S. Zone of Germany were girven asylum without too many questions asked. Politicians of rank were airlifted to Washington, where many are now unof.ficial or paid consultants in connection with various "rpsycihwar" operations One of the most active exiles from Czecho~Slovakia is Dr. Hulbert Ripka, former Minister of Foreign Trade, who came west in March 1948. In 1949, the State Department permitted him the leadiing role in choosing exile politicians to be flown from Pa11is at .American expense to fomn the "Council of Free Czechos1ovaoo.a." As a memlber of the Council's Executive Committee until recently, Ripka has received a monthly salrury from the Free Europe Committee, which dbtains m.ruch Olf its funds from Government sources. He is a!lso a professor at the New School of Social Research in New Y o!1k. He has spolken more than OI11Ce over Radio Free Eiuro1pe, and there is no douibt that his friends wield a potent influence in that broadcasting network. No comment is made or suggested concerning Dr. Ripka's attitude toward Communism. Instead, let us revie,w the facts of hris politica,,l career. Dr. Hulbert Riipka achieved some prominence as a journalist before the war. In 1935 he conducted a group of Czech newsmen in the Soviet Union. From then until 1938 he was assistant editor of the magazine Praha-Moskva, devoted to Czechoslovak-Sov iet :firiendship. After Hitler occupied Prague in March 1939, Ripka �86 SLOVAK~A went to Paris, where he became a spokesman of former President Benes, who was working toward a political comeback in exile. In November of that year, he took charge of the informatioo. program of the "Ozechoslovak National Committee" with headquarters at 50_.52 Avenue de la Bourdonnais. Ripka's personal secretary in Paris was the known Communist Mrs. Hilda Matouskova. One of his chief assistants was the Communist agent Otto Katz-1Suchy, alias Andre Simone, late of Hallywood, Prague and points east. After a while, ,t he F,rench police became interested in Katz-Simone, and he disappeared, to turn urp later in Mexico. Guenther Reinhardt (Crime Without Punishment) links Katz with the 1943 murder of the anti-Communist Carlo Tresca in New York. Pro-Soviet Policies During World War II The "Ozechoslovalk National Committee" and the "Czechoslovak DemocratiJC Government" in London which succeeded it followed a oonsistently pro-1Soviet policy. Describing this policy during the 1939-1941 .Soviet-Nazi collaboration, Ripka himself states : "Since, In the new &ituation, it was impossible to collaborate officially with the S oviet Un ion, we .. . did nothing which might prejudice or .p revent the ren eswal of cooperation at the earliest possible moment ; I need only recall how 11tron•g ly our attitude contrasted with that of many others during the Sovle!t-Finnish war. Moreover, even In that period, there was no interruption of the personal contacts and exchanges of information b eibween ourselves and Important Soviet representatives In London, P,a ris, Was'h lngton and elsewhere." ( East and West, Lo ndon 19 44 , p. 34) HaJVing joined Benes in London in 1940, Dr. Ripka became Minister of Information of the "Government" in exile. His Ministry had close world:n:g relations with the Ozecho ..SloV'aJk section of the British Broadcasting Company. This was headed by the Slovaik Communist Vavro Hajdu, another member being Oto Biheler, later expelled from the United States for espionage under cover of diplomatic immunity. Ripka often broaidcast over BBC. Here is what he said on Novem1ber 7, 1942 over that network: " . . . The >Russi an November Revolution not only Increased the �SLOVAKIA 87 strength of the Russian Sovdet staite, it also raised to greater heights than ever ,b efore the standard of civHiza,tion, culture and living or the wide masses of the Soviet peoples. . . "Bolshevism is •a super-national ideal, an eternal ideal, a human ideal, a.n idea.I whicll has kind1ed <the mind.8 of the noblest of men from the time of Plato and through the Christian era, through the French Revolution and until today. . . Just as the French Revolution strove to realize the ideal of freedom, so did the Russian Revolution try to realiz-e the ideal of equality." Dr. Hubert Ripka was also Deputy Foreign Minister. Since Minister Jan Masaryk ran his ministry with a notoriously loose hand, Ripka really managed the foreign policy of the London "Government." This policy reached its climax in the Czechoslovak~SoV'iet Treaty of 1943, of which Ripka said: "The Czechoslovak-Soviet Treaty is the foundation of our country's external security and is a fundamental contribution to the unification of national forces. . . Thanks to the Treaty, Czechoslovakia's interests are receivin,g effective support." (BBC broadcast, December 14, 1944) Of the Soviet Union in generaf, Ripka wrote : "The Bolshev,i sm of Lenin and Stalin represents a creative synthesis of specifically Russian and certain Western elements." (East and West, p. 13) "We Czechoslovaks make no secret of our satisfaction that Soviet Russia is beginning to participate in European and world politics as a strong world power." (Ibid., P. 58) The most fateful step prepaired by the London "G()IVernment" and carried out by the 1945-48 "National Front" was the expulsion from Czech~Slovakia of more than 3,000,000 Sudeten Germans. During this operation, over 300,000 Germans were shot or beaten to death, died of rape, filth, stair.vation or exposure, or were shipped to Soviet slave la'bor camps. (For details, see Documents on the Expulsion of the Sudeten Germans, Munich 1953.) The expulsion knocked out the strongest anti ..Communist block in a population of 13,000,000, and tied the Czechs firmly into the Soviet orbit by creating a fear of German "revenge." In his recent book Czechoslovakia Enslaved (London 1950), Ripka admrits authorship of the plan to expel the Sudeten Germans. To work out the details, he maintained a secret section of his Foreign Office, run by a German, �88 SLOVAKIA Wolfgang von Putlitz, who later turned up as ipolitkal adviser in the East German Communist regime. Putlitz was a friend of the vanished British diplomats Burgess and McLean, as well as of the West German security chief Dr. Otto John, who deserted to the Communists in Jruly 1954. They were in contact in London in 1944 and became members of the same British-operated intelligence unit. Their assoc_iation. conrti.nued after Prutlitiz had taken up his activities in East Berlin and while John was (ostensilbly) working for the Bonn Government. The Politburo's Plot and the "National Front" During the latter years of the war, writes Ripka (Czechoslovakia Enslaved, Chapter Ill) , "the politlbureau in Moscow was completing a plot destined to permit the Communists to seize power immediately after the liberation." This plan, as outlined by R~pka, included Communistdominated "national committees" to replace constitutional local government, sruppression of the Czech Agrarian, Tradesmen's and National Democratic Parties and the S1ovaik Catholic Party, establishment of a "National Front" coalition with no opposition, and co.Uectivization of the economy. "Punishments striking at traitors, collaJborationists and fascists" enrubled the Communists, in Ripka's own words, "to intimidate or suppress their political adversaries." "In short," Ripka concludes, "in the political, economk, military and culturail. domains, Czechoslovakia must follow in the wruke of the UISSIR." Yet we find Rilpka's signature on the laws and decrees which put this program of bolshevization into execution, such as: The Kos ice Statute of Apri I 5, 1945: Es,ta,blishment of a Soexpulsion of Sudeten Germans and Hungaviet.type economy trial of "war criminals" in Soviet-tyipe "p.eopl e's courts" rians with convioted persons handed over to Soviet organs - aLJ members of the Protectorate and Slovak Governments declared guilty of suppr,ession of the Agrarian, hi,gh treason by legisla,t ive action Tradesmen's and Nation·a l Democratic Parties. Edict of the President of the Republic, May 19, 1945: Nationalization of property of Germans and Hungarians. "traitors anrl collaiborationists." Edict of the President of the Republic, June 19, 1945: The in- �SLOVAKIA 89 famous "Retributi-on Decree" def.ining "crimes against the Republic" ex-post-facto and providing dertai1'ed organization of the Sovietty,pe "people's courts." Of the "Retribution Decree" which Ripka signed, the Aliliance for Lilberation and Freedom in Czechoslovakia, a Czech organization, has this to say: " . . . The s,i mple fact thrut an active Communist or member of the National Front wanted to have a house, a b.us,ine.ss, a f.arm or a posl<tion held by an innocent citizen was sufficient to have the latter thrown in jail under a false accusation. '' . . . The decree .• . W\as pnimarily directed agaiilllst tlhose citizens who professed true democracy and opposed national ization. In general, the confiscation of property, and the intimidation of t.hose who still held -it, •became the avowed aims of this measure." (Fe.bruary 1954 Manifesto) Under the decree, there was no a,ppeal from the decision o;f a people's court. A death sentence when pronounced was to be executed within two hours. As an act of grace, one additional ho,ur might be granted. Benes and most of his Ministers entered Czecho-Slovaikia via Moscow, where they joined with the Communists in the "National Front" coalition. Ripka remained in London through Arpril 194:15. The New York Times of April 1'5 reports his farewell message to western journalists as fdllows: "London - Dr. Hubert Ripka, Czechoslovak Minister of Foreign Trade, told a fa'Dewell press conference here today thlllt he did not consider the western Allies' apprehensions that his country might become a vassal of the Soviet Union were grounded. He said it was natural that Cze.c hoslo.vakia should seek her security primarily in friendship with the Soviet Union." To his own coruntrymen, however, Ripka took a slightly different tone. In his book on Czechoslovakia in the New Europe, which has neiver been translated into English, he wrote: "All anti.;Soviet elements must necessarHy be eliminated from schools, educational instt.ltu<tions, and literature." (Ceskoslo. vensko v nove Evr-ope, London 194-5, p. 87) our In May 1945 Ripka returned to Prague as Minister of Foreign Trade. One of his first transactions was a deal, initiated in London, to turn over to the Soviet Union, fr.ee of charge, the uranium mines at J oachimsthal ( J achym()IV) in the Sudetenland. This is a principal source from which �90 SLOVAKIA the Soviets are now extracting atomic materials to bomb the United States. Ripka's political f,r iends, especiall.y his former secretary Duchacek (now with the Voice of America), blocked a parliamentary inJVestig,a tion of the uranium affair. A decree was issued maiking it "high treason" to mention the su!bject in public. Of the National Front's foreign tTade policy, Dr. Ripka wrote: ",Closer trade relations with the Soviet Un.ion were not dictated by the CommuniS1t Party. The stren•g thenlng of these relations was In the interests ot the Czechoslovak economy and part of our own policy. Alliance with the Soviet Union has been the most Important factor in tbls country's foreign policy." ( Bulletin of the BritishCzechoslovak Chamber of Commerce, London, 1947) Ripka Since February 1948 Dr. Ri,pka was one of twelve Ministers who resigned in Feb:mary 1949 in a dispute between the "il..ibeirals" and the Communist Party. Whether this was a genuine ideological struggle or an internal squaJbble over "who gets what" is a question which cannot be answered in this short space. The fact is, however, that after the reorganization of the 1g overnment under the Communist Premier Gottwald, Dr. Ripka found himself without a job. Ripka started his flight from Ozechoslova!kia in the company of two priests, Msgr. Sramek and Msgr. Hala, who had been Ministers in the National F,r ont. They hid in a small shack on an isolated airfield at Rakovnik, where a French airplane was to pick them up. The secret police got wind of the affaiT and placed its men on the field, whereupon the French pilot flew over the field without landing. Ripka left the shack and waliked right past the seer.et police into the woods. Msgr. Sramek and Msgr. Hala were arrested and sentenced to prison. A few days later the plane returned and picked u,p Ripka alone without any difficulty. After arriving in Paris, Dr. Ripka organized an exile group which developed into the Czechoslovak Foreign In- �SLOVAKIA 91 stitute. The institute i,ssued an ideological directive summarizing its political aims as follows: "The -transfer of the means of production in.to the hands of the workers is the only way leading to the increase of well-being and prosperity among the largest classes." The InstitUJte has "operating grouips" in various locations, which resemble structurally the cells of the Communist Party. The organizationa l directive has this to say: "Wllth this system we ho,pe to create a group democracy of an elite as opposed to the false conception of a democracy of the masses, which is es,p ecially prominent in exile. Thus we would strive to penetraite and dominate the political life as broadly as possible. "The Czechoslovak FOTelgn Institute is to create a group within groups. The anonymity of Its members ls to constitute its great strength, because it is not poa&ible to defeat an Invisible power." (emphasis in original) The financial part of the directiive provides for busines.s deals with Cammunist countries. For a while a group of Institute memtb ers lived in Switrerla.nd, where they sold ball bea•r ings, cadmium and other strategic materials to states in the Soviet 011bit. When the Swiss police interfered, several of the group moved to Munich, where they got jobs with Radio Free Europe. According to the direcmve, Ripka (under the code name "Maly'') assumed cha,rge of the Institute's central office in Paris. His associates at various times have included: Vladimir Bruza, member of the Communist-cont rolled "Central Working Committee for the Nationalization of Industry." After the 1948 " February Revolution,'' the Czech Communists sent Bruza to Moscow to make further arrangements for Soviet exploitation of the uranium mines. Bruz·a ls now _editor of the Institute's publication Tribuna, which had to move to Leiden, Holland, because of difficulties with the French police. Milos Vanek, a founder of the Czech Communls.t Party and now head of the economic section of Radio Free Europe in Munich. Professor Bohumil Cerny, field man for the Institute, who fled back to Czecho./Slovakia to escape arrest by the CIC in the U. S. Zone of Austria. Frantisek Kubal, repOTts editor for the Institute and on the staff of Tribuna. He ls now in a Frooch jail awaiting trial on charges of lllegally photographing U. S. military installations for the Prague Communist Government. Bohumil Lausman, former Minister of Industry, who sided with �92 SLOVAKIA the Communists in February 1948. He went into exile in 1949, but returned voluntanily to Czecho-Slova:kia in December 1953. He was employed secretly by Radio Free Europe. Since leaving Czecho-,Slova,kia, Dr. Ripka has advocated a poHcy of "co-existence" in the following terms: "Today more than ever I persist in bel ieving that a free and independent Cz·ecihoslov,a kia cannot exist except in a balanced Europe in which the Western Powers and Russia are trying to live on good terms. Even the events of February 1948 h ave not been able to shake this conviction, which remain s the keystone of my whole co nception of for eign policy." (Czechoslovakia Enslaved, 1~50, p, 74) This is the record of an exile politician living in the United States and paid a salary from funds corntriihwted to fight Communism. It is for the reader to drnw hi:s own conclusions om the, /basis of this record. - (Overseas Research, Inc., Special Bulletin, Nov. 28, 1954, Washington, D. C.) • • • CASTLES OF SLOVAKIA: 'JIHE OLD CASTLE ( Stary Hrad) The ruins of th£s ,o ld castle still .stand on a ,p recipitous rock aJbave the river Vah. The structure, named the Old Castle of Trencin (!Stary Hrad) 'belongs to the c1ass of fortresses which were lb:uilt ,prabaJbly during the time af tihe Great Mornvian EmpiTe. Tr,a,veli!ng against the current of the Vah, Stary Hlrad cam. be seen on the left side. We are told that it was once called Nez;budsky Oastle, which attests to -i ts antiquity. 01dest arvailaJble documents refer to it as the Old Castle ("Castmm Stargra,d"); they teU us that it was -gi,v en to Bohumir Seibaslarvorvilc aJbout 1250 for bravery displayed in -the battle against the Tatars neaT S·rujaiva. Stary Hrad is more ancient than Streicno. The structure itself suggests that it was !built ,3J'bout the same time as the Devin and Trencin castles,, i.e., during the Roman era. Bohumir ,w as lord of the castle until 1'266 ; Count Peter of Hont from 1 267 to the end of the thirteenth century, when the Balasa family gained ownership. Then iMatthew Calk, "Lord of the Vah and the Tatras," -besieged and sei'Zed it, hut did not keep it for long, because we learn that a certain Thomas Carpi exchanged it in 1'323 for his property 1 � SLOVAKIA 86 PROFILE ON AN EXILE POLITICIAN By Kurt Glaser The Communist strategy for seizing central IDurope after World War II was that of the "popular front." So Jong as suibstantial U. S. forces remained on the Continent an 3.4YI>arent shrure of power was allowed to "non-Communist liberals." The appearance of out-and-out Communist governments might haNe led the United States to reverse its policy of withdrawal and demobilization. As the time became riJpe, first in Rumania, then in Poland and Hungary and finally in Czecho-Slovakia, the "liberals" were eased out af oiffice. Those who fled to the U. S. Zone of Germany were girven asylum without too many questions asked. Politicians of rank were airlifted to Washington, where many are now unof.ficial or paid consultants in connection with various "rpsycihwar" operations One of the most active exiles from Czecho~Slovakia is Dr. Hulbert Ripka, former Minister of Foreign Trade, who came west in March 1948. In 1949, the State Department permitted him the leadiing role in choosing exile politicians to be flown from Pa11is at .American expense to fomn the "Council of Free Czechos1ovaoo.a." As a memlber of the Council's Executive Committee until recently, Ripka has received a monthly salrury from the Free Europe Committee, which dbtains m.ruch Olf its funds from Government sources. He is a!lso a professor at the New School of Social Research in New Y o!1k. He has spolken more than OI11Ce over Radio Free Eiuro1pe, and there is no douibt that his friends wield a potent influence in that broadcasting network. No comment is made or suggested concerning Dr. Ripka's attitude toward Communism. Instead, let us revie,w the facts of hris politica,,l career. Dr. Hulbert Riipka achieved some prominence as a journalist before the war. In 1935 he conducted a group of Czech newsmen in the Soviet Union. From then until 1938 he was assistant editor of the magazine Praha-Moskva, devoted to Czechoslovak-Sov iet :firiendship. After Hitler occupied Prague in March 1939, Ripka �86 SLOVAK~A went to Paris, where he became a spokesman of former President Benes, who was working toward a political comeback in exile. In November of that year, he took charge of the informatioo. program of the "Ozechoslovak National Committee" with headquarters at 50_.52 Avenue de la Bourdonnais. Ripka's personal secretary in Paris was the known Communist Mrs. Hilda Matouskova. One of his chief assistants was the Communist agent Otto Katz-1Suchy, alias Andre Simone, late of Hallywood, Prague and points east. After a while, ,t he F,rench police became interested in Katz-Simone, and he disappeared, to turn urp later in Mexico. Guenther Reinhardt (Crime Without Punishment) links Katz with the 1943 murder of the anti-Communist Carlo Tresca in New York. Pro-Soviet Policies During World War II The "Ozechoslovalk National Committee" and the "Czechoslovak DemocratiJC Government" in London which succeeded it followed a oonsistently pro-1Soviet policy. Describing this policy during the 1939-1941 .Soviet-Nazi collaboration, Ripka himself states : "Since, In the new &ituation, it was impossible to collaborate officially with the S oviet Un ion, we .. . did nothing which might prejudice or .p revent the ren eswal of cooperation at the earliest possible moment ; I need only recall how 11tron•g ly our attitude contrasted with that of many others during the Sovle!t-Finnish war. Moreover, even In that period, there was no interruption of the personal contacts and exchanges of information b eibween ourselves and Important Soviet representatives In London, P,a ris, Was'h lngton and elsewhere." ( East and West, Lo ndon 19 44 , p. 34) HaJVing joined Benes in London in 1940, Dr. Ripka became Minister of Information of the "Government" in exile. His Ministry had close world:n:g relations with the Ozecho ..SloV'aJk section of the British Broadcasting Company. This was headed by the Slovaik Communist Vavro Hajdu, another member being Oto Biheler, later expelled from the United States for espionage under cover of diplomatic immunity. Ripka often broaidcast over BBC. Here is what he said on Novem1ber 7, 1942 over that network: " . . . The >Russi an November Revolution not only Increased the �SLOVAKIA 87 strength of the Russian Sovdet staite, it also raised to greater heights than ever ,b efore the standard of civHiza,tion, culture and living or the wide masses of the Soviet peoples. . . "Bolshevism is •a super-national ideal, an eternal ideal, a human ideal, a.n idea.I whicll has kind1ed <the mind.8 of the noblest of men from the time of Plato and through the Christian era, through the French Revolution and until today. . . Just as the French Revolution strove to realize the ideal of freedom, so did the Russian Revolution try to realiz-e the ideal of equality." Dr. Hubert Ripka was also Deputy Foreign Minister. Since Minister Jan Masaryk ran his ministry with a notoriously loose hand, Ripka really managed the foreign policy of the London "Government." This policy reached its climax in the Czechoslovak~SoV'iet Treaty of 1943, of which Ripka said: "The Czechoslovak-Soviet Treaty is the foundation of our country's external security and is a fundamental contribution to the unification of national forces. . . Thanks to the Treaty, Czechoslovakia's interests are receivin,g effective support." (BBC broadcast, December 14, 1944) Of the Soviet Union in generaf, Ripka wrote : "The Bolshev,i sm of Lenin and Stalin represents a creative synthesis of specifically Russian and certain Western elements." (East and West, p. 13) "We Czechoslovaks make no secret of our satisfaction that Soviet Russia is beginning to participate in European and world politics as a strong world power." (Ibid., P. 58) The most fateful step prepaired by the London "G()IVernment" and carried out by the 1945-48 "National Front" was the expulsion from Czech~Slovakia of more than 3,000,000 Sudeten Germans. During this operation, over 300,000 Germans were shot or beaten to death, died of rape, filth, stair.vation or exposure, or were shipped to Soviet slave la'bor camps. (For details, see Documents on the Expulsion of the Sudeten Germans, Munich 1953.) The expulsion knocked out the strongest anti ..Communist block in a population of 13,000,000, and tied the Czechs firmly into the Soviet orbit by creating a fear of German "revenge." In his recent book Czechoslovakia Enslaved (London 1950), Ripka admrits authorship of the plan to expel the Sudeten Germans. To work out the details, he maintained a secret section of his Foreign Office, run by a German, �88 SLOVAKIA Wolfgang von Putlitz, who later turned up as ipolitkal adviser in the East German Communist regime. Putlitz was a friend of the vanished British diplomats Burgess and McLean, as well as of the West German security chief Dr. Otto John, who deserted to the Communists in Jruly 1954. They were in contact in London in 1944 and became members of the same British-operated intelligence unit. Their assoc_iation. conrti.nued after Prutlitiz had taken up his activities in East Berlin and while John was (ostensilbly) working for the Bonn Government. The Politburo's Plot and the "National Front" During the latter years of the war, writes Ripka (Czechoslovakia Enslaved, Chapter Ill) , "the politlbureau in Moscow was completing a plot destined to permit the Communists to seize power immediately after the liberation." This plan, as outlined by R~pka, included Communistdominated "national committees" to replace constitutional local government, sruppression of the Czech Agrarian, Tradesmen's and National Democratic Parties and the S1ovaik Catholic Party, establishment of a "National Front" coalition with no opposition, and co.Uectivization of the economy. "Punishments striking at traitors, collaJborationists and fascists" enrubled the Communists, in Ripka's own words, "to intimidate or suppress their political adversaries." "In short," Ripka concludes, "in the political, economk, military and culturail. domains, Czechoslovakia must follow in the wruke of the UISSIR." Yet we find Rilpka's signature on the laws and decrees which put this program of bolshevization into execution, such as: The Kos ice Statute of Apri I 5, 1945: Es,ta,blishment of a Soexpulsion of Sudeten Germans and Hungaviet.type economy trial of "war criminals" in Soviet-tyipe "p.eopl e's courts" rians with convioted persons handed over to Soviet organs - aLJ members of the Protectorate and Slovak Governments declared guilty of suppr,ession of the Agrarian, hi,gh treason by legisla,t ive action Tradesmen's and Nation·a l Democratic Parties. Edict of the President of the Republic, May 19, 1945: Nationalization of property of Germans and Hungarians. "traitors anrl collaiborationists." Edict of the President of the Republic, June 19, 1945: The in- �SLOVAKIA 89 famous "Retributi-on Decree" def.ining "crimes against the Republic" ex-post-facto and providing dertai1'ed organization of the Sovietty,pe "people's courts." Of the "Retribution Decree" which Ripka signed, the Aliliance for Lilberation and Freedom in Czechoslovakia, a Czech organization, has this to say: " . . . The s,i mple fact thrut an active Communist or member of the National Front wanted to have a house, a b.us,ine.ss, a f.arm or a posl<tion held by an innocent citizen was sufficient to have the latter thrown in jail under a false accusation. '' . . . The decree .• . W\as pnimarily directed agaiilllst tlhose citizens who professed true democracy and opposed national ization. In general, the confiscation of property, and the intimidation of t.hose who still held -it, •became the avowed aims of this measure." (Fe.bruary 1954 Manifesto) Under the decree, there was no a,ppeal from the decision o;f a people's court. A death sentence when pronounced was to be executed within two hours. As an act of grace, one additional ho,ur might be granted. Benes and most of his Ministers entered Czecho-Slovaikia via Moscow, where they joined with the Communists in the "National Front" coalition. Ripka remained in London through Arpril 194:15. The New York Times of April 1'5 reports his farewell message to western journalists as fdllows: "London - Dr. Hubert Ripka, Czechoslovak Minister of Foreign Trade, told a fa'Dewell press conference here today thlllt he did not consider the western Allies' apprehensions that his country might become a vassal of the Soviet Union were grounded. He said it was natural that Cze.c hoslo.vakia should seek her security primarily in friendship with the Soviet Union." To his own coruntrymen, however, Ripka took a slightly different tone. In his book on Czechoslovakia in the New Europe, which has neiver been translated into English, he wrote: "All anti.;Soviet elements must necessarHy be eliminated from schools, educational instt.ltu<tions, and literature." (Ceskoslo. vensko v nove Evr-ope, London 194-5, p. 87) our In May 1945 Ripka returned to Prague as Minister of Foreign Trade. One of his first transactions was a deal, initiated in London, to turn over to the Soviet Union, fr.ee of charge, the uranium mines at J oachimsthal ( J achym()IV) in the Sudetenland. This is a principal source from which �90 SLOVAKIA the Soviets are now extracting atomic materials to bomb the United States. Ripka's political f,r iends, especiall.y his former secretary Duchacek (now with the Voice of America), blocked a parliamentary inJVestig,a tion of the uranium affair. A decree was issued maiking it "high treason" to mention the su!bject in public. Of the National Front's foreign tTade policy, Dr. Ripka wrote: ",Closer trade relations with the Soviet Un.ion were not dictated by the CommuniS1t Party. The stren•g thenlng of these relations was In the interests ot the Czechoslovak economy and part of our own policy. Alliance with the Soviet Union has been the most Important factor in tbls country's foreign policy." ( Bulletin of the BritishCzechoslovak Chamber of Commerce, London, 1947) Ripka Since February 1948 Dr. Ri,pka was one of twelve Ministers who resigned in Feb:mary 1949 in a dispute between the "il..ibeirals" and the Communist Party. Whether this was a genuine ideological struggle or an internal squaJbble over "who gets what" is a question which cannot be answered in this short space. The fact is, however, that after the reorganization of the 1g overnment under the Communist Premier Gottwald, Dr. Ripka found himself without a job. Ripka started his flight from Ozechoslova!kia in the company of two priests, Msgr. Sramek and Msgr. Hala, who had been Ministers in the National F,r ont. They hid in a small shack on an isolated airfield at Rakovnik, where a French airplane was to pick them up. The secret police got wind of the affaiT and placed its men on the field, whereupon the French pilot flew over the field without landing. Ripka left the shack and waliked right past the seer.et police into the woods. Msgr. Sramek and Msgr. Hala were arrested and sentenced to prison. A few days later the plane returned and picked u,p Ripka alone without any difficulty. After arriving in Paris, Dr. Ripka organized an exile group which developed into the Czechoslovak Foreign In- �SLOVAKIA 91 stitute. The institute i,ssued an ideological directive summarizing its political aims as follows: "The -transfer of the means of production in.to the hands of the workers is the only way leading to the increase of well-being and prosperity among the largest classes." The InstitUJte has "operating grouips" in various locations, which resemble structurally the cells of the Communist Party. The organizationa l directive has this to say: "Wllth this system we ho,pe to create a group democracy of an elite as opposed to the false conception of a democracy of the masses, which is es,p ecially prominent in exile. Thus we would strive to penetraite and dominate the political life as broadly as possible. "The Czechoslovak FOTelgn Institute is to create a group within groups. The anonymity of Its members ls to constitute its great strength, because it is not poa&ible to defeat an Invisible power." (emphasis in original) The financial part of the directiive provides for busines.s deals with Cammunist countries. For a while a group of Institute memtb ers lived in Switrerla.nd, where they sold ball bea•r ings, cadmium and other strategic materials to states in the Soviet 011bit. When the Swiss police interfered, several of the group moved to Munich, where they got jobs with Radio Free Europe. According to the direcmve, Ripka (under the code name "Maly'') assumed cha,rge of the Institute's central office in Paris. His associates at various times have included: Vladimir Bruza, member of the Communist-cont rolled "Central Working Committee for the Nationalization of Industry." After the 1948 " February Revolution,'' the Czech Communists sent Bruza to Moscow to make further arrangements for Soviet exploitation of the uranium mines. Bruz·a ls now _editor of the Institute's publication Tribuna, which had to move to Leiden, Holland, because of difficulties with the French police. Milos Vanek, a founder of the Czech Communls.t Party and now head of the economic section of Radio Free Europe in Munich. Professor Bohumil Cerny, field man for the Institute, who fled back to Czecho./Slovakia to escape arrest by the CIC in the U. S. Zone of Austria. Frantisek Kubal, repOTts editor for the Institute and on the staff of Tribuna. He ls now in a Frooch jail awaiting trial on charges of lllegally photographing U. S. military installations for the Prague Communist Government. Bohumil Lausman, former Minister of Industry, who sided with �92 SLOVAKIA the Communists in February 1948. He went into exile in 1949, but returned voluntanily to Czecho-Slova:kia in December 1953. He was employed secretly by Radio Free Europe. Since leaving Czecho-,Slova,kia, Dr. Ripka has advocated a poHcy of "co-existence" in the following terms: "Today more than ever I persist in bel ieving that a free and independent Cz·ecihoslov,a kia cannot exist except in a balanced Europe in which the Western Powers and Russia are trying to live on good terms. Even the events of February 1948 h ave not been able to shake this conviction, which remain s the keystone of my whole co nception of for eign policy." (Czechoslovakia Enslaved, 1~50, p, 74) This is the record of an exile politician living in the United States and paid a salary from funds corntriihwted to fight Communism. It is for the reader to drnw hi:s own conclusions om the, /basis of this record. - (Overseas Research, Inc., Special Bulletin, Nov. 28, 1954, Washington, D. C.) • • • CASTLES OF SLOVAKIA: 'JIHE OLD CASTLE ( Stary Hrad) The ruins of th£s ,o ld castle still .stand on a ,p recipitous rock aJbave the river Vah. The structure, named the Old Castle of Trencin (!Stary Hrad) 'belongs to the c1ass of fortresses which were lb:uilt ,prabaJbly during the time af tihe Great Mornvian EmpiTe. Tr,a,veli!ng against the current of the Vah, Stary Hlrad cam. be seen on the left side. We are told that it was once called Nez;budsky Oastle, which attests to -i ts antiquity. 01dest arvailaJble documents refer to it as the Old Castle ("Castmm Stargra,d"); they teU us that it was -gi,v en to Bohumir Seibaslarvorvilc aJbout 1250 for bravery displayed in -the battle against the Tatars neaT S·rujaiva. Stary Hrad is more ancient than Streicno. The structure itself suggests that it was !built ,3J'bout the same time as the Devin and Trencin castles,, i.e., during the Roman era. Bohumir ,w as lord of the castle until 1'266 ; Count Peter of Hont from 1 267 to the end of the thirteenth century, when the Balasa family gained ownership. Then iMatthew Calk, "Lord of the Vah and the Tatras," -besieged and sei'Zed it, hut did not keep it for long, because we learn that a certain Thomas Carpi exchanged it in 1'323 for his property 1 � 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 1954, Vol. 4 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 1 (No. 10), March 1954.</li> <li>Issue 2 (No. 11), June 1954.</li> <li>Issue 3-4 (No. 12-13), Sept.-Dec. 1954.</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 1954 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 PROFILE ON AN EXILE POLITICIAN By Kurt Glaser The Communist strategy for seizing central IDurope after World War II was that of the "popular front." So Jong as suibstantial U. S. forces remained on the Continent an 3.4YI>arent shrure of power was allowed to "non-Communist liberals." The appearance of out-and-out Communist governments might haNe led the United States to reverse its policy of withdrawal and demobilization. As the time became riJpe, first in Rumania, then in Poland and Hungary and finally in Czecho-Slovakia, the "liberals" were eased out af oiffice. Those who fled to the U. S. Zone of Germany were girven asylum without too many questions asked. Politicians of rank were airlifted to Washington, where many are now unof.ficial or paid consultants in connection with various "rpsycihwar" operations One of the most active exiles from Czecho~Slovakia is Dr. Hulbert Ripka, former Minister of Foreign Trade, who came west in March 1948. In 1949, the State Department permitted him the leadiing role in choosing exile politicians to be flown from Pa11is at .American expense to fomn the "Council of Free Czechos1ovaoo.a." As a memlber of the Council's Executive Committee until recently, Ripka has received a monthly salrury from the Free Europe Committee, which dbtains m.ruch Olf its funds from Government sources. He is a!lso a professor at the New School of Social Research in New Y o!1k. He has spolken more than OI11Ce over Radio Free Eiuro1pe, and there is no douibt that his friends wield a potent influence in that broadcasting network. No comment is made or suggested concerning Dr. Ripka's attitude toward Communism. Instead, let us revie,w the facts of hris politica,,l career. Dr. Hulbert Riipka achieved some prominence as a journalist before the war. In 1935 he conducted a group of Czech newsmen in the Soviet Union. From then until 1938 he was assistant editor of the magazine Praha-Moskva, devoted to Czechoslovak-Sov iet :firiendship. After Hitler occupied Prague in March 1939, Ripka 86 SLOVAK~A went to Paris, where he became a spokesman of former President Benes, who was working toward a political comeback in exile. In November of that year, he took charge of the informatioo. program of the "Ozechoslovak National Committee" with headquarters at 50_.52 Avenue de la Bourdonnais. Ripka's personal secretary in Paris was the known Communist Mrs. Hilda Matouskova. One of his chief assistants was the Communist agent Otto Katz-1Suchy, alias Andre Simone, late of Hallywood, Prague and points east. After a while, ,t he F,rench police became interested in Katz-Simone, and he disappeared, to turn urp later in Mexico. Guenther Reinhardt (Crime Without Punishment) links Katz with the 1943 murder of the anti-Communist Carlo Tresca in New York. Pro-Soviet Policies During World War II The "Ozechoslovalk National Committee" and the "Czechoslovak DemocratiJC Government" in London which succeeded it followed a oonsistently pro-1Soviet policy. Describing this policy during the 1939-1941 .Soviet-Nazi collaboration, Ripka himself states : "Since, In the new &ituation, it was impossible to collaborate officially with the S oviet Un ion, we .. . did nothing which might prejudice or .p revent the ren eswal of cooperation at the earliest possible moment ; I need only recall how 11tron•g ly our attitude contrasted with that of many others during the Sovle!t-Finnish war. Moreover, even In that period, there was no interruption of the personal contacts and exchanges of information b eibween ourselves and Important Soviet representatives In London, P,a ris, Was'h lngton and elsewhere." ( East and West, Lo ndon 19 44 , p. 34) HaJVing joined Benes in London in 1940, Dr. Ripka became Minister of Information of the "Government" in exile. His Ministry had close world:n:g relations with the Ozecho ..SloV'aJk section of the British Broadcasting Company. This was headed by the Slovaik Communist Vavro Hajdu, another member being Oto Biheler, later expelled from the United States for espionage under cover of diplomatic immunity. Ripka often broaidcast over BBC. Here is what he said on Novem1ber 7, 1942 over that network: " . . . The >Russi an November Revolution not only Increased the SLOVAKIA 87 strength of the Russian Sovdet staite, it also raised to greater heights than ever ,b efore the standard of civHiza,tion, culture and living or the wide masses of the Soviet peoples. . . "Bolshevism is •a super-national ideal, an eternal ideal, a human ideal, a.n idea.I whicll has kind1ed <the mind.8 of the noblest of men from the time of Plato and through the Christian era, through the French Revolution and until today. . . Just as the French Revolution strove to realize the ideal of freedom, so did the Russian Revolution try to realiz-e the ideal of equality." Dr. Hubert Ripka was also Deputy Foreign Minister. Since Minister Jan Masaryk ran his ministry with a notoriously loose hand, Ripka really managed the foreign policy of the London "Government." This policy reached its climax in the Czechoslovak~SoV'iet Treaty of 1943, of which Ripka said: "The Czechoslovak-Soviet Treaty is the foundation of our country's external security and is a fundamental contribution to the unification of national forces. . . Thanks to the Treaty, Czechoslovakia's interests are receivin,g effective support." (BBC broadcast, December 14, 1944) Of the Soviet Union in generaf, Ripka wrote : "The Bolshev,i sm of Lenin and Stalin represents a creative synthesis of specifically Russian and certain Western elements." (East and West, p. 13) "We Czechoslovaks make no secret of our satisfaction that Soviet Russia is beginning to participate in European and world politics as a strong world power." (Ibid., P. 58) The most fateful step prepaired by the London "G()IVernment" and carried out by the 1945-48 "National Front" was the expulsion from Czech~Slovakia of more than 3,000,000 Sudeten Germans. During this operation, over 300,000 Germans were shot or beaten to death, died of rape, filth, stair.vation or exposure, or were shipped to Soviet slave la'bor camps. (For details, see Documents on the Expulsion of the Sudeten Germans, Munich 1953.) The expulsion knocked out the strongest anti ..Communist block in a population of 13,000,000, and tied the Czechs firmly into the Soviet orbit by creating a fear of German "revenge." In his recent book Czechoslovakia Enslaved (London 1950), Ripka admrits authorship of the plan to expel the Sudeten Germans. To work out the details, he maintained a secret section of his Foreign Office, run by a German, 88 SLOVAKIA Wolfgang von Putlitz, who later turned up as ipolitkal adviser in the East German Communist regime. Putlitz was a friend of the vanished British diplomats Burgess and McLean, as well as of the West German security chief Dr. Otto John, who deserted to the Communists in Jruly 1954. They were in contact in London in 1944 and became members of the same British-operated intelligence unit. Their assoc_iation. conrti.nued after Prutlitiz had taken up his activities in East Berlin and while John was (ostensilbly) working for the Bonn Government. The Politburo's Plot and the "National Front" During the latter years of the war, writes Ripka (Czechoslovakia Enslaved, Chapter Ill) , "the politlbureau in Moscow was completing a plot destined to permit the Communists to seize power immediately after the liberation." This plan, as outlined by R~pka, included Communistdominated "national committees" to replace constitutional local government, sruppression of the Czech Agrarian, Tradesmen's and National Democratic Parties and the S1ovaik Catholic Party, establishment of a "National Front" coalition with no opposition, and co.Uectivization of the economy. "Punishments striking at traitors, collaJborationists and fascists" enrubled the Communists, in Ripka's own words, "to intimidate or suppress their political adversaries." "In short," Ripka concludes, "in the political, economk, military and culturail. domains, Czechoslovakia must follow in the wruke of the UISSIR." Yet we find Rilpka's signature on the laws and decrees which put this program of bolshevization into execution, such as: The Kos ice Statute of Apri I 5, 1945: Es,ta,blishment of a Soexpulsion of Sudeten Germans and Hungaviet.type economy trial of "war criminals" in Soviet-tyipe "p.eopl e's courts" rians with convioted persons handed over to Soviet organs - aLJ members of the Protectorate and Slovak Governments declared guilty of suppr,ession of the Agrarian, hi,gh treason by legisla,t ive action Tradesmen's and Nation·a l Democratic Parties. Edict of the President of the Republic, May 19, 1945: Nationalization of property of Germans and Hungarians. "traitors anrl collaiborationists." Edict of the President of the Republic, June 19, 1945: The in- SLOVAKIA 89 famous "Retributi-on Decree" def.ining "crimes against the Republic" ex-post-facto and providing dertai1'ed organization of the Sovietty,pe "people's courts." Of the "Retribution Decree" which Ripka signed, the Aliliance for Lilberation and Freedom in Czechoslovakia, a Czech organization, has this to say: " . . . The s,i mple fact thrut an active Communist or member of the National Front wanted to have a house, a b.us,ine.ss, a f.arm or a posl<tion held by an innocent citizen was sufficient to have the latter thrown in jail under a false accusation. '' . . . The decree .• . W\as pnimarily directed agaiilllst tlhose citizens who professed true democracy and opposed national ization. In general, the confiscation of property, and the intimidation of t.hose who still held -it, •became the avowed aims of this measure." (Fe.bruary 1954 Manifesto) Under the decree, there was no a,ppeal from the decision o;f a people's court. A death sentence when pronounced was to be executed within two hours. As an act of grace, one additional ho,ur might be granted. Benes and most of his Ministers entered Czecho-Slovaikia via Moscow, where they joined with the Communists in the "National Front" coalition. Ripka remained in London through Arpril 194:15. The New York Times of April 1'5 reports his farewell message to western journalists as fdllows: "London - Dr. Hubert Ripka, Czechoslovak Minister of Foreign Trade, told a fa'Dewell press conference here today thlllt he did not consider the western Allies' apprehensions that his country might become a vassal of the Soviet Union were grounded. He said it was natural that Cze.c hoslo.vakia should seek her security primarily in friendship with the Soviet Union." To his own coruntrymen, however, Ripka took a slightly different tone. In his book on Czechoslovakia in the New Europe, which has neiver been translated into English, he wrote: "All anti.;Soviet elements must necessarHy be eliminated from schools, educational instt.ltu<tions, and literature." (Ceskoslo. vensko v nove Evr-ope, London 194-5, p. 87) our In May 1945 Ripka returned to Prague as Minister of Foreign Trade. One of his first transactions was a deal, initiated in London, to turn over to the Soviet Union, fr.ee of charge, the uranium mines at J oachimsthal ( J achym()IV) in the Sudetenland. This is a principal source from which 90 SLOVAKIA the Soviets are now extracting atomic materials to bomb the United States. Ripka's political f,r iends, especiall.y his former secretary Duchacek (now with the Voice of America), blocked a parliamentary inJVestig,a tion of the uranium affair. A decree was issued maiking it "high treason" to mention the su!bject in public. Of the National Front's foreign tTade policy, Dr. Ripka wrote: ",Closer trade relations with the Soviet Un.ion were not dictated by the CommuniS1t Party. The stren•g thenlng of these relations was In the interests ot the Czechoslovak economy and part of our own policy. Alliance with the Soviet Union has been the most Important factor in tbls country's foreign policy." ( Bulletin of the BritishCzechoslovak Chamber of Commerce, London, 1947) Ripka Since February 1948 Dr. Ri,pka was one of twelve Ministers who resigned in Feb:mary 1949 in a dispute between the "il..ibeirals" and the Communist Party. Whether this was a genuine ideological struggle or an internal squaJbble over "who gets what" is a question which cannot be answered in this short space. The fact is, however, that after the reorganization of the 1g overnment under the Communist Premier Gottwald, Dr. Ripka found himself without a job. Ripka started his flight from Ozechoslova!kia in the company of two priests, Msgr. Sramek and Msgr. Hala, who had been Ministers in the National F,r ont. They hid in a small shack on an isolated airfield at Rakovnik, where a French airplane was to pick them up. The secret police got wind of the affaiT and placed its men on the field, whereupon the French pilot flew over the field without landing. Ripka left the shack and waliked right past the seer.et police into the woods. Msgr. Sramek and Msgr. Hala were arrested and sentenced to prison. A few days later the plane returned and picked u,p Ripka alone without any difficulty. After arriving in Paris, Dr. Ripka organized an exile group which developed into the Czechoslovak Foreign In- SLOVAKIA 91 stitute. The institute i,ssued an ideological directive summarizing its political aims as follows: "The -transfer of the means of production in.to the hands of the workers is the only way leading to the increase of well-being and prosperity among the largest classes." The InstitUJte has "operating grouips" in various locations, which resemble structurally the cells of the Communist Party. The organizationa l directive has this to say: "Wllth this system we ho,pe to create a group democracy of an elite as opposed to the false conception of a democracy of the masses, which is es,p ecially prominent in exile. Thus we would strive to penetraite and dominate the political life as broadly as possible. "The Czechoslovak FOTelgn Institute is to create a group within groups. The anonymity of Its members ls to constitute its great strength, because it is not poa&ible to defeat an Invisible power." (emphasis in original) The financial part of the directiive provides for busines.s deals with Cammunist countries. For a while a group of Institute memtb ers lived in Switrerla.nd, where they sold ball bea•r ings, cadmium and other strategic materials to states in the Soviet 011bit. When the Swiss police interfered, several of the group moved to Munich, where they got jobs with Radio Free Europe. According to the direcmve, Ripka (under the code name "Maly'') assumed cha,rge of the Institute's central office in Paris. His associates at various times have included: Vladimir Bruza, member of the Communist-cont rolled "Central Working Committee for the Nationalization of Industry." After the 1948 " February Revolution,'' the Czech Communists sent Bruza to Moscow to make further arrangements for Soviet exploitation of the uranium mines. Bruz·a ls now _editor of the Institute's publication Tribuna, which had to move to Leiden, Holland, because of difficulties with the French police. Milos Vanek, a founder of the Czech Communls.t Party and now head of the economic section of Radio Free Europe in Munich. Professor Bohumil Cerny, field man for the Institute, who fled back to Czecho./Slovakia to escape arrest by the CIC in the U. S. Zone of Austria. Frantisek Kubal, repOTts editor for the Institute and on the staff of Tribuna. He ls now in a Frooch jail awaiting trial on charges of lllegally photographing U. S. military installations for the Prague Communist Government. Bohumil Lausman, former Minister of Industry, who sided with 92 SLOVAKIA the Communists in February 1948. He went into exile in 1949, but returned voluntanily to Czecho-Slova:kia in December 1953. He was employed secretly by Radio Free Europe. Since leaving Czecho-,Slova,kia, Dr. Ripka has advocated a poHcy of "co-existence" in the following terms: "Today more than ever I persist in bel ieving that a free and independent Cz·ecihoslov,a kia cannot exist except in a balanced Europe in which the Western Powers and Russia are trying to live on good terms. Even the events of February 1948 h ave not been able to shake this conviction, which remain s the keystone of my whole co nception of for eign policy." (Czechoslovakia Enslaved, 1~50, p, 74) This is the record of an exile politician living in the United States and paid a salary from funds corntriihwted to fight Communism. It is for the reader to drnw hi:s own conclusions om the, /basis of this record. - (Overseas Research, Inc., Special Bulletin, Nov. 28, 1954, Washington, D. C.) • • • CASTLES OF SLOVAKIA: 'JIHE OLD CASTLE ( Stary Hrad) The ruins of th£s ,o ld castle still .stand on a ,p recipitous rock aJbave the river Vah. The structure, named the Old Castle of Trencin (!Stary Hrad) 'belongs to the c1ass of fortresses which were lb:uilt ,prabaJbly during the time af tihe Great Mornvian EmpiTe. Tr,a,veli!ng against the current of the Vah, Stary Hlrad cam. be seen on the left side. We are told that it was once called Nez;budsky Oastle, which attests to -i ts antiquity. 01dest arvailaJble documents refer to it as the Old Castle ("Castmm Stargra,d"); they teU us that it was -gi,v en to Bohumir Seibaslarvorvilc aJbout 1250 for bravery displayed in -the battle against the Tatars neaT S·rujaiva. Stary Hrad is more ancient than Streicno. The structure itself suggests that it was !built ,3J'bout the same time as the Devin and Trencin castles,, i.e., during the Roman era. Bohumir ,w as lord of the castle until 1'266 ; Count Peter of Hont from 1 267 to the end of the thirteenth century, when the Balasa family gained ownership. Then iMatthew Calk, "Lord of the Vah and the Tatras," -besieged and sei'Zed it, hut did not keep it for long, because we learn that a certain Thomas Carpi exchanged it in 1'323 for his property 1  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 Profile of an Exile Politician Description An account of the resource Kurt Glaser Slovakia, Vol. 4, No. 3-4 (12-13), Sept.-Dec. 1954 pp. 85-92 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Glaser, Kurt, 1914-1993 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Sept.-Dec. 1954 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/0e4f9c285a353ca219a393203f06f902.pdf 1ef8e803ea2aa6cba32fe038b354f134 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 13 PUBLIC LAW IN CZECHO-SLOVAKIA AFrER 1945 Joseph A. Mikus (A rev ised text of the lecture d elivered July 29, 1952, a t the In.ternational Congress of Juri sts in W est Berlin, Germany.) "Between law and discipline the Judge must, without any hesitation, choose tlhe second, since law is but a form of the Party discipline." Andrey Wishinsky_ Prelitninary Observations The recent evolution in PU!blic Law of the oountries behind the Iron Ourta~n is insipired by ideas and directives .o f theorebcians of the Socia1list State. Lenin, who in his book "State and Revolution" laid down the fundamental ideas of the Communist State, does not believe in the fun~tion of integration anid coordination of interests the State nomnally exercises in the framework of a certain community. In contradistinction to tlhe teaching O!f the democratic state, Communism does concei!Ve the State as a power organized by the "elite" which brings aibout the ends fixed for the society in advance by hii.storical materialism. The idea of the Communist Stale corresponds, therefore, to that of a power imposed on the majority of the population, which is little or not at all oonsd01Us of its own 001rnmon interests, hy a highly dlisciplined minority which knowns iJ>erlfectly all the steps to be taJken toward those pre-determined ends. Conquest of ,p ower is, therefore, the main aim of Communism and successful attainment of it the unique criterion of its legitimity. t If the primary ta-sk of Communism is to seize power, its further arim is to maintain it by all means, even at the price of a complete s111ppression of all individual liiberties. Therefore, the separation of the Sibate powers, as it is known by tlhe Constituti•o ns orf some classical Democracies, such_ as the United States, France, and Great Britain, has no place in a totalitarian State. In the perspecUve orf these general ideas, estalblishing a clear distinction between a Communist and a Democratic State, I shall try to explain how Communism seized power in Czecho-Slovakia and how - through the instrumentality �14 ~LOVAKIA of the Oonstitution of May 9, 1948, and other successive laws - it could consolidate its victory. I shall show just hoiw t!he Czecho-lSI-ovak State, after 1950, in practical policy went beyond the Constitution itself, repudiating its "natiooail" character to become simply one of the numerous sociaHst repuibhcs of the Soviet orfuit. I. The policy of accomplished facts of the Czecho-Slovak Government before the ConstitutJion of 1948. The first Ozecho.,Slovak Constitution of February 29, 1920, was voted by a "Parliament" which had been nominated by a sel!f-a.ppointed Go1Vernment. That was a "Oonstitu~ tion" granting ind!i;viidual rights to the -citizens, .b ut ignoring entirely the fundamental proiblem of the Republic: its heterogeneo1Us ethnic charncter. It requested the same lo,y alty from all citizens, hut all those who were of tlhe non-Ozech nationality were regarded, by the official poliicy, as. citizens of second: rank only. Deprived. of the sipontameous consent of alb.out half its population, this heterogeneous State could exist only by its system of international alliances and a police regime whreh came into being by the Internal Security Act of 1923, whi1cih pradi'Cally suspended the validity of all individual rights. It was only after Munich, in 1938, when her system had coUrupsed, that Ozeciho-Slorvrukia changed her unrealistic Constitution. From a strictly unifarian State, she finally became what she should have been in 1918: a tri-ipartite federation c01InJposed of Czechia, Slorvakia and the Carpathian Ukraine (Ruthenia). Six months after the "death bloiw" CID. Benes) recei1Ved at Munich, Czecho-SlorvaJkia disintegrated into her constituents parts. Thus Ozechia became a German Protecto,r ate and SlovaJkia a free State. During World War II, Dr. Ed.ward Benes ·managed to convince the Allies of the necessity of reestaJblisthing the status quo ante Munich and recreating on~e mo.re the Czecho-S:lovaJk State. Because of the stubborn and deternnined opposition of the Siovaks, he pla!ced the destiny of the future Ozecho.- Slovakia in the hands of Sta1in. He did so by concluding, as a sel!f-wppointed Presideillt of a non-existing �SLOVAKIA 15 State, on December 12, 1943, in Moscow, a Treaty of Amity and OollaJboration with the Soviet Union. Decei;ved as. he was by his alHance with France before Munich, Benes thought that the Czech peqple, surrounded ,by Genmany on its west f.rontiier, could be saved from another German embrace onJ..y by rel,yi:ng closely on the So,v iet Union. MoscOIW and the Czech Corm1munist refugees in Soviet Rllissia congratulated themselves on this aiccomplishiment of Benes and aiwaited the moment when they wou:ld reap the political harvest of this immoral b.etrayaiJ. oif the prospective CzechoSlO!Vaik State to Moscow. Thus, the agreements Benes concluded in MoSico,w in DecemibeT, 194'3, and in February, 1945, assured to the Ozech Communists the -key ,positions in the government of Ozecho-Slovakia and faciiitated considerarbly their struggle for aibso[ute po,wer.. Edward Benes cooifesses in his "Memoirs" (Pra:gue, 1947, pp. 409-419) that already in 1943 he admitted the principle of the so.called "National Front Government," an anti001I1:Stitutional organism standing above both the Parliament and Government and controHing a:11 the life in the State. According to this principle, the Communists had a veto power aJg8!inst any project of law which would haive been contrary to their politics. "Not'hinlg without the Communists, nothing against them and nothing aibo:ve them!" - that wa•s the !political ;pledge given by Edward Benes to Gottwald in Moscow, ·already in 1943. This principle had been put into practice from the beginning of the reconstructed Czecho-Slol\7lakia in May 1945. The Communist Party salbotaged all legislatirve ,p rojects or executive measures of other parties which could have coooteracted their political aims. At the sam.e tirm.e, a!ter haMing recognized and installed various cle~g,ymen who had been e~ommunicated ,by Rome, the Pra;gue Government is pushing the Catholic population into schism. The final .g oal of this policy is the extension. of the Orthodox religion in Czecho~Slovakia and subordinating it to the supreme spiritual direction of the Moscow Red MetrQPOlitan. As to the "autonomous position of SlovaJkia, granted by the Kosice agreement on Apr~l 5, 1945,.it recei.Jved a hard �16 SLO VAKIA b'lo:w by the new organization oif the State into, regions (~upy), which are under the direct suiperivision of the Ministry of Interior in Prague. Slovruk territorial autonomy was ipracticaHy aJbolished completely in the Spring of 1950, whoo Pragrue created the new Miruistry of State Security, a higMy centraliized ruge.ncy with unlimited power oiver Slovrukia. Since that time, no,t orilly anti-Com!murust forces of Sloivakia, but eiven the leading Slovak Communist memibeirs of Parliament or Government, have become victims orf purges of this Ministry: Mr. CJementis, former Minister of Foreign Affairs; Mr. Husalk, for.mer Chieif of the regional Government of SlovaJkia; Mr. Schmidtke, former · Chaimran of the S'lov,a,k regional Diet of Bratislaiva ; Mr. Noiv·o mesky, former Minister of Ed'lllcation in the Slovak regionaJl Government,. and many other leading members of the Slovak Communist Party. Most reicently the Prrugue Government apipointed a Czech Commuruist, Anton Nedved, as Chief of the regional Government of SlovaJkia. The Praig;ue Government cannot countenance · a really j'U!ridi:cal State system whicrh would be able to, limit its omnipotence. Law is being pushed aside more and more by aroitrary decisions. The Constitutions of the "People's Democracies" harve something in common with the windowdressing in the countries .behind the Iron Curtain. They present a good-loolking arrangement of different articles attractiive to the eyes of the pulblffic, but t!hose articles are not for sale . . • • • WHO SAID IT? "We aspired to achieve collaboration with the East since 1922.. .. We never changed our ideas or our plans, we never participated in any political combination directed · against the Soviet Union and we always worked against any attempts to isolate Russia in Europe. . . . In 1935 our treaty of alliance was signed .. : . Our fight for collaboration with the east was systematic and it was the natural expression of our Slav sentiment." - (Dr Edward Benes, UV AHY 0 SLOVANSTVi (Thoughts on Slavism), pg. 8; LincolnsPrager Publishers, London, 1945) . � SLOVAKIA 13 PUBLIC LAW IN CZECHO-SLOVAKIA AFrER 1945 Joseph A. Mikus (A rev ised text of the lecture d elivered July 29, 1952, a t the In.ternational Congress of Juri sts in W est Berlin, Germany.) "Between law and discipline the Judge must, without any hesitation, choose tlhe second, since law is but a form of the Party discipline." Andrey Wishinsky_ Prelitninary Observations The recent evolution in PU!blic Law of the oountries behind the Iron Ourta~n is insipired by ideas and directives .o f theorebcians of the Socia1list State. Lenin, who in his book "State and Revolution" laid down the fundamental ideas of the Communist State, does not believe in the fun~tion of integration anid coordination of interests the State nomnally exercises in the framework of a certain community. In contradistinction to tlhe teaching O!f the democratic state, Communism does concei!Ve the State as a power organized by the "elite" which brings aibout the ends fixed for the society in advance by hii.storical materialism. The idea of the Communist Stale corresponds, therefore, to that of a power imposed on the majority of the population, which is little or not at all oonsd01Us of its own 001rnmon interests, hy a highly dlisciplined minority which knowns iJ>erlfectly all the steps to be taJken toward those pre-determined ends. Conquest of ,p ower is, therefore, the main aim of Communism and successful attainment of it the unique criterion of its legitimity. t If the primary ta-sk of Communism is to seize power, its further arim is to maintain it by all means, even at the price of a complete s111ppression of all individual liiberties. Therefore, the separation of the Sibate powers, as it is known by tlhe Constituti•o ns orf some classical Democracies, such_ as the United States, France, and Great Britain, has no place in a totalitarian State. In the perspecUve orf these general ideas, estalblishing a clear distinction between a Communist and a Democratic State, I shall try to explain how Communism seized power in Czecho-Slovakia and how - through the instrumentality �14 ~LOVAKIA of the Oonstitution of May 9, 1948, and other successive laws - it could consolidate its victory. I shall show just hoiw t!he Czecho-lSI-ovak State, after 1950, in practical policy went beyond the Constitution itself, repudiating its "natiooail" character to become simply one of the numerous sociaHst repuibhcs of the Soviet orfuit. I. The policy of accomplished facts of the Czecho-Slovak Government before the ConstitutJion of 1948. The first Ozecho.,Slovak Constitution of February 29, 1920, was voted by a "Parliament" which had been nominated by a sel!f-a.ppointed Go1Vernment. That was a "Oonstitu~ tion" granting ind!i;viidual rights to the -citizens, .b ut ignoring entirely the fundamental proiblem of the Republic: its heterogeneo1Us ethnic charncter. It requested the same lo,y alty from all citizens, hut all those who were of tlhe non-Ozech nationality were regarded, by the official poliicy, as. citizens of second: rank only. Deprived. of the sipontameous consent of alb.out half its population, this heterogeneous State could exist only by its system of international alliances and a police regime whreh came into being by the Internal Security Act of 1923, whi1cih pradi'Cally suspended the validity of all individual rights. It was only after Munich, in 1938, when her system had coUrupsed, that Ozeciho-Slorvrukia changed her unrealistic Constitution. From a strictly unifarian State, she finally became what she should have been in 1918: a tri-ipartite federation c01InJposed of Czechia, Slorvakia and the Carpathian Ukraine (Ruthenia). Six months after the "death bloiw" CID. Benes) recei1Ved at Munich, Czecho-SlorvaJkia disintegrated into her constituents parts. Thus Ozechia became a German Protecto,r ate and SlovaJkia a free State. During World War II, Dr. Ed.ward Benes ·managed to convince the Allies of the necessity of reestaJblisthing the status quo ante Munich and recreating on~e mo.re the Czecho-S:lovaJk State. Because of the stubborn and deternnined opposition of the Siovaks, he pla!ced the destiny of the future Ozecho.- Slovakia in the hands of Sta1in. He did so by concluding, as a sel!f-wppointed Presideillt of a non-existing �SLOVAKIA 15 State, on December 12, 1943, in Moscow, a Treaty of Amity and OollaJboration with the Soviet Union. Decei;ved as. he was by his alHance with France before Munich, Benes thought that the Czech peqple, surrounded ,by Genmany on its west f.rontiier, could be saved from another German embrace onJ..y by rel,yi:ng closely on the So,v iet Union. MoscOIW and the Czech Corm1munist refugees in Soviet Rllissia congratulated themselves on this aiccomplishiment of Benes and aiwaited the moment when they wou:ld reap the political harvest of this immoral b.etrayaiJ. oif the prospective CzechoSlO!Vaik State to Moscow. Thus, the agreements Benes concluded in MoSico,w in DecemibeT, 194'3, and in February, 1945, assured to the Ozech Communists the -key ,positions in the government of Ozecho-Slovakia and faciiitated considerarbly their struggle for aibso[ute po,wer.. Edward Benes cooifesses in his "Memoirs" (Pra:gue, 1947, pp. 409-419) that already in 1943 he admitted the principle of the so.called "National Front Government," an anti001I1:Stitutional organism standing above both the Parliament and Government and controHing a:11 the life in the State. According to this principle, the Communists had a veto power aJg8!inst any project of law which would haive been contrary to their politics. "Not'hinlg without the Communists, nothing against them and nothing aibo:ve them!" - that wa•s the !political ;pledge given by Edward Benes to Gottwald in Moscow, ·already in 1943. This principle had been put into practice from the beginning of the reconstructed Czecho-Slol\7lakia in May 1945. The Communist Party salbotaged all legislatirve ,p rojects or executive measures of other parties which could have coooteracted their political aims. At the sam.e tirm.e, a!ter haMing recognized and installed various cle~g,ymen who had been e~ommunicated ,by Rome, the Pra;gue Government is pushing the Catholic population into schism. The final .g oal of this policy is the extension. of the Orthodox religion in Czecho~Slovakia and subordinating it to the supreme spiritual direction of the Moscow Red MetrQPOlitan. As to the "autonomous position of SlovaJkia, granted by the Kosice agreement on Apr~l 5, 1945,.it recei.Jved a hard �16 SLO VAKIA b'lo:w by the new organization oif the State into, regions (~upy), which are under the direct suiperivision of the Ministry of Interior in Prague. Slovruk territorial autonomy was ipracticaHy aJbolished completely in the Spring of 1950, whoo Pragrue created the new Miruistry of State Security, a higMy centraliized ruge.ncy with unlimited power oiver Slovrukia. Since that time, no,t orilly anti-Com!murust forces of Sloivakia, but eiven the leading Slovak Communist memibeirs of Parliament or Government, have become victims orf purges of this Ministry: Mr. CJementis, former Minister of Foreign Affairs; Mr. Husalk, for.mer Chieif of the regional Government of SlovaJkia; Mr. Schmidtke, former · Chaimran of the S'lov,a,k regional Diet of Bratislaiva ; Mr. Noiv·o mesky, former Minister of Ed'lllcation in the Slovak regionaJl Government,. and many other leading members of the Slovak Communist Party. Most reicently the Prrugue Government apipointed a Czech Commuruist, Anton Nedved, as Chief of the regional Government of SlovaJkia. The Praig;ue Government cannot countenance · a really j'U!ridi:cal State system whicrh would be able to, limit its omnipotence. Law is being pushed aside more and more by aroitrary decisions. The Constitutions of the "People's Democracies" harve something in common with the windowdressing in the countries .behind the Iron Curtain. They present a good-loolking arrangement of different articles attractiive to the eyes of the pulblffic, but t!hose articles are not for sale . . • • • WHO SAID IT? "We aspired to achieve collaboration with the East since 1922.. .. We never changed our ideas or our plans, we never participated in any political combination directed · against the Soviet Union and we always worked against any attempts to isolate Russia in Europe. . . . In 1935 our treaty of alliance was signed .. : . Our fight for collaboration with the east was systematic and it was the natural expression of our Slav sentiment." - (Dr Edward Benes, UV AHY 0 SLOVANSTVi (Thoughts on Slavism), pg. 8; LincolnsPrager Publishers, London, 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 1954, Vol. 4 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 1 (No. 10), March 1954.</li> <li>Issue 2 (No. 11), June 1954.</li> <li>Issue 3-4 (No. 12-13), Sept.-Dec. 1954.</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 1954 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 PUBLIC LAW IN CZECHO-SLOVAKIA AFrER 1945 Joseph A. Mikus (A rev ised text of the lecture d elivered July 29, 1952, a t the In.ternational Congress of Juri sts in W est Berlin, Germany.) "Between law and discipline the Judge must, without any hesitation, choose tlhe second, since law is but a form of the Party discipline." Andrey Wishinsky_ Prelitninary Observations The recent evolution in PU!blic Law of the oountries behind the Iron Ourta~n is insipired by ideas and directives .o f theorebcians of the Socia1list State. Lenin, who in his book "State and Revolution" laid down the fundamental ideas of the Communist State, does not believe in the fun~tion of integration anid coordination of interests the State nomnally exercises in the framework of a certain community. In contradistinction to tlhe teaching O!f the democratic state, Communism does concei!Ve the State as a power organized by the "elite" which brings aibout the ends fixed for the society in advance by hii.storical materialism. The idea of the Communist Stale corresponds, therefore, to that of a power imposed on the majority of the population, which is little or not at all oonsd01Us of its own 001rnmon interests, hy a highly dlisciplined minority which knowns iJ>erlfectly all the steps to be taJken toward those pre-determined ends. Conquest of ,p ower is, therefore, the main aim of Communism and successful attainment of it the unique criterion of its legitimity. t If the primary ta-sk of Communism is to seize power, its further arim is to maintain it by all means, even at the price of a complete s111ppression of all individual liiberties. Therefore, the separation of the Sibate powers, as it is known by tlhe Constituti•o ns orf some classical Democracies, such_ as the United States, France, and Great Britain, has no place in a totalitarian State. In the perspecUve orf these general ideas, estalblishing a clear distinction between a Communist and a Democratic State, I shall try to explain how Communism seized power in Czecho-Slovakia and how - through the instrumentality 14 ~LOVAKIA of the Oonstitution of May 9, 1948, and other successive laws - it could consolidate its victory. I shall show just hoiw t!he Czecho-lSI-ovak State, after 1950, in practical policy went beyond the Constitution itself, repudiating its "natiooail" character to become simply one of the numerous sociaHst repuibhcs of the Soviet orfuit. I. The policy of accomplished facts of the Czecho-Slovak Government before the ConstitutJion of 1948. The first Ozecho.,Slovak Constitution of February 29, 1920, was voted by a "Parliament" which had been nominated by a sel!f-a.ppointed Go1Vernment. That was a "Oonstitu~ tion" granting ind!i;viidual rights to the -citizens, .b ut ignoring entirely the fundamental proiblem of the Republic: its heterogeneo1Us ethnic charncter. It requested the same lo,y alty from all citizens, hut all those who were of tlhe non-Ozech nationality were regarded, by the official poliicy, as. citizens of second: rank only. Deprived. of the sipontameous consent of alb.out half its population, this heterogeneous State could exist only by its system of international alliances and a police regime whreh came into being by the Internal Security Act of 1923, whi1cih pradi'Cally suspended the validity of all individual rights. It was only after Munich, in 1938, when her system had coUrupsed, that Ozeciho-Slorvrukia changed her unrealistic Constitution. From a strictly unifarian State, she finally became what she should have been in 1918: a tri-ipartite federation c01InJposed of Czechia, Slorvakia and the Carpathian Ukraine (Ruthenia). Six months after the "death bloiw" CID. Benes) recei1Ved at Munich, Czecho-SlorvaJkia disintegrated into her constituents parts. Thus Ozechia became a German Protecto,r ate and SlovaJkia a free State. During World War II, Dr. Ed.ward Benes ·managed to convince the Allies of the necessity of reestaJblisthing the status quo ante Munich and recreating on~e mo.re the Czecho-S:lovaJk State. Because of the stubborn and deternnined opposition of the Siovaks, he pla!ced the destiny of the future Ozecho.- Slovakia in the hands of Sta1in. He did so by concluding, as a sel!f-wppointed Presideillt of a non-existing SLOVAKIA 15 State, on December 12, 1943, in Moscow, a Treaty of Amity and OollaJboration with the Soviet Union. Decei;ved as. he was by his alHance with France before Munich, Benes thought that the Czech peqple, surrounded ,by Genmany on its west f.rontiier, could be saved from another German embrace onJ..y by rel,yi:ng closely on the So,v iet Union. MoscOIW and the Czech Corm1munist refugees in Soviet Rllissia congratulated themselves on this aiccomplishiment of Benes and aiwaited the moment when they wou:ld reap the political harvest of this immoral b.etrayaiJ. oif the prospective CzechoSlO!Vaik State to Moscow. Thus, the agreements Benes concluded in MoSico,w in DecemibeT, 194'3, and in February, 1945, assured to the Ozech Communists the -key ,positions in the government of Ozecho-Slovakia and faciiitated considerarbly their struggle for aibso[ute po,wer.. Edward Benes cooifesses in his "Memoirs" (Pra:gue, 1947, pp. 409-419) that already in 1943 he admitted the principle of the so.called "National Front Government," an anti001I1:Stitutional organism standing above both the Parliament and Government and controHing a:11 the life in the State. According to this principle, the Communists had a veto power aJg8!inst any project of law which would haive been contrary to their politics. "Not'hinlg without the Communists, nothing against them and nothing aibo:ve them!" - that wa•s the !political ;pledge given by Edward Benes to Gottwald in Moscow, ·already in 1943. This principle had been put into practice from the beginning of the reconstructed Czecho-Slol\7lakia in May 1945. The Communist Party salbotaged all legislatirve ,p rojects or executive measures of other parties which could have coooteracted their political aims. At the sam.e tirm.e, a!ter haMing recognized and installed various cle~g,ymen who had been e~ommunicated ,by Rome, the Pra;gue Government is pushing the Catholic population into schism. The final .g oal of this policy is the extension. of the Orthodox religion in Czecho~Slovakia and subordinating it to the supreme spiritual direction of the Moscow Red MetrQPOlitan. As to the "autonomous position of SlovaJkia, granted by the Kosice agreement on Apr~l 5, 1945,.it recei.Jved a hard 16 SLO VAKIA b'lo:w by the new organization oif the State into, regions (~upy), which are under the direct suiperivision of the Ministry of Interior in Prague. Slovruk territorial autonomy was ipracticaHy aJbolished completely in the Spring of 1950, whoo Pragrue created the new Miruistry of State Security, a higMy centraliized ruge.ncy with unlimited power oiver Slovrukia. Since that time, no,t orilly anti-Com!murust forces of Sloivakia, but eiven the leading Slovak Communist memibeirs of Parliament or Government, have become victims orf purges of this Ministry: Mr. CJementis, former Minister of Foreign Affairs; Mr. Husalk, for.mer Chieif of the regional Government of SlovaJkia; Mr. Schmidtke, former · Chaimran of the S'lov,a,k regional Diet of Bratislaiva ; Mr. Noiv·o mesky, former Minister of Ed'lllcation in the Slovak regionaJl Government,. and many other leading members of the Slovak Communist Party. Most reicently the Prrugue Government apipointed a Czech Commuruist, Anton Nedved, as Chief of the regional Government of SlovaJkia. The Praig;ue Government cannot countenance · a really j'U!ridi:cal State system whicrh would be able to, limit its omnipotence. Law is being pushed aside more and more by aroitrary decisions. The Constitutions of the "People's Democracies" harve something in common with the windowdressing in the countries .behind the Iron Curtain. They present a good-loolking arrangement of different articles attractiive to the eyes of the pulblffic, but t!hose articles are not for sale . . • • • WHO SAID IT? "We aspired to achieve collaboration with the East since 1922.. .. We never changed our ideas or our plans, we never participated in any political combination directed · against the Soviet Union and we always worked against any attempts to isolate Russia in Europe. . . . In 1935 our treaty of alliance was signed .. : . Our fight for collaboration with the east was systematic and it was the natural expression of our Slav sentiment." - (Dr Edward Benes, UV AHY 0 SLOVANSTVi (Thoughts on Slavism), pg. 8; LincolnsPrager Publishers, London, 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 Public Law in Czecho-Slovakia After 1945 Description An account of the resource Joseph A. Mikus Slovakia, Vol. 4, No. 1 (10), March 1954 pp. 13-16 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mikuš, Joseph A., 1909-2005 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource March 1954 LCNAF+dates https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/d5704acf67c5fc61db78eda773809082.pdf a689fad8f4cd1b234fcf5e1b7d77d83c PDF Text Text ::,lLUVAKlA 3 R. I. P. Dr. Francis Hrusovsky Jos eph Kir schbaum , LL.D., Ph.D. Thousands of Slovaks living on this side of the Iron Curtain were stunned by the unexpected news which broke the night of September 9. It struck them as an incredible report, this word announcing the sudden death of Dr. Frap.cis Hrus01Vsky, president of the Slav,a k National Council Abroad, outstanding patriot, eminent historian and educator, and a man of .s terling moral caliber. Among pro_ minent representatives of a Slovak generation, to which it was given to see their cherished dream of Sl01Viakia's independence and statehood fU'lfiHed only to be ruthlessly destroyed within a few years. Dr. Hrusovsky personified the best traditions and characteristics which distinguish our Slovak intellectuals, men of a class that is being me-rciless[y hol\.lllded to extermination ,by the Communists. The loss of Dr. Hrusovslky is very keenly fe~t both because of what he was per s.e and because of what he meant to the nation. And it is precisely these two reasons that quicken the realization that no blow could have been more grievous in our ranks than this death of Dr. Hrusovsky which so sorely afflicts all our Slov1aik communities in the free world and especially affects alil Slorva;k e:rnigres dedicated to the vindication of IS lavakia's liberation fTom foreign rule. 1 t has be-en our unhappy lot to suffer three irrepara;ble losses within the span of tlrree consecutive years: the passing of Karol Sidor, dilplomat, statesman and key leader of the Sl01Vaik exile movement; the political assassination of Matus Cernak, a most valua;bJe force among Slovak exiles in Germany, and now the death of Dr. Hrusavsiky, Sidor's successor, in the prime of his caireer at the age of 53. One short year ago, when Dr. Hrusovrsky aocepted the chief executive responsibilities of the Slovak National Council Albroad, we rejoiced in being under his capable leaderahip. We confidently fixed all our prospects on him �4 SLOVAKIA as being the individual best qualified to effect a united effort of all Slovak exiled groups engaged in the struggle to attain Slovakia's justified liberation and independence. Mild-mannere d and unassuming as he was, Dr. Hrusovsky commanded the respect of all Slovaks. His personal inclination and preference were not for the tensions amd strategems of a political career but he did not decline wholehearted service to his nation in this difficult post, when it was evident that the need of the hour required it of him. The Cleveland weekly "Slovak News" wrote of him: "In less than a decade in his adopted country he became a beloved figure in Slovak circles everywhere. Everyone who met him was impressed by his personality. Those who knew him learned to admire his schol,a rship, to respect his unwavering devotion to 1principles, and to love him for his boundless charity. Seldom can one expect to meet a man of his moral stature, dignity, idealism, and faith." The ,primary interest of Dr. Hrusovsky's life was teaching, specifically the teaching of history and the pursuit of historical research. His innate love of his people and his instinctive devotion to youth •p rompted him to choose education as his profession. He attained distinction in this field, and it was as, an educator and a historian that he entered the ,p olitical arena. Here he looked upon all his political functions and commitments as a service to his nation's highest interests and, hence, wo·r ked with a sen:se of dedication to public duty. 'Specializing as he did in medieval history, Dr. Hru_ sovsky published several fully documented studies on Great Moravia, t:he first Slovak and Slav state on the Danube. He also prepared a Slovak history text for secondary schools which established a precedent in the Slovak pu:blishing world. In its second edition this book was welcomed with such wide acclaim that it became a national best seller. In the early part of his exile, during his sojourn in Rome and in the United States, Dr. Hrusovsky iprepared a scholarly work on the earliest Slovak rulers and an exhaustive study investigating the relations of the Slovak rulers of Great Moravia with the Holy See. �5 SLOVAKIA Slovak letters, as well as American Slovak history, were definitely enriched by Dr. Hrusovsky's book surveying the growth and ex;pansion of Slovak religious orders in the United States. This book incidentally develops a great deal of the cultural 'history of American citizens of Slovak descent. Besides these book length productions, Dr. Hruso:vsky has to his credit hundreds of articles and numeTous addresses delivered on various occasions. Reflecting on some of these merits of Dr. 'Hrusovsky, we find that our sentiments, too, correspond v\ith the ex.pression of one of the prominent American leaders in Slovak cultral life who said with deepest sincerity that we "will miss his wise guidance, his great capacity for wo,r k, and his lmfaltering hope of a better world on the morrow." Afl true Slovaks on both sides of the Iron Curtain bear with pain the loss of Dr. IHruso,vsky. Our one comfort and consolation stems from the belief that national leaders of Dr. Hrusovs:k y's moral stature and defenders of a nation's rights and li'berties share the prerogative of great soldiers who never die . Thus, indeed, will Dr. Hrusovsky continue to live, partaking of an immorality among us, his courage, his vision, his selflessness seTVing as an undying example for coming generations of Slo:vaks, inspiring them tq win fOT their country that freedom, that independent and recognized state for which Hrusovsky wo!"ked literally to his last breath . 1 • • • DR. FRANCIS HRUSOVSKY - THE MAN Constantine Culen Franc.is Hrufovsky was eminently an historian. He could have distinguished himself by a career at the University of Bratislava even under the tuteJage of the Czech professor Chaloupecky. The ,professor was aware that this yo'll'Ilg collegian's views were radical,l y oppooed to his own outlook, nevertheless entertained high esteem for him. It was something which Hirusovsky merited 'because of his consistent gravity, his critical acumen, and his broad knowledge. But � ::,lLUVAKlA 3 R. I. P. Dr. Francis Hrusovsky Jos eph Kir schbaum , LL.D., Ph.D. Thousands of Slovaks living on this side of the Iron Curtain were stunned by the unexpected news which broke the night of September 9. It struck them as an incredible report, this word announcing the sudden death of Dr. Frap.cis Hrus01Vsky, president of the Slav,a k National Council Abroad, outstanding patriot, eminent historian and educator, and a man of .s terling moral caliber. Among pro_ minent representatives of a Slovak generation, to which it was given to see their cherished dream of Sl01Viakia's independence and statehood fU'lfiHed only to be ruthlessly destroyed within a few years. Dr. Hrusovsky personified the best traditions and characteristics which distinguish our Slovak intellectuals, men of a class that is being me-rciless[y hol\.lllded to extermination ,by the Communists. The loss of Dr. Hrusovslky is very keenly fe~t both because of what he was per s.e and because of what he meant to the nation. And it is precisely these two reasons that quicken the realization that no blow could have been more grievous in our ranks than this death of Dr. Hrusovsky which so sorely afflicts all our Slov1aik communities in the free world and especially affects alil Slorva;k e:rnigres dedicated to the vindication of IS lavakia's liberation fTom foreign rule. 1 t has be-en our unhappy lot to suffer three irrepara;ble losses within the span of tlrree consecutive years: the passing of Karol Sidor, dilplomat, statesman and key leader of the Sl01Vaik exile movement; the political assassination of Matus Cernak, a most valua;bJe force among Slovak exiles in Germany, and now the death of Dr. Hrusavsiky, Sidor's successor, in the prime of his caireer at the age of 53. One short year ago, when Dr. Hrusovrsky aocepted the chief executive responsibilities of the Slovak National Council Albroad, we rejoiced in being under his capable leaderahip. We confidently fixed all our prospects on him �4 SLOVAKIA as being the individual best qualified to effect a united effort of all Slovak exiled groups engaged in the struggle to attain Slovakia's justified liberation and independence. Mild-mannere d and unassuming as he was, Dr. Hrusovsky commanded the respect of all Slovaks. His personal inclination and preference were not for the tensions amd strategems of a political career but he did not decline wholehearted service to his nation in this difficult post, when it was evident that the need of the hour required it of him. The Cleveland weekly "Slovak News" wrote of him: "In less than a decade in his adopted country he became a beloved figure in Slovak circles everywhere. Everyone who met him was impressed by his personality. Those who knew him learned to admire his schol,a rship, to respect his unwavering devotion to 1principles, and to love him for his boundless charity. Seldom can one expect to meet a man of his moral stature, dignity, idealism, and faith." The ,primary interest of Dr. Hrusovsky's life was teaching, specifically the teaching of history and the pursuit of historical research. His innate love of his people and his instinctive devotion to youth •p rompted him to choose education as his profession. He attained distinction in this field, and it was as, an educator and a historian that he entered the ,p olitical arena. Here he looked upon all his political functions and commitments as a service to his nation's highest interests and, hence, wo·r ked with a sen:se of dedication to public duty. 'Specializing as he did in medieval history, Dr. Hru_ sovsky published several fully documented studies on Great Moravia, t:he first Slovak and Slav state on the Danube. He also prepared a Slovak history text for secondary schools which established a precedent in the Slovak pu:blishing world. In its second edition this book was welcomed with such wide acclaim that it became a national best seller. In the early part of his exile, during his sojourn in Rome and in the United States, Dr. Hrusovsky iprepared a scholarly work on the earliest Slovak rulers and an exhaustive study investigating the relations of the Slovak rulers of Great Moravia with the Holy See. �5 SLOVAKIA Slovak letters, as well as American Slovak history, were definitely enriched by Dr. Hrusovsky's book surveying the growth and ex;pansion of Slovak religious orders in the United States. This book incidentally develops a great deal of the cultural 'history of American citizens of Slovak descent. Besides these book length productions, Dr. Hruso:vsky has to his credit hundreds of articles and numeTous addresses delivered on various occasions. Reflecting on some of these merits of Dr. 'Hrusovsky, we find that our sentiments, too, correspond v\ith the ex.pression of one of the prominent American leaders in Slovak cultral life who said with deepest sincerity that we "will miss his wise guidance, his great capacity for wo,r k, and his lmfaltering hope of a better world on the morrow." Afl true Slovaks on both sides of the Iron Curtain bear with pain the loss of Dr. IHruso,vsky. Our one comfort and consolation stems from the belief that national leaders of Dr. Hrusovs:k y's moral stature and defenders of a nation's rights and li'berties share the prerogative of great soldiers who never die . Thus, indeed, will Dr. Hrusovsky continue to live, partaking of an immorality among us, his courage, his vision, his selflessness seTVing as an undying example for coming generations of Slo:vaks, inspiring them tq win fOT their country that freedom, that independent and recognized state for which Hrusovsky wo!"ked literally to his last breath . 1 • • • DR. FRANCIS HRUSOVSKY - THE MAN Constantine Culen Franc.is Hrufovsky was eminently an historian. He could have distinguished himself by a career at the University of Bratislava even under the tuteJage of the Czech professor Chaloupecky. The ,professor was aware that this yo'll'Ilg collegian's views were radical,l y oppooed to his own outlook, nevertheless entertained high esteem for him. It was something which Hirusovsky merited 'because of his consistent gravity, his critical acumen, and his broad knowledge. But � 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 1956, Vol. 6 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 1 (No. 18), March 1956.</li> <li>Issue 2 (No. 19), June 1956.</li> <li>Issue 3-4 (No. 20-21), September-December 1956.</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 1956 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 ::,lLUVAKlA 3 R. I. P. Dr. Francis Hrusovsky Jos eph Kir schbaum , LL.D., Ph.D. Thousands of Slovaks living on this side of the Iron Curtain were stunned by the unexpected news which broke the night of September 9. It struck them as an incredible report, this word announcing the sudden death of Dr. Frap.cis Hrus01Vsky, president of the Slav,a k National Council Abroad, outstanding patriot, eminent historian and educator, and a man of .s terling moral caliber. Among pro_ minent representatives of a Slovak generation, to which it was given to see their cherished dream of Sl01Viakia's independence and statehood fU'lfiHed only to be ruthlessly destroyed within a few years. Dr. Hrusovsky personified the best traditions and characteristics which distinguish our Slovak intellectuals, men of a class that is being me-rciless[y hol\.lllded to extermination ,by the Communists. The loss of Dr. Hrusovslky is very keenly fe~t both because of what he was per s.e and because of what he meant to the nation. And it is precisely these two reasons that quicken the realization that no blow could have been more grievous in our ranks than this death of Dr. Hrusovsky which so sorely afflicts all our Slov1aik communities in the free world and especially affects alil Slorva;k e:rnigres dedicated to the vindication of IS lavakia's liberation fTom foreign rule. 1 t has be-en our unhappy lot to suffer three irrepara;ble losses within the span of tlrree consecutive years: the passing of Karol Sidor, dilplomat, statesman and key leader of the Sl01Vaik exile movement; the political assassination of Matus Cernak, a most valua;bJe force among Slovak exiles in Germany, and now the death of Dr. Hrusavsiky, Sidor's successor, in the prime of his caireer at the age of 53. One short year ago, when Dr. Hrusovrsky aocepted the chief executive responsibilities of the Slovak National Council Albroad, we rejoiced in being under his capable leaderahip. We confidently fixed all our prospects on him 4 SLOVAKIA as being the individual best qualified to effect a united effort of all Slovak exiled groups engaged in the struggle to attain Slovakia's justified liberation and independence. Mild-mannere d and unassuming as he was, Dr. Hrusovsky commanded the respect of all Slovaks. His personal inclination and preference were not for the tensions amd strategems of a political career but he did not decline wholehearted service to his nation in this difficult post, when it was evident that the need of the hour required it of him. The Cleveland weekly "Slovak News" wrote of him: "In less than a decade in his adopted country he became a beloved figure in Slovak circles everywhere. Everyone who met him was impressed by his personality. Those who knew him learned to admire his schol,a rship, to respect his unwavering devotion to 1principles, and to love him for his boundless charity. Seldom can one expect to meet a man of his moral stature, dignity, idealism, and faith." The ,primary interest of Dr. Hrusovsky's life was teaching, specifically the teaching of history and the pursuit of historical research. His innate love of his people and his instinctive devotion to youth •p rompted him to choose education as his profession. He attained distinction in this field, and it was as, an educator and a historian that he entered the ,p olitical arena. Here he looked upon all his political functions and commitments as a service to his nation's highest interests and, hence, wo·r ked with a sen:se of dedication to public duty. 'Specializing as he did in medieval history, Dr. Hru_ sovsky published several fully documented studies on Great Moravia, t:he first Slovak and Slav state on the Danube. He also prepared a Slovak history text for secondary schools which established a precedent in the Slovak pu:blishing world. In its second edition this book was welcomed with such wide acclaim that it became a national best seller. In the early part of his exile, during his sojourn in Rome and in the United States, Dr. Hrusovsky iprepared a scholarly work on the earliest Slovak rulers and an exhaustive study investigating the relations of the Slovak rulers of Great Moravia with the Holy See. 5 SLOVAKIA Slovak letters, as well as American Slovak history, were definitely enriched by Dr. Hrusovsky's book surveying the growth and ex;pansion of Slovak religious orders in the United States. This book incidentally develops a great deal of the cultural 'history of American citizens of Slovak descent. Besides these book length productions, Dr. Hruso:vsky has to his credit hundreds of articles and numeTous addresses delivered on various occasions. Reflecting on some of these merits of Dr. 'Hrusovsky, we find that our sentiments, too, correspond v\ith the ex.pression of one of the prominent American leaders in Slovak cultral life who said with deepest sincerity that we "will miss his wise guidance, his great capacity for wo,r k, and his lmfaltering hope of a better world on the morrow." Afl true Slovaks on both sides of the Iron Curtain bear with pain the loss of Dr. IHruso,vsky. Our one comfort and consolation stems from the belief that national leaders of Dr. Hrusovs:k y's moral stature and defenders of a nation's rights and li'berties share the prerogative of great soldiers who never die . Thus, indeed, will Dr. Hrusovsky continue to live, partaking of an immorality among us, his courage, his vision, his selflessness seTVing as an undying example for coming generations of Slo:vaks, inspiring them tq win fOT their country that freedom, that independent and recognized state for which Hrusovsky wo!"ked literally to his last breath . 1 • • • DR. FRANCIS HRUSOVSKY - THE MAN Constantine Culen Franc.is Hrufovsky was eminently an historian. He could have distinguished himself by a career at the University of Bratislava even under the tuteJage of the Czech professor Chaloupecky. The ,professor was aware that this yo'll'Ilg collegian's views were radical,l y oppooed to his own outlook, nevertheless entertained high esteem for him. It was something which Hirusovsky merited 'because of his consistent gravity, his critical acumen, and his broad knowledge. But  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 R.I.P. Dr. Francis Hrušovský Description An account of the resource Joseph Kirschbaum, LL.D., Ph.D. Slovakia, Vol. 6, No. 3-4 (20-21), September-December 1956 pp. 3-5 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kirschbaum, Jozef M., 1913-2001 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource September-December 1956 SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/ec19ecb0c01c746e87cfc7dd598574c1.pdf 3705a464cbf3324171bf4a9c6845b6f6 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 39 RADIO FREE EUROPE BY A SLOVAK EXILE "Radio Free Europe" !s functionlng ln Munich slnce May 1, 1961. The enterprise in itself ís proof of wha.t Amerícans are capable of do• ing and the gligantic ftnancial sacrifkes they are wllling to make to show the enslaved natlons behind the Iron Curtain that they are not forsaken and 'that 'the western world ís not forgetting about tlhem. Indeed, thls !s admlrable of the Amerícan people who have contrlbuted so generously to make the project possible. lt is a big thing, indeed, íf we follow the present psychologlcal flght aga.inst communlsm and lf we regard things objectlvely from a broader world vlewpolnt. Radlo Free Europe aftords the !atest proof of the gratitude earned by Amerlcans for resistlng communism so vaľiantly, nay, for taking over the offensl.ve to defeat militarily and politlcally the communls-t effort and the endless cha.in of -Red lies. Without thls remarkwble resistance of the United States, communism would have the doors open to the whole world. Of course, the question of whether Radlo l<'ree Europe (RFE) i5 using .proper methods to fight communism, whether these methods sumce for polítical reality or whether they comply to the mentality of t'h . e natlons to which RFE turns w!th its broadcasts, can be se11lously quest!loned. We must say frank,l y that Americans stm do not !ully under$and the complexity of the various, special polltical and natlonal problems existlng in Europe. But for this we cannot _bla.me them alone, but aH the more can we blame their European advisors, w·ho frequently ~Ive them a "pa!nted" plcture of the sttuation. lf RFE !s to perform and fulfill its mission ln the countries behlnd t:he Iron Curtain, it must above all else respect certain natural reallties; lts broadcasts must respect the polit!cal mentality of the individual natíons. The broadcasts must not hurt theír feelings, but must try to gain as wlde a clrcle of lísteners as posslble and influence them. Tben and only then shall RFE fulfill its missdon and oniy then American dollars shall not be thrown away uselessly. Today RFE beams lts broadcasts to Czechoslovakia eleven and onehalf bours daily. And even thougb two nat!ons - the Czechs and the Slovaks - live In Czecboslovakia, despite tbe fact tbat tbls reality is stressed even in the new Czecbo.!!lovak Constltutlon, even tbougb thls actuallty bas been acknowledged by the representatlves of the socalled "Czecboslovak resistance" wbo today are in tbe USA and ln other western countries, nevertheless RFE does not respect theae political realitles, or at least it does not do so consistently. At home tbe Czechs bave thelll' own Czech broadcastlng statlons and the Slovaks, too, bave 1ilielr own. That means tbat the Czecbs are accustomed to listenlng to tbelr Czech broadcasts, whlle the Slovaks listen to their Slovak statlons. These realltles are respected also by state broadCQSts, such as the Brltish Broadcasting Corporallion, th~ Itallan Sta'te Broadcast, tbe Vatlcan, Moscow, etc. Only American broadéastlng statlons - and the VOICE OF AMERICA and RADIO I•'REE EUROPE es,pec\ally - still insist on a joint Slovak and Czech broadcast. �40 S LOVAKIA The Slovaks at home and in exile are a,t a !oss t o understand why. 'l'his certaAnly does not enhance the misslon oí the Volce of A.merica o r that of Radio Free Europe. In fact it degmdes the idea of democ• racy in the eyes of the Slovaks and does not attain the deslr ed a nd ne• cessary effect. The Czechs are not and do not want to be Slovak~, and the S lovaks are not and do not want to be Czechs. The Czec hs and Slovaks have been fully aware of this fact for decades, but offic ial Washington still is not. Why? The valiant reslstance of the Slovak nation agalnst communist terror, the hundreds of dead Slovak patiiots, t he thousands u pon thousands of impiisoned Slovaks and the love of the Slovak people for the United Sta.tes of Amerlca rlghtfully deserve that the Slovaks have their own Independent division in the American broadcastlng systems-especíally in the Volce of A.merica and Radlo Free Europe. Th ls demand does not emanate from any anti-Czech prejudice, but !rom purely prac• tlcal needs wlth an eye to t he objectlve that the broadcasts to Slovákia might fulfm their m ission. According to report.s of the !atest escapees from Slovakia and the opinion of Slovak exiles in western E urope, the RFE broadcas.ts are alien cto .the soul of the Slovak índividual, b ecause t he S lovak program:; ar e there only for show purposes; Slovak vo ices only assist in CZECH broa.dca.sts. Furthermore, these broadcasts do not even have regard for the Christian tradition of the Slovak nation and clo not h ave people who enjoy lts confldence addresslng it. At present the Czechostovak broadcasts of Rimio Free Europe have been entrusted to repr esentatlves of Benes's politlcal conceptlons, to Messrs. Zenkl and llipka, leaders of .the Czech National Socialists. To make it appear that Slovaks, too, have a part In lt, Zenkl and Ripka seleoted a few Slovak politlcal unknowns and recommended them to R FE as "representa.t:lves o f the Slovak natlon." These enemies of Slovak freedom and independence, all traitors to the Slovak cause, who for a pr!ce propagate the dlscredited anti-Slovak and undemocratic poMcles of Benes, are not and cannot be acceptable to the Slovaks at horne or in exile. Why should exiled Czechs be a.llowed to -select the Slovaks to be employed by Radlo Free Europe, the instrument of the National Comanittee for Free E urope, W'hich 1s su pposed to be an American institution? The procedure is undemocratic and immoral and we must protest against lt. We want to be of service to the cause of freedom and the truth and that is why we feel it our mora! and politlcal duty ,to bring these matters before responsible American circles that are lncorrectly informed by "Czechoslovak" polltlclans, who prepared the pre,;ent tragedy for the Slov,ak and Czech nations by thelr capltulationary and pro-Sovi.et policy. As far as Slovakia !s concerned, we must once again stress the fact that the Czechoslovak polltical conception 1s not popular among the Slovak people and, therefore, no Idea presented In the name of thls conceptlon can catch the mlnds of the Slovaks. Even RFE canno t f,lght psychologlcally agalnst communlsm In Slovakia in the name of -thls conceptlon. Th e name of Masaryk, popular among Czechs, ls not popular at all In Slovakla and it canno t arouse the S\ovaks to figh t agalnst �SLOVAKIA 41 communlsm. Benes, whose name 1s rrequently mentioned ln the RFli: progra.ma by his adherents, 1s damned and condemned both in Bohemla and In Slovakia. The tact remalns that in Slovakia it 1s Chrlstlanity and Chrlstlan traditlon whlch gtves strength to the natlon !or lts self-consclou~ resls-tance to communist terror. Communlsm Ls not only polltically, but also ldeologlcally dangerous and, thererore, the foundatlon for the psychologlcal fight agaln.st communlsm must be Chrlstlanity and democra.cy. But the programs of RFE must expressively alS-O emphaslze this outune and not, as heretofore, at limes allow an antl-rellgious , antlChristlan, or even an evidently antl-Cathollc tendency t o be smugglod lnto lts broadcasts. Among bellevlng people fäls produces a pltlful bltterne.ss and antilpathy. So that •RFE could maintaln a s pirit of antl-commun lst resistan<:e even in Slovakfa, so that it could educate democratilcall y and preach and teach democracy to our oppressed natlon cut off by the Iron Curtaln trom the West, so that lt could objectlvely and wlthout prejudice Inform the Slovaks about what 1s happening In the world and generally wlth the ldeologtcal currents In the free world, lt is very necessary that thls be done In Independent Slovak broadcasts. lt 1s also necessary that as many S lovak representativ es ot Slovak reslstance In exile as posslble speak to the Slovak people so that RFl~ could lnfluence the wldest circle ot llsteners. It 1s not healthy to exclude trom tbe possibility or cooperatlon In this broadcast, whlch no ta bene carrles the name "The Broadcast of Free Europe," all Slovak patrlots just because thelr political convlctlons are not in accord wlth speciflc polltlcal cliques. As the sltuatlon In RFE obtalns today, tbls enterprlse has become the supply lnstitutlon of tbe rlslng generatlon or Czech soclallsts, many of whom even today are the detenders of Marxlst sociallsm and who up to 1948, nay even after 1948, collaborated wlth the communlst Prague regime. lt Ie a tact that the Slovaks today are llke a "clnderella" In tbe RFE, somethlng unwanted, something to be scorned. Only about 20 Slovaks are employed tor 140 Czechs; and In s ubordinate positlons. No Slovak ls employed In the management of tbe enterprlse. Czecb dlrectors declde about tbe Slovaks to be employed, and the Slovak program.s also are controlled by Czechs, who are not a cqualnted with Slovak prob lems, nor understand Slovak mentality, Any correctlon In thls relatio1111blp In a joint broadcast 1s slmply going t.arther aw-ay trom the reaJ questlon whlch can be resolved only by bavlng a separate Slovak broadcast managed by patrlotlc Slovak people. One more thought which must be hlghly stressed and that ls the thought whtch thls RFE b roadcast carries In lts tltle: FREE EUROPE. lndeed, what we regard as more lmportant and more necesaary In the lnterest ot the Slovak nation, and in the lnterest or Europe as a whole, 1s the propogatlon of <the Idea of a rree and unlted Europe. Tllls Idea must be propagated especlally by RFE already today so that !t mlght shlne as a llght lnto the future for all oppressed European natlons. That 1s the best way to lead European na.tlons to the consciousnee.e ot E uropean solidarity, to the Idea of a new, just and u nlted Enrope. B y stresslng tbl11 thought the beat service would be renderetl �SLOVA:KIA 42 the European nations themselves whlch were heretofore at Joggerheads because ot chauvinlstlc natlonalism, polltlcal fanatlctsms, syntheti,c politlcal partiitňons and the seclusion of one nation trom the other. A federalized united Europe ls the big hope especially ot the small naitlons. It is necessary, therefore, to resurrect a.nd encourage thts hope in them, because in a united Europe every natlon, small and large, shall be able to live freely and democracy shall become the common property of all natlons. RFE cannot effectJvely combat communism if lt does not respect the natural rights of the individual nations behind rthe Iron Curtain, lncluding the Slovak natlon. The crusade for treedom must include ALL nations and exclude NONE. RFE cannot fultill its mis• slon by allow~ng its broadcasts to insult the politlcal convictlons, the mentality, the pa,tríotic feelings and national tradltlons ot the Slovaks. The people of Slovakia cannot have confidence in the RFE as long as it employs renegade Slovaks to promote the Czech cause 01 Czechoslovakism, the bankrupt and dlscredited policies of the Czech National Sociallsts as propagated by Benes and his followers. The Slovaks are conscious or tbe !act that they are an lndlvidual naitlon and as such have an lnherent and God-given rlght to be free and independent. There is no Joglcal explanatlon for RFE or the Volce l•f America not recognizing or respecting that right. The anti-Slovak course of the RFE 1s out or line wlth everything that spells A.merica. Bu-t Slovaks stm hope tihat RFE shall In a very short tlme become in fact the TRUE volce of a free and united Europe, the volce of patriotic Slovaks in exile exhorting thelr brethren In Slovakla tú remain Joyal to thelr Chrlstian and democratic traditlons, - yes. RFE can and should become the VOICE OF FREE SLOVAKIA. • • • WHO SAI D IT? "Our rore1gn pollcy of 1946 wlll be based on Lhe solid, unalterable, masslve foundatlon of our agreement with the neighborlng SOVIE'ľ UNION. WE MUST fulflll fully, without besitation, everything resu1ting from tbis foundation . . . . Our relat!ons with the other nelghboNi will be acco1'11ng to the vlewpolnt of the SOVIET Pact. WE want a strong, democrat!c Poland WHICH WILL COLLABORATE 'WITH THE SOVIET UNION. For another solution of the POLJSH ques-tion, WE have no time. We want a decent, democratlc Hungary, C:OLLABORA TING WITH THE SOVIET UNION whlch lives In peace w!th us. The same applles to Yugoslav!a, Austria and Romanla. ou·r relatlons w!th the western Allles HAS NOT changed, and WILL NOT change. We are grateful to Brltaln for her help when she and WE stood alone. WE appreciate lmmensely and are ~rateful for Amerlcan interest and sympartby. We will need the help of the western democracies for economtc and cultural reconstructlon." - (Ján Masa• ryk. Broadcast to Czechoslovakla, London, December 31, 1944) . • "Just as Munic-h was undone and does not exist, just so there is no Slovakia and it does not exist internationally as a state! There is no Slovak problem, the Slovak problem 1s onr Interna) problem an<I it !s recognlzed as such even by our allles." - (Dr. Benes, 6-22-43) . • � SLOVAKIA 39 RADIO FREE EUROPE BY A SLOVAK EXILE "Radio Free Europe" !s functionlng ln Munich slnce May 1, 1961. The enterprise in itself ís proof of wha.t Amerícans are capable of do• ing and the gligantic ftnancial sacrifkes they are wllling to make to show the enslaved natlons behind the Iron Curtain that they are not forsaken and 'that 'the western world ís not forgetting about tlhem. Indeed, thls !s admlrable of the Amerícan people who have contrlbuted so generously to make the project possible. lt is a big thing, indeed, íf we follow the present psychologlcal flght aga.inst communlsm and lf we regard things objectlvely from a broader world vlewpolnt. Radlo Free Europe aftords the !atest proof of the gratitude earned by Amerlcans for resistlng communism so vaľiantly, nay, for taking over the offensl.ve to defeat militarily and politlcally the communls-t effort and the endless cha.in of -Red lies. Without thls remarkwble resistance of the United States, communism would have the doors open to the whole world. Of course, the question of whether Radlo l<'ree Europe (RFE) i5 using .proper methods to fight communism, whether these methods sumce for polítical reality or whether they comply to the mentality of t'h . e natlons to which RFE turns w!th its broadcasts, can be se11lously quest!loned. We must say frank,l y that Americans stm do not !ully under$and the complexity of the various, special polltical and natlonal problems existlng in Europe. But for this we cannot _bla.me them alone, but aH the more can we blame their European advisors, w·ho frequently ~Ive them a "pa!nted" plcture of the sttuation. lf RFE !s to perform and fulfill its mission ln the countries behlnd t:he Iron Curtain, it must above all else respect certain natural reallties; lts broadcasts must respect the polit!cal mentality of the individual natíons. The broadcasts must not hurt theír feelings, but must try to gain as wlde a clrcle of lísteners as posslble and influence them. Tben and only then shall RFE fulfill its missdon and oniy then American dollars shall not be thrown away uselessly. Today RFE beams lts broadcasts to Czechoslovakia eleven and onehalf bours daily. And even thougb two nat!ons - the Czechs and the Slovaks - live In Czecboslovakia, despite tbe fact tbat tbls reality is stressed even in the new Czecbo.!!lovak Constltutlon, even tbougb thls actuallty bas been acknowledged by the representatlves of the socalled "Czecboslovak resistance" wbo today are in tbe USA and ln other western countries, nevertheless RFE does not respect theae political realitles, or at least it does not do so consistently. At home tbe Czechs bave thelll' own Czech broadcastlng statlons and the Slovaks, too, bave 1ilielr own. That means tbat the Czecbs are accustomed to listenlng to tbelr Czech broadcasts, whlle the Slovaks listen to their Slovak statlons. These realltles are respected also by state broadCQSts, such as the Brltish Broadcasting Corporallion, th~ Itallan Sta'te Broadcast, tbe Vatlcan, Moscow, etc. Only American broadéastlng statlons - and the VOICE OF AMERICA and RADIO I•'REE EUROPE es,pec\ally - still insist on a joint Slovak and Czech broadcast. �40 S LOVAKIA The Slovaks at home and in exile are a,t a !oss t o understand why. 'l'his certaAnly does not enhance the misslon oí the Volce of A.merica o r that of Radio Free Europe. In fact it degmdes the idea of democ• racy in the eyes of the Slovaks and does not attain the deslr ed a nd ne• cessary effect. The Czechs are not and do not want to be Slovak~, and the S lovaks are not and do not want to be Czechs. The Czec hs and Slovaks have been fully aware of this fact for decades, but offic ial Washington still is not. Why? The valiant reslstance of the Slovak nation agalnst communist terror, the hundreds of dead Slovak patiiots, t he thousands u pon thousands of impiisoned Slovaks and the love of the Slovak people for the United Sta.tes of Amerlca rlghtfully deserve that the Slovaks have their own Independent division in the American broadcastlng systems-especíally in the Volce of A.merica and Radlo Free Europe. Th ls demand does not emanate from any anti-Czech prejudice, but !rom purely prac• tlcal needs wlth an eye to t he objectlve that the broadcasts to Slovákia might fulfm their m ission. According to report.s of the !atest escapees from Slovakia and the opinion of Slovak exiles in western E urope, the RFE broadcas.ts are alien cto .the soul of the Slovak índividual, b ecause t he S lovak program:; ar e there only for show purposes; Slovak vo ices only assist in CZECH broa.dca.sts. Furthermore, these broadcasts do not even have regard for the Christian tradition of the Slovak nation and clo not h ave people who enjoy lts confldence addresslng it. At present the Czechostovak broadcasts of Rimio Free Europe have been entrusted to repr esentatlves of Benes's politlcal conceptlons, to Messrs. Zenkl and llipka, leaders of .the Czech National Socialists. To make it appear that Slovaks, too, have a part In lt, Zenkl and Ripka seleoted a few Slovak politlcal unknowns and recommended them to R FE as "representa.t:lves o f the Slovak natlon." These enemies of Slovak freedom and independence, all traitors to the Slovak cause, who for a pr!ce propagate the dlscredited anti-Slovak and undemocratic poMcles of Benes, are not and cannot be acceptable to the Slovaks at horne or in exile. Why should exiled Czechs be a.llowed to -select the Slovaks to be employed by Radlo Free Europe, the instrument of the National Comanittee for Free E urope, W'hich 1s su pposed to be an American institution? The procedure is undemocratic and immoral and we must protest against lt. We want to be of service to the cause of freedom and the truth and that is why we feel it our mora! and politlcal duty ,to bring these matters before responsible American circles that are lncorrectly informed by "Czechoslovak" polltlclans, who prepared the pre,;ent tragedy for the Slov,ak and Czech nations by thelr capltulationary and pro-Sovi.et policy. As far as Slovakia !s concerned, we must once again stress the fact that the Czechoslovak polltical conception 1s not popular among the Slovak people and, therefore, no Idea presented In the name of thls conceptlon can catch the mlnds of the Slovaks. Even RFE canno t f,lght psychologlcally agalnst communlsm In Slovakia in the name of -thls conceptlon. Th e name of Masaryk, popular among Czechs, ls not popular at all In Slovakla and it canno t arouse the S\ovaks to figh t agalnst �SLOVAKIA 41 communlsm. Benes, whose name 1s rrequently mentioned ln the RFli: progra.ma by his adherents, 1s damned and condemned both in Bohemla and In Slovakia. The tact remalns that in Slovakia it 1s Chrlstlanity and Chrlstlan traditlon whlch gtves strength to the natlon !or lts self-consclou~ resls-tance to communist terror. Communlsm Ls not only polltically, but also ldeologlcally dangerous and, thererore, the foundatlon for the psychologlcal fight agaln.st communlsm must be Chrlstlanity and democra.cy. But the programs of RFE must expressively alS-O emphaslze this outune and not, as heretofore, at limes allow an antl-rellgious , antlChristlan, or even an evidently antl-Cathollc tendency t o be smugglod lnto lts broadcasts. Among bellevlng people fäls produces a pltlful bltterne.ss and antilpathy. So that •RFE could maintaln a s pirit of antl-commun lst resistan<:e even in Slovakfa, so that it could educate democratilcall y and preach and teach democracy to our oppressed natlon cut off by the Iron Curtaln trom the West, so that lt could objectlvely and wlthout prejudice Inform the Slovaks about what 1s happening In the world and generally wlth the ldeologtcal currents In the free world, lt is very necessary that thls be done In Independent Slovak broadcasts. lt 1s also necessary that as many S lovak representativ es ot Slovak reslstance In exile as posslble speak to the Slovak people so that RFl~ could lnfluence the wldest circle ot llsteners. It 1s not healthy to exclude trom tbe possibility or cooperatlon In this broadcast, whlch no ta bene carrles the name "The Broadcast of Free Europe," all Slovak patrlots just because thelr political convlctlons are not in accord wlth speciflc polltlcal cliques. As the sltuatlon In RFE obtalns today, tbls enterprlse has become the supply lnstitutlon of tbe rlslng generatlon or Czech soclallsts, many of whom even today are the detenders of Marxlst sociallsm and who up to 1948, nay even after 1948, collaborated wlth the communlst Prague regime. lt Ie a tact that the Slovaks today are llke a "clnderella" In tbe RFE, somethlng unwanted, something to be scorned. Only about 20 Slovaks are employed tor 140 Czechs; and In s ubordinate positlons. No Slovak ls employed In the management of tbe enterprlse. Czecb dlrectors declde about tbe Slovaks to be employed, and the Slovak program.s also are controlled by Czechs, who are not a cqualnted with Slovak prob lems, nor understand Slovak mentality, Any correctlon In thls relatio1111blp In a joint broadcast 1s slmply going t.arther aw-ay trom the reaJ questlon whlch can be resolved only by bavlng a separate Slovak broadcast managed by patrlotlc Slovak people. One more thought which must be hlghly stressed and that ls the thought whtch thls RFE b roadcast carries In lts tltle: FREE EUROPE. lndeed, what we regard as more lmportant and more necesaary In the lnterest ot the Slovak nation, and in the lnterest or Europe as a whole, 1s the propogatlon of <the Idea of a rree and unlted Europe. Tllls Idea must be propagated especlally by RFE already today so that !t mlght shlne as a llght lnto the future for all oppressed European natlons. That 1s the best way to lead European na.tlons to the consciousnee.e ot E uropean solidarity, to the Idea of a new, just and u nlted Enrope. B y stresslng tbl11 thought the beat service would be renderetl �SLOVA:KIA 42 the European nations themselves whlch were heretofore at Joggerheads because ot chauvinlstlc natlonalism, polltlcal fanatlctsms, syntheti,c politlcal partiitňons and the seclusion of one nation trom the other. A federalized united Europe ls the big hope especially ot the small naitlons. It is necessary, therefore, to resurrect a.nd encourage thts hope in them, because in a united Europe every natlon, small and large, shall be able to live freely and democracy shall become the common property of all natlons. RFE cannot effectJvely combat communism if lt does not respect the natural rights of the individual nations behind rthe Iron Curtain, lncluding the Slovak natlon. The crusade for treedom must include ALL nations and exclude NONE. RFE cannot fultill its mis• slon by allow~ng its broadcasts to insult the politlcal convictlons, the mentality, the pa,tríotic feelings and national tradltlons ot the Slovaks. The people of Slovakia cannot have confidence in the RFE as long as it employs renegade Slovaks to promote the Czech cause 01 Czechoslovakism, the bankrupt and dlscredited policies of the Czech National Sociallsts as propagated by Benes and his followers. The Slovaks are conscious or tbe !act that they are an lndlvidual naitlon and as such have an lnherent and God-given rlght to be free and independent. There is no Joglcal explanatlon for RFE or the Volce l•f America not recognizing or respecting that right. The anti-Slovak course of the RFE 1s out or line wlth everything that spells A.merica. Bu-t Slovaks stm hope tihat RFE shall In a very short tlme become in fact the TRUE volce of a free and united Europe, the volce of patriotic Slovaks in exile exhorting thelr brethren In Slovakla tú remain Joyal to thelr Chrlstian and democratic traditlons, - yes. RFE can and should become the VOICE OF FREE SLOVAKIA. • • • WHO SAI D IT? "Our rore1gn pollcy of 1946 wlll be based on Lhe solid, unalterable, masslve foundatlon of our agreement with the neighborlng SOVIE'ľ UNION. WE MUST fulflll fully, without besitation, everything resu1ting from tbis foundation . . . . Our relat!ons with the other nelghboNi will be acco1'11ng to the vlewpolnt of the SOVIET Pact. WE want a strong, democrat!c Poland WHICH WILL COLLABORATE 'WITH THE SOVIET UNION. For another solution of the POLJSH ques-tion, WE have no time. We want a decent, democratlc Hungary, C:OLLABORA TING WITH THE SOVIET UNION whlch lives In peace w!th us. The same applles to Yugoslav!a, Austria and Romanla. ou·r relatlons w!th the western Allles HAS NOT changed, and WILL NOT change. We are grateful to Brltaln for her help when she and WE stood alone. WE appreciate lmmensely and are ~rateful for Amerlcan interest and sympartby. We will need the help of the western democracies for economtc and cultural reconstructlon." - (Ján Masa• ryk. Broadcast to Czechoslovakla, London, December 31, 1944) . • "Just as Munic-h was undone and does not exist, just so there is no Slovakia and it does not exist internationally as a state! There is no Slovak problem, the Slovak problem 1s onr Interna) problem an<I it !s recognlzed as such even by our allles." - (Dr. Benes, 6-22-43) . • � 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 SLOVAKIA 39 RADIO FREE EUROPE BY A SLOVAK EXILE "Radio Free Europe" !s functionlng ln Munich slnce May 1, 1961. The enterprise in itself ís proof of wha.t Amerícans are capable of do• ing and the gligantic ftnancial sacrifkes they are wllling to make to show the enslaved natlons behind the Iron Curtain that they are not forsaken and 'that 'the western world ís not forgetting about tlhem. Indeed, thls !s admlrable of the Amerícan people who have contrlbuted so generously to make the project possible. lt is a big thing, indeed, íf we follow the present psychologlcal flght aga.inst communlsm and lf we regard things objectlvely from a broader world vlewpolnt. Radlo Free Europe aftords the !atest proof of the gratitude earned by Amerlcans for resistlng communism so vaľiantly, nay, for taking over the offensl.ve to defeat militarily and politlcally the communls-t effort and the endless cha.in of -Red lies. Without thls remarkwble resistance of the United States, communism would have the doors open to the whole world. Of course, the question of whether Radlo l<'ree Europe (RFE) i5 using .proper methods to fight communism, whether these methods sumce for polítical reality or whether they comply to the mentality of t'h . e natlons to which RFE turns w!th its broadcasts, can be se11lously quest!loned. We must say frank,l y that Americans stm do not !ully under$and the complexity of the various, special polltical and natlonal problems existlng in Europe. But for this we cannot _bla.me them alone, but aH the more can we blame their European advisors, w·ho frequently ~Ive them a "pa!nted" plcture of the sttuation. lf RFE !s to perform and fulfill its mission ln the countries behlnd t:he Iron Curtain, it must above all else respect certain natural reallties; lts broadcasts must respect the polit!cal mentality of the individual natíons. The broadcasts must not hurt theír feelings, but must try to gain as wlde a clrcle of lísteners as posslble and influence them. Tben and only then shall RFE fulfill its missdon and oniy then American dollars shall not be thrown away uselessly. Today RFE beams lts broadcasts to Czechoslovakia eleven and onehalf bours daily. And even thougb two nat!ons - the Czechs and the Slovaks - live In Czecboslovakia, despite tbe fact tbat tbls reality is stressed even in the new Czecbo.!!lovak Constltutlon, even tbougb thls actuallty bas been acknowledged by the representatlves of the socalled "Czecboslovak resistance" wbo today are in tbe USA and ln other western countries, nevertheless RFE does not respect theae political realitles, or at least it does not do so consistently. At home tbe Czechs bave thelll' own Czech broadcastlng statlons and the Slovaks, too, bave 1ilielr own. That means tbat the Czecbs are accustomed to listenlng to tbelr Czech broadcasts, whlle the Slovaks listen to their Slovak statlons. These realltles are respected also by state broadCQSts, such as the Brltish Broadcasting Corporallion, th~ Itallan Sta'te Broadcast, tbe Vatlcan, Moscow, etc. Only American broadéastlng statlons - and the VOICE OF AMERICA and RADIO I•'REE EUROPE es,pec\ally - still insist on a joint Slovak and Czech broadcast. 40 S LOVAKIA The Slovaks at home and in exile are a,t a !oss t o understand why. 'l'his certaAnly does not enhance the misslon oí the Volce of A.merica o r that of Radio Free Europe. In fact it degmdes the idea of democ• racy in the eyes of the Slovaks and does not attain the deslr ed a nd ne• cessary effect. The Czechs are not and do not want to be Slovak~, and the S lovaks are not and do not want to be Czechs. The Czec hs and Slovaks have been fully aware of this fact for decades, but offic ial Washington still is not. Why? The valiant reslstance of the Slovak nation agalnst communist terror, the hundreds of dead Slovak patiiots, t he thousands u pon thousands of impiisoned Slovaks and the love of the Slovak people for the United Sta.tes of Amerlca rlghtfully deserve that the Slovaks have their own Independent division in the American broadcastlng systems-especíally in the Volce of A.merica and Radlo Free Europe. Th ls demand does not emanate from any anti-Czech prejudice, but !rom purely prac• tlcal needs wlth an eye to t he objectlve that the broadcasts to Slovákia might fulfm their m ission. According to report.s of the !atest escapees from Slovakia and the opinion of Slovak exiles in western E urope, the RFE broadcas.ts are alien cto .the soul of the Slovak índividual, b ecause t he S lovak program:; ar e there only for show purposes; Slovak vo ices only assist in CZECH broa.dca.sts. Furthermore, these broadcasts do not even have regard for the Christian tradition of the Slovak nation and clo not h ave people who enjoy lts confldence addresslng it. At present the Czechostovak broadcasts of Rimio Free Europe have been entrusted to repr esentatlves of Benes's politlcal conceptlons, to Messrs. Zenkl and llipka, leaders of .the Czech National Socialists. To make it appear that Slovaks, too, have a part In lt, Zenkl and Ripka seleoted a few Slovak politlcal unknowns and recommended them to R FE as "representa.t:lves o f the Slovak natlon." These enemies of Slovak freedom and independence, all traitors to the Slovak cause, who for a pr!ce propagate the dlscredited anti-Slovak and undemocratic poMcles of Benes, are not and cannot be acceptable to the Slovaks at horne or in exile. Why should exiled Czechs be a.llowed to -select the Slovaks to be employed by Radlo Free Europe, the instrument of the National Comanittee for Free E urope, W'hich 1s su pposed to be an American institution? The procedure is undemocratic and immoral and we must protest against lt. We want to be of service to the cause of freedom and the truth and that is why we feel it our mora! and politlcal duty ,to bring these matters before responsible American circles that are lncorrectly informed by "Czechoslovak" polltlclans, who prepared the pre,;ent tragedy for the Slov,ak and Czech nations by thelr capltulationary and pro-Sovi.et policy. As far as Slovakia !s concerned, we must once again stress the fact that the Czechoslovak polltical conception 1s not popular among the Slovak people and, therefore, no Idea presented In the name of thls conceptlon can catch the mlnds of the Slovaks. Even RFE canno t f,lght psychologlcally agalnst communlsm In Slovakia in the name of -thls conceptlon. Th e name of Masaryk, popular among Czechs, ls not popular at all In Slovakla and it canno t arouse the S\ovaks to figh t agalnst SLOVAKIA 41 communlsm. Benes, whose name 1s rrequently mentioned ln the RFli: progra.ma by his adherents, 1s damned and condemned both in Bohemla and In Slovakia. The tact remalns that in Slovakia it 1s Chrlstlanity and Chrlstlan traditlon whlch gtves strength to the natlon !or lts self-consclou~ resls-tance to communist terror. Communlsm Ls not only polltically, but also ldeologlcally dangerous and, thererore, the foundatlon for the psychologlcal fight agaln.st communlsm must be Chrlstlanity and democra.cy. But the programs of RFE must expressively alS-O emphaslze this outune and not, as heretofore, at limes allow an antl-rellgious , antlChristlan, or even an evidently antl-Cathollc tendency t o be smugglod lnto lts broadcasts. Among bellevlng people fäls produces a pltlful bltterne.ss and antilpathy. So that •RFE could maintaln a s pirit of antl-commun lst resistan<:e even in Slovakfa, so that it could educate democratilcall y and preach and teach democracy to our oppressed natlon cut off by the Iron Curtaln trom the West, so that lt could objectlvely and wlthout prejudice Inform the Slovaks about what 1s happening In the world and generally wlth the ldeologtcal currents In the free world, lt is very necessary that thls be done In Independent Slovak broadcasts. lt 1s also necessary that as many S lovak representativ es ot Slovak reslstance In exile as posslble speak to the Slovak people so that RFl~ could lnfluence the wldest circle ot llsteners. It 1s not healthy to exclude trom tbe possibility or cooperatlon In this broadcast, whlch no ta bene carrles the name "The Broadcast of Free Europe," all Slovak patrlots just because thelr political convlctlons are not in accord wlth speciflc polltlcal cliques. As the sltuatlon In RFE obtalns today, tbls enterprlse has become the supply lnstitutlon of tbe rlslng generatlon or Czech soclallsts, many of whom even today are the detenders of Marxlst sociallsm and who up to 1948, nay even after 1948, collaborated wlth the communlst Prague regime. lt Ie a tact that the Slovaks today are llke a "clnderella" In tbe RFE, somethlng unwanted, something to be scorned. Only about 20 Slovaks are employed tor 140 Czechs; and In s ubordinate positlons. No Slovak ls employed In the management of tbe enterprlse. Czecb dlrectors declde about tbe Slovaks to be employed, and the Slovak program.s also are controlled by Czechs, who are not a cqualnted with Slovak prob lems, nor understand Slovak mentality, Any correctlon In thls relatio1111blp In a joint broadcast 1s slmply going t.arther aw-ay trom the reaJ questlon whlch can be resolved only by bavlng a separate Slovak broadcast managed by patrlotlc Slovak people. One more thought which must be hlghly stressed and that ls the thought whtch thls RFE b roadcast carries In lts tltle: FREE EUROPE. lndeed, what we regard as more lmportant and more necesaary In the lnterest ot the Slovak nation, and in the lnterest or Europe as a whole, 1s the propogatlon of <the Idea of a rree and unlted Europe. Tllls Idea must be propagated especlally by RFE already today so that !t mlght shlne as a llght lnto the future for all oppressed European natlons. That 1s the best way to lead European na.tlons to the consciousnee.e ot E uropean solidarity, to the Idea of a new, just and u nlted Enrope. B y stresslng tbl11 thought the beat service would be renderetl SLOVA:KIA 42 the European nations themselves whlch were heretofore at Joggerheads because ot chauvinlstlc natlonalism, polltlcal fanatlctsms, syntheti,c politlcal partiitňons and the seclusion of one nation trom the other. A federalized united Europe ls the big hope especially ot the small naitlons. It is necessary, therefore, to resurrect a.nd encourage thts hope in them, because in a united Europe every natlon, small and large, shall be able to live freely and democracy shall become the common property of all natlons. RFE cannot effectJvely combat communism if lt does not respect the natural rights of the individual nations behind rthe Iron Curtain, lncluding the Slovak natlon. The crusade for treedom must include ALL nations and exclude NONE. RFE cannot fultill its mis• slon by allow~ng its broadcasts to insult the politlcal convictlons, the mentality, the pa,tríotic feelings and national tradltlons ot the Slovaks. The people of Slovakia cannot have confidence in the RFE as long as it employs renegade Slovaks to promote the Czech cause 01 Czechoslovakism, the bankrupt and dlscredited policies of the Czech National Sociallsts as propagated by Benes and his followers. The Slovaks are conscious or tbe !act that they are an lndlvidual naitlon and as such have an lnherent and God-given rlght to be free and independent. There is no Joglcal explanatlon for RFE or the Volce l•f America not recognizing or respecting that right. The anti-Slovak course of the RFE 1s out or line wlth everything that spells A.merica. Bu-t Slovaks stm hope tihat RFE shall In a very short tlme become in fact the TRUE volce of a free and united Europe, the volce of patriotic Slovaks in exile exhorting thelr brethren In Slovakla tú remain Joyal to thelr Chrlstian and democratic traditlons, - yes. RFE can and should become the VOICE OF FREE SLOVAKIA. • • • WHO SAI D IT? "Our rore1gn pollcy of 1946 wlll be based on Lhe solid, unalterable, masslve foundatlon of our agreement with the neighborlng SOVIE'ľ UNION. WE MUST fulflll fully, without besitation, everything resu1ting from tbis foundation . . . . Our relat!ons with the other nelghboNi will be acco1'11ng to the vlewpolnt of the SOVIET Pact. WE want a strong, democrat!c Poland WHICH WILL COLLABORATE 'WITH THE SOVIET UNION. For another solution of the POLJSH ques-tion, WE have no time. We want a decent, democratlc Hungary, C:OLLABORA TING WITH THE SOVIET UNION whlch lives In peace w!th us. The same applles to Yugoslav!a, Austria and Romanla. ou·r relatlons w!th the western Allles HAS NOT changed, and WILL NOT change. We are grateful to Brltaln for her help when she and WE stood alone. WE appreciate lmmensely and are ~rateful for Amerlcan interest and sympartby. We will need the help of the western democracies for economtc and cultural reconstructlon." - (Ján Masa• ryk. Broadcast to Czechoslovakla, London, December 31, 1944) . • "Just as Munic-h was undone and does not exist, just so there is no Slovakia and it does not exist internationally as a state! There is no Slovak problem, the Slovak problem 1s onr Interna) problem an<I it !s recognlzed as such even by our allles." - (Dr. Benes, 6-22-43) . •  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 Radio Free Europe Description An account of the resource By A Slovak Exile Slovakia, Vol. 1, No. 2 (2), December 1951 pp. 39-42 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 1951 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/64c7484d3942d7f02a6a816065018048.pdf 08cc45405d9a6b4a5edd5b060d9e8483 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 2021 53 RECONSIDERING SLOVAK-AMERICAN RELIGIOUS COMMITMENT: THOMAS BELL'S OUT OF THIS FURNACE IN HISTORIOGRAPHICAL CONTEXT Frederick Hale Introduction If any work of fiction deserves to be called " the great SlovakAmerican historical novel ," it is undoubtedly Thomas Bell 's Out of This Furnace. To be sure, the competition is nearly non-existent. 1 Nevertheless, since its initial publication in 1941 , thi s volume of more than 400 pages has offered readers a hi ghly readable and insightful view of immigrant laborers and their descendants, chiefly in the steel mill town s of western Pennsylvania where many Slovaks toiled. Their presence became woven into the multicolored ethni c fabric of that once-booming region. Though for many upward social mobility came at a snai l's pace, organized community li fe began early and remained vibrant, and the members of the group contributed mightily to the prosperity of the cities in which they sacrificed seemingly endless hours on the a ltars of an economy of wh ich they were far more the victims than the lords. Beg inning, apparently, as economically virtually powerless and thus wi lling to accept their su bservient lot in life, many gradua lly gained a bolder spirit through the labor movements in which they participated . In tandem with their inevitable assim ilation, Slovak-Americans eventuall y gained a greater voice in the direction of their working lives. These interrelated matters form much of the thematic warp and woof of Bell 's much-lauded novel , which traces three generations through their tribul ations to a more ass imilated 1 Michael ovak 's quasi-autobiogra phical The Tiber Was S ilver ( 1961) failed to make a perceptible splash in the waters of American literature, and hi s Naked I l eave ( 1970), whi ch was more widely rev iewed, was a lso criticall y interpreted as a fictional ized mirror of hi s transition from Roman Catho li c se minarian to journalist. These intensely personal works by a prominent Slovak-American inte llectua l whose life began in Jo hn stown , Pennsylvania, in 1933 are not w itho ut arti stic merit , but th ey belo ng to a sub-genre o f ficti o n quite different from Be ll 's realistic po rtraya l of th e ethni c g roup's hi story in th e late nin eteenth and ea rl y twenti eth centuri es. �54 SLOVAKIA 2021 status and to higher rungs of the socio-economic ladder. Mu tat is mutandis, the story it tells echoes that of numerous other immigrant groups in urban America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Conceivably the eventual upward mobility-engendered in part by the labor movement- underlay the translation of this work into Slovak and its publication in 1949 in Czechoslovakia, when that country was to a great degree under the hegemony of the Soviet Union during the chilliest days of the Cold War. Furthermore, owing to its pedagogical value for teaching American immigration and labor hi story, in 1976 the University of Pittsburgh reprinted Out of This Furnace in response to a proposal by Professor David P. Demarest of Carnegie Mellon University. It fitted this social activist's converging interests in workingclass literature and labor history hand-in-glove. The relative popularity of the book led to a fiftieth anniversary edition in 1991. Bell illuminated many facets of Slovak-American working-class life and did not hesitate to include in his narrati ve several less savory dimensions of it that less candid writers might have chosen to minimize or ignore entirely in the interests of presenting palatable impressions of their respective ethnic groups. As Professor David J. Goldberg noted in 20 IO when advocating the assignment of Out of This Furnace to university students, " Men get drunk in saloons. Weddings and funerals are occasions for arguments." 2 A Limited Tradition of Scholarly Consideration Out of This Furnace has been neither the beneficiary nor the victim of extensive scholarly criticism, but it has not been completely ignored. In hi s study of American writers of the 1930s, especially those on the political Left, Leo Gurko devoted a few paragraphs to Bell ' s authorship and commented on this novel. However, Gurko did not evince adequate familiarity with this novelist's oeuvre. He judged that the ideological positions taken by Bell's characters "end with trade-unionism and anti-fascism," a myopic observation that overlooks the central character in All Brides Are Beautiful. Turning specifically to the hi storical span of Out o_fThis Furnace, Gurko thought that 2 David J. Goldberg, "Thomas Bell's 0111 o_(This Furnace: An Evaluation and an Appreciation," Journal of American Ethnic History, XXIX, no. 2 (Winter 2010), p. 664 . �SLOVAKIA 2021 55 it covered two generations of Slovak-Americans, when in fact it dealt with three. 3 In 1975, i.e. a year before its republication by the University of Pittsburgh Press, John F. Berko contributed an article about Bell as a novelist to the journal Slovak Studies but devoted only one page to this particular novel. 4 Furthermore, after encouraging its republication Demarest wrote a moderately detailed Afterword in which he provided useful information without dissecting the text. The eminent historian of Slovak immigrants in North America Marian Mark Stolarik has credited Bell with describing Slovak-American life "very we ll" but lamented that he had "completely ignored the religiosity" of this ethnic group. 5 Stolarik's criticism at this point dovetails neatly with what he and other historians have repeatedly stated about the enthusiasm of Slovak-Americans for ecclesiastical life. In his article " Religious Developments Among the Slovaks in America," for example, published in the Slovak League of America's celebratory bicentennial volume in 1978, Daniel F. Tanzone could declare without reserve that "the most di stinctive characteristic of the Slovaks is their deep and abiding faith in God." The zeal they evinced in Central Europe, he emphasized, became transatlantic as immigrants from Slovakia " made great effort to hear the word of God preached to them in their native Slovak tongue." 6 The linkage between social and religious life has also been highlighted in the pertinent historiography. As Stolarik explained in the 1980s, upon settling in the United States Slovaks typically initiated this by founding "fraternal-benefit" societies to provide emotional and economic safety nets. These lodges usually reflected the discrete religious affiliations of individuals within the larger group and were identifiable as de facto Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Lutheran, or Calvinist. From the religious cohesion of such local societies formal , 3 Leo Gurko, The Angty Decade (New York : Dodd, Mead and Company, 1947), 66-9. John F. Berko, "Thomas Bell ( 1903- 196 1) Slovak-Ameri can Novelist," Slovak S1udies, XV ( 1975), 143-58. 5 M. Mark Stolarik to Frederick Hale, 14 November 20 17 (electronic correspondence) . 6 Daniel F. Tanzone, "Religious Developments Among the Slovaks in America," in Slovaks in America: A Bicenlennial S!udy (Middletown, Pennsylvani a: The Slovak League of America, 1978), 57 . 4 �56 SLOVAKIA 2021 distinctly Slovak parishes sprang, often after a period of worshiping with, for example, Polish fellow immigrants.7 In his history of three generations of Slovak-Americans in the steel mill town of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, from the 1880s until the 1970s, Stolarik related in some detail how they were divided into three religious communities, chiefly Roman Catholic but also Greek Catholic and Lutheran . Church life among many of these people appears to have been vibrant, despite chronic financial hardship that, for example, protracted the amortization of mortgages. Church edifices began to appear at a very early stage. 8 He was thus not in doubt that " religion played a central role in the life of Bethlehem Slovaks."9 Of particular relevance to Out of This Furnace, Stolarik argued that on a national basis the "overwhelming loyalty" of Slovak-Americans to their religious life helped to immunize them from an early stage of their history to socialist movements which were drawing support from many other working-class immigrants well before the end of the nineteenth century. 10 More than two decades later, Stolarik published what may be the most up-to-date, albeit still brief, scholarly consideration of SlovakAmerican religious life. Writing in The Catholic Historical Review, he emphasized why the immigrants in question were divided into four denominations and how they adjusted to ecclesiastical circumstances in the United States of America and Canada, particularly the creation of specific ethnic parishes. Stolarik did not, however, deal with such matters as the non-affiliation of individuals with churches, anticlericalism, and hostility to or disagreement with religion as such. He judiciously acknowledged that much research remained to be done before historians could paint anything approaching a comprehensive portrait of the spiritual life of Slovak-Americans generally. 11 7 Marian Mark Stolarik , Immigration and Urbanization: The Slovak Experience, 18701918 (New York: AMS Press, Inc ., 1989), 82-3 . 8 M. Mark Stolarik, Growing Up on the South Side: Three Genera/ions of Slovaks in Bethlehem. Pennsylvania. 1880-/9 76 (Lewisburg, Pennsylvania: Bucknell University Press, 1985), 44-62. 44. 10 Stolarik, Immigration and Urbanization, 8 1. 11 M. Mark Stolarik, " Slovak Immigrants Come to Term s with Reli g ious Diversity in North America," The Catholic Historical Review, XCVI , no. I (January 20 I 0): 5684. 9 Ibid ., �SLOVAKIA 2021 57 The publication in 2012 of his lengthy Where Is My Home? Slovak Immigration to North America (/ 870-2010) gave Stolarik an opportunity to touch on aspects of Slovak immigrants ' religious life in North America. His seventh chapter, "Slovak Marxists Disagree" dealt with what he acknowledged were the "few Marxists" among the Slovaks in the United States and Canada. This minuscule segment established mutual benefit societies which competed on a minor scale with the churches for the loyalty of the immigrants and their descendants but, as Stolarik emphasized, "their number remained small." 12 He briefly traced a waning of the socialists ' initially strident criticism ofreligious life and concluded that by the 1940s the verbal warfare had ceased. 13 The di sagreements to which the chapter' s title refers were largely those among the socialists themselves, especially with regard to political developments in their homeland, not to disputes between these men of the left and the ecclesiastical traditions they had left behind. The empirically challenging question of the scope of general SlovakAmerican indifference to and non-participation in formal religious life thus remained essentially unanswered. Regarding participation in secular campaigns to improve working conditions in industrial America, it is difficult to ascertain how many of these newcomers and their descendants supported the more inclusive labor movement, which in the USA was only partly socialist. However, it is known that Bell himself was a man of the Left, albeit not in a consistently outspoken way. How unrepresentative of SlovakAmericans he was in that regard is an interesting question, though one that necessarily lies beyond the scope of the present article. At any rate, in Out o_f This Furnace Bell presented the labor movement in a positive manner and highlighted the participation of at least a small number of Slovak-Americans in it. This is probably significant to an understanding of the dispersed treatment of religion in this fictional construction. 12 M. Mark Stolarik, Where Is My Home? Slovak Immigration to North America ( / 87020 10) (Bern : Peter Lang AG, Internati onal Academi c Publishers, 201 2), p. 205. 13 Stolarik, Wh ere Is My Home?, pp. 2 12-2 13. �58 SLOVAKIA 2021 A Little-known Literary A rtist Bell ' s earl y li fe endowed him with an intimate know ledge of hi s subj ect. His parents were fro m the village of Ni zny Tvarozec in the Bardejov d istri ct of the Presov reg ion of northwestern Slovaki a. He was born in the mill tow n of Braddock, Penn sylvani a, j ust east of Pi ttsburgh, in 1903 . 14 That small c ity had a popul ati on of 15,654 in 1900, a fig ure whi ch rose to sli ghtly over 20,000 two decades later before a persistent dec line reduced it to a poverty-stri cken village in the late twentieth century. His origi nal name was Ada lbert Thomas Belejcak, a cu mbersome moniker whi ch he never used during hi s career as a nove li st. Leav ing schoo l as an ado lescent, he worked loca ll y from age fifteen as an electri c ian' s apprenti ce but in 1922 re located to New York and was vari ously empl oyed fo r approximate ly a decade as a merchant sea man, boo kstore clerk , and mechani c. Bell 's first nove l, The Breed of Bas il, appeared in 1930, and from 1933 onward he was a fu ll -time writer, th ough onl y fi ve of hi s nove ls were issued. Hi s All Brides Are Beautiful was the bas is of a motion picture starrin g Joa n Fonta ine and Mark Stevens, and Till! Come Back to You was dramati zed and produced on Broadway by Jed Harri s. In other noteworthy d imensions of his career w ith the pen, Be ll contri buted short stori es to such magazi nes as McCall 's and Ladies ' Home J ournal, and eventuall y worked as a Holl ywood screenwriter. After mov ing to Cali fo rni a in 1955 , he continued to write sporadi ca ll y whil e operating the East Side Gift and Stati onery Shop in Santa Cruz. His hea lth deteri orated in the late 1950s, and he di ed of cancer in 196 1. The fun era l was held in a mortuary chapel rather than a church, and Bell 's ashes were interred at the crematory of the Independent Order of Odd Fell ows . 15 The few sources of readil y ava il able info rmation about hi s li fe do not suggest th at he had any ex perience in Slovaki a, and nothin g in Out of This Furnace indi cates that he had noteworthy know ledge of that coun try apart fro m what may have been handed down ora ll y from hi s fo rebears. Bell appears to have reli ed almost exc lusive ly on ora l traditi on and memories of hi s childhood in western Penn sy lvani a when craftin g thi s nove l. 14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wikiff homas_ Bell_(nove list). Accessed 2 January 2020. For SC ovelist T homas Bell Set," Santa Cruz Sentinel, 17 January I 96 1, p. 12. 15 " Servi ces �SLOVAKIA 2021 59 Ideologically, Bell stood unabashedly on the left flank of the American political spectrum. This comes to the fore more vividly in his credible proletarian novel of 1936, All Brides Are Beautiful, which was the basis of the motion picture From This Day Forward, which premiered in 1946. Set in New York during the Depression of the 1930s, its principal protagonist is an Irish-American named Peter Cummings who, like many of his fellow citizens, suffers from underemployment and discrimination in the labor market. He reads a new book of British origin, The Nature of Capitalist Crisis, by John Strachey, a Labour Party politician who, despite his bourgeois origins (his father edited the Conservative-supporting periodical The Spectator) and privileged education at Eton College and the University of Oxford , was a communist sympathizer before turning against Communism in 1940. The narrative is peppered with references to inter alia the Workers Bookshop and the newspaper Daily Worker, published in New York by the Communist Party of the United States of America. In response to a query by another character, Cummings confirms his suspected political sympathies but qualifies this by assuring her, "I ' m not a very good Communist." 16 In the general scholarly literature about American literature (in which works by many individuals about immigrant groups are relatively well represented), Bell remains almost completely invisible. Never did an article about him appear in the hundreds of volumes in the nearly exhaustive reference work Contemporary Authors. As of 2020, the seemingly very inclusive Dictionary of Literary Biography, well over 300 volumes strong, has not included an essay about Bell. Rarely is he even mentioned in general surveys of the wider subject. Anyone searching for information about this fairly productive writer' s life and oeuvre will be fortunate to reap even a meager harvest of information . Contemporary reviews of his novels are a partial exception to this generalization, but even they are not particularly abundant. Out of This Furnace is a constructed family epic, and not even the later stages of the saga, which overlap with its author' s life, are quite autobiographical. In his Afterword in the 1976 edition, Demarest relied heavily on information gleaned from Bell's younger brother, 16 Thomas Bell , All Brides Are Beautiful (Boston: Linle, Brown, and Company, 1936), 21 6. �60 SLOVAKIA 2021 Anthony, to highlight certain fictional departures from the ostensible facts of the Belejcak family history . Plot Summary Out of This Furnace is structured in four parts. The first deals principally with George (or "Djuro") Kracha, who leaves his Slovak peasant life (and, temporarily, his young and pregnant wife in the care of his mother) in the autumn of 1881. After giving birth to a son a few months later, she joins him in Pennsylvania. They eke out a basic existence as George finds employment in a steel mill but his upward mobility is limited to operating a temporarily profitable butcher shop. There is no moral progression in this character. After his wife dies, he marries a fellow Slovak who emigrated simultaneous ly with him, but this frequently inebriated and cognitively unimpressive man is jailed for beating her. The second and third parts relate in much detail the lives of his daughter, Mary, and her husband, Mike Dobrejcak. These members of the second-generation toil arduously but receive scant reward for their labors. However, they are confident that their son, Dobie, can enjoy a materially better life than they have, a conviction this quite Americanized lad shares. He fulfills their expectations to a great degree. Having received several years' schooling, he speaks Eng li sh fluently and uses his rhetorical talent to advocate workers ' rights. In the fourth part, Dobie also toils in mills but plays a crucial role in the unionization of the labor force regionally and ventures to Washington to participate in labor negotiations. To a vastly greater degree than his immigrant grandfather, Dobie embodies an altrui stic spirit. He is a considerate husband and parent who is concerned not merely about his own welfare but a lso that of his descendants and of the working class in general. All in all , the saga of this family through three generations relates much about the initially glacial but gradual and inconsistent rise of Slovak-Americans during decades when the spoils of the labor and entrepreneurial spirit that transformed the United States into a massive industrial power were so unevenly distributed. In doing so, Bell's novel sheds much light on social relationships within the ethnic group, the partial retention of ethnic culture, and other related matters. �SLOVAKIA 2021 61 A Miscellany of Religious Motifs The narrative does not deal in nearly as much detail about the reli gious life of Slovak-Americans as historians of Christianity might wi sh. This theme plays second or third fiddle in an otherwise fairly well-deve loped fictional orchestration of immigrant hi story. How much Bell knew about that aspect of his family's story which forms the core of the construction is difficult to assess. According to his brother Anthony, who provided Demarest with information about the clan, their father was a very active layman " in the church and related organizations" whose involvement in them took him to meetings throughout Pennsylvania and in Ohio. 17 In one of the most didactic sections of Part Two, the narrator genera li zes about the characteristics of the ethnic group. " In the o ld country the Slovaks had been an oppressed minority from the beginning of time, a simple, religious, unwarlike people, a nation of peasants and shepherds whom the centuries had taught patience and humility," he declares, though without relating anything to substantiate this. "In America they were all this and more, foreigners in a strange land, ignorant of the land and customs, fearful of authority in whatever guise." 18 Churches exist in the depicted milieu, but much of the time they remain vague entities in the background. There is relatively little description of either individuals or Slovak-American families worshiping regularly or otherwise participating in ecc lesiastical life, and one finds only occasional hints of private religious devotion. (Certa in key exceptions are discussed below.) There are priests, of course, but one gets the impression that in Bell ' s fictional world some of the key characters interact with them only on special occasions, such as at weddings and funerals, or when they encounter a crisis and perceive a need for sacerdotal intervention . The first such instance occurs in the Old World. When Kracha elects to try his luck in America, he leaves his pregnant wife Elena in the care of his mother, an arrangement which proves inauspicious. The otherwise anonymous local priest who writes letters on behalf of these two presumably illiterate women informs Kracha that his a iling wife 17 18 Dav id P. Demarest, Jr. , " Afterword," in Bell , Ou! of This Furnace, 420. Bell , Ow of This Furnace, 123 . �62 SLOVAKIA 2021 and her mother-in-law are not fully compatible, especially when cohabiting in a one-room hut, and that he should do whatever is necessary to enable her relocation to America at the earliest opportunity. 19 Beyond that brief part, there is virtually nothing in Out of This Furnace about religious life in Slovakia. In the scattered comments about Slovak-American churches, one finds themes that reflect what one can read in nonfictional historical surveys. For example, new clusters of Slovak immigrants typically worshipped temporarily in the sanctuaries of non-Slovaks before founding their own parishes. Early in the narrative, a young Slovak immigrant couple have their nuptial mass in an Irish-American Roman Catholic church because there is not yet one of their own national heritage.20 When the number of Slovaks in individual locales increased to the point where they could organize their own parishes, they sometimes bought church edifices from Protestant congregations whose members were gradually moving to other communities. There are two occurrences of this in Out of This Furnace. In Braddock, Slovak Roman Catholics "took over" First Baptist Church and rededicated it as St. Michael's Church.2 1 Their ethnic fellows of Greek Catholi c loyalty followed suit shortly thereafter, purchasing what had been the First Presbyterian Church in an unappealing location a long the railroad tracks in the same small city. In its new denominational iteration, it had become St. Peter and St. Paul ' s. 22 Readers are not given nearly enough information about the ecclesiastica l life of the community to create a comprehensive portrait of that subject in general or the proportion of Slovaks who were active church members. There is no reason to believe that the dissolute Kracha is such an individual. On the other hand, after his sickly spouse Elena recovers sufficiently to leave the house, she begins to go to church every morning. However, this is described as the behavior of a mentally troubled soul who has largely withdrawn into herself, not as that of one with a normal socia l li fe . C lasping her rosary, Elena has " now more than ever a frightened , beaten look," perhaps owing to her 19 Bell , Bell , 21 Bell , 22 Bell , 20 0111 o( This Ou! of This Ou! of This 0111 of This Furnace, 14. Furnace, 19 . Furnace, 38. Furnace, 69. �SLOVAKIA 2021 63 inability to adapt to her difficult life as Kracha's wife in a dismal mill town. 23 The phenomenon of non-involvement in organized community religious life is dealt with only fleetingly . The most explicit example of this stems from Bell's critique of capitalist exploitation of the steelworkers. Kracha's colleague Joe Dubik is introduced as "a Rusnak, a Greek Catholic from Tvarosc in Sarisa." 24 Having preceded Kracha to Braddock, he welcomes his friend when the latter arrives and shows him around the town. Passing the Carnegie public library (endowed by the philanthropy of the Scottish immigrant steel magnate Andrew Carnegie), Dubik admits that he had never entered it. " When do I have the time for such things?" he explains wistfully. "Since they cut wages and put us on twelve hours l've even stopped going to church." 25 But some continue to attend mass. One is Mike Dobrejcak , the long-suffering son-in-law of Kracha, who rarely finds joy in life and is trapped in his career as a steelworker. In a paragraph of several hundred words, the narrator provides moving insight into the spiritual constitution of this second-generation Slovak-American and the personal significance of his religious life. He prefers to attend the evening mass in the Greek Catholic Church. In contrast to high mass, where God seems to be "the thundering, awe-inspiring Lord of the Universe in vestments of white and gold," for after sunset the deity seems to be "a friend whom one dropped in to visit, God still but God at ease, His shoes and trousers showing below His robes." This approachable deity is one to whom Mike can pray for his wife Mary, their children, and him self. He can do so confident that God is superior to steel corporations and their general superintendents. Moreover, and perhaps just as important to Mike, the church in which this relationship unfolds is a social leveler. In its sanctuary " he was not a check number of a Hunky laborer, but a man." God, he believes, cared not a whit about socioeconomic differences or ethnic strata in American society: " Here he was welcome, here he belonged . Here he spoke in his own tongue; and without fear, without awkwardness, he spoke of himself, hi s hopes, hi s troubles, hi s need of help. And God heard him out." The God of the church, and especially of evening mass, " knew him by name, knew 23 Bell , Out a/This Furnace, 64. Bell , Out a/This Furnace, 10. 25 Bell , Out a/This Furnace, 34. 24 �64 SLOVAKIA 2021 about Mary and the children understood how it was with all of them and had a pretty good idea what kind of person, behind his laborer's clothes and poor English, Mike really was. God , in short, liked him ." The psychological impact is subtle but real; "The world was always a less unfriendly place and he nearly always walked a little straighter, heartened, protected, when he came out." 26 Nor is Mike alone. The narrator acknowledges that more pews are empty than filled, but the congregation includes inter alia old parishioners who attended mass daily and twice on Sunday. Far more prevalent in the throng are young couples who also appreciated the subdued sociability of a vespers service. It gave them "an irreproachable excuse to be together and was cheaper than a trip to Kennywood," explains the narrator. 27 No single factor, in other words, expla ins why Slovak-Americans participate in the worship of their churches . Bell ' s fictional construction of Slovak participation in the unsuccessful 1919 Great Steel Strike gave him an opportunity to explore a dimension of the ro le of religious factors in a matter of immense personal interest. Hi s sympathy with the goals of the strike, which took place while he was sti ll a teenager in Braddock, is manifest. Bell included a paragraph listing the union's demands, among them such minimal conditions as an eight-hour day, the right of workers to bargain collectively, and one day off every week. 28 Against this background, the support of the long-serving priest in Braddock, Father Kazincy, for the campaign is understandable. Indeed, he has urged parishioners to join the union , and he allows an organizing committee to meet in the basement of his church. When "veiled threats" are made by an unidentified party to foreclose on the parish's mortgage, Kazincy replies that if that is done he will place a sign on the front of the building announcing: "Thi s Church of Christ c losed by the United States Steel Corporation ." He further show s his so lidari ty after mass at St. Michael's on the Sunday morning immediately before the beginning of the strike when a state trooper orders people who congregate outside the building to disperse: "Father Kazincy came out of the church and protested, a tall , gray-haired man in priestly robes standing 26 Bell , Out of This Furnace, 17 1. Bell, Out of This Furnace, 170. Launched in 1899 in West Miffin. southeast of Pittsburgh, Kenn ywood was an amusement park and picnic area th at attracted large numbers of workin g-cl ass people. 28 Bell, Out of This Furnace, 240. 27 �SLOVAKIA 2021 65 beside the trooper's restless horse, his face uplifted, alight with indignation." 29 This sympathy-inspiring partisanship is juxtaposed with less appealing conduct on the part of the Irish-dominated Roman Catholic Church . At its St. Brendan's Church " in the ' good ' part of town", the priest declares in his homily, "This strike is not being brought about by intelligent English-speaking workmen ... . You can't reason with these people. Don't reason with them." The appropriate response, he preached, was to "knock them down!" In Bell ' s narrative, this hostility meshed with the response of the diocesan hierarchy to the strike. A delegation of Catholic strikers call on the bishop of Pittsburgh (whom Bell calls "Bishop Canavan" but in fact was Regis Canevin from 1904 until 1921) imploring him to support the action, not least because a majority of the strikers are Catholics. But that prelate declines to do so. Underscoring the influence of the industrial magnates on religious life, "not long after that the Pittsburgh Catholic Charities received a check for twenty-five thousand dollars from the Carnegie Steel Company."30 An Atheist to the End Too little is known , and perhaps cannot be known , about Bell ' s low-profile life to trace whatever spiritual journey he may have had followed through his fifty-seven years. What is beyond dispute, however, is that the skepticism expressed in Out of This Furnace foreshadowed acknowledged atheism in his final book, In the Midst of life. This nonfictional volume, approximately 270 pages in length, was published a few months after his death in 1961 . It encompasses a miscellany of his thoughts and musings as a terminally ill cancer patient in Santa Cruz. Bell acknowledged in his first brief chapter that he was not on the same spiritual wavelength with many other people. "While others, in the old phrase, make their peace with God," he stated, "I must make mine with myself." 31 Bell noted that his beliefs differed markedly from those of one of his pious customers, a Mrs. Worth, who had sought to 29 Bell, Out of This Furnace, 241 . Out of This Furnace, 241 -2. 3 1Thomas Bell , In the Mid1·t a/Life (New York: Atheneum, 196 1), 5. 30 Bell, �66 SLOVAKIA 2021 encourage him at that critical stage of his life. He had even prayed to " Mrs. Worth 's God" in the privacy of a toilet at a hospital in Palo Alto, but his cancer had progressed unabated. Bell concluded that "belief in a supernatural god may disappear, and a good thing too," but in the same sentence he admitted that there were times "when one can only envy such people as Mrs. Worth. " 32 If his non credo of ca. 1960 represented his attitude towards the Christian faith two decades earlier, his willingness to write sympathetically, albeit briefly, about the religious life of his fictional characters at that time is all the more remarkable. Conclusion A juxtaposition of Out of This Furnace and the nonfictional texts cited in the present article highlights several problems that serious historians of religion encounter when they are seeking to gauge, even in an approximate way, the spiritual life of Slovak immigrants in North America. On the one hand, there are assertions about the group's devotion to Christianity in several of its denominational forms. These assurances are typically supported by reference to the hundreds of churches which Slovaks founded in the New World, usually in the early stages of their community life in surroundings still only partially familiar to them, and in many instances after unsatisfactory experiences in multi-ethnic parishes. On the other hand, when one reads Out of This Furnace as almost certainly the principal fictional reconstruction of Slovak-American history, one finds significantly less about religion than nonfictional literature might reasonably lead one to expect. Considered in isolation, Out a/This Furnace thus gives an impression that is difficult to harmoni ze with the large number of enduring Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, and other sorts of parishes which these immigrants founded to serve as their spiritual homes. No doubt part of the answer inheres in accepting the fact that Slovak-Americans were by no means a monolithic entity, but a diverse segment of the Euro-American population which probably always included individuals with varying degrees of religious fervor and criticism thereof, different levels of moral development, and no uniformity of commitment to community life. Gauging the percentage of people 32 Bell, In the Mid1·1 a/Life, 8-9. �SLOVAKIA 2021 67 in any historic ethnic group who chose to affiliate with its religious institutions can be prohibitively difficult. Any calculations done in this regard would probably be estimates rather than precise statistics. Furthermore, such figures do not address the underlying problems of assessing personal commitment and spiritual life as opposed to nominal membership. Other dimensions of the phenomenon bedevil quantification . Historians must look carefully at how the character of their subject evolves over time. In this case, they would be compelled to examine, for instance, the religious commitment of the displaced people who formed the first generation in America and then their at least partly assimilated, Anglophone descendants. Did interest in ecclesiastical life vary diachronically? Was it consistent in large cities and small mill towns? Did it appear to be more vibrant in areas where the Slovaks constituted a relatively large percentage of the population than in those areas where they were but a small minority? Were married men more inclined than bachelors to participate in organized religious life? These and related questions are by no means limited to Slovaks or other Eastern and Central Europeans in North America and their descendants but are relevant to much of the ethnic panorama. A broad consideration of this obviously lies beyond the bounds of the present study, but two quite different kinds of examples illustrate the point. One stems from the present writer's extensive, multidenominational research on the history of the approximately 800,000 Norwegians who emigrated to the United States. Most of them were at least nominal members of the established Evangelical Lutheran Church in their homeland, although levels of participation in its sacraments, services, and so on varied greatly from region to region. Numerous " revival" movements, some of them led by lay preachers, had reinvigorated the spiritual life of the nation. Nonconformist denominations also sprouted in the nineteenth century, giving especially those Norwegians who lived in coastal towns some measure of churches from which to choose. At the same time, however, anticlerical critics emerged, sometimes in tandem with an incipient labor movement. After reaching the United States, large numbers of these Nordic newcomers formed many hundreds of Lutheran churches, chiefly in the Upper Midwest, with smaller numbers in other regions. They also founded several church-related undergraduate colleges, most of which continue to thrive in the twenty-first century, and several theological �68 SLOVAKIA 2021 seminaries for training new generations of pastors. All in all , denominational membership statistics clearly indicate that a higher percentage of Norwegian immigrants than their Swedish and Danish counterparts, to cite the most meaningful comparisons, were affiliated with what can be regarded as their birthright religious institutions. However, as I have demonstrated, this involvement varied immensely, and overall only about 30 percent of first-generation Norwegian-Americans became members of the ethnic Lutheran churches in which one might expect to find them .33 The evidence disconfirmed sweeping generalizations that historians of immigration had made for approximately two generations about the supposedly lofty level of religious loyalty among newcomers from Norway. Turning to a significantly different kind of example, in 1964 Rudolph J. Vecoli strongly challenged the generalized portrayal of immigrants in America which Oscar Handlin had presented in his Pulitzer Prize-winning popular history, The Uprooted, twelve years earlier. Writing about the tens of thousands of contadini (i.e. peasants) from southern Italy who had settled in Chicago, Vecoli declared that the noted Harvard historian 's theory that the process of adjusting to life on American shores had strengthened their religious li fe in an ali en environment. Not so, this Italian-American argued. "American priests were scandali zed by the indifference of the Italians to the Church . Even when Italian churches were provided by the Catholic hierarchy, the contadini seldom displayed any religious enthusiasm ." 34 Within the Slavic-American spectrum, the extent of Slovak detachment from organized religious life awaits detailed ana lysis. In 2005 sociologist Paul Froese published an article about the significantly differing levels of involvement in Slovakia and the Czech Republic in recent decades. He attributed the higher degree among Slovaks to a historically different relationship between religion and nationalism . " In Slovakia," he concluded, "Roman Catholi cism and nationalism are conjoined in much the same way as they are in Poland." One consequence of thi s is greater loya lty to the Roman Catholi c 33 Frederi ck Ha le, No rwegian Religious Pluralism: A Trans-Atlantic Comparison (New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1992). 34 Rudo lph J. Vecoli , "Contadini in Chi cago: A Critique of The Uprooted." The Journal of American History LI , no. 3 ( December 1964): 415. �SLOVAKIA 2021 69 Church in Slovakia than in the Czech Republic.35 Froese did not, however, deal at all with the history of religious life among Slovaks who had been transplanted to a different environment in North America. Establishing the defensible perimeter of descriptions of SlovakAmerican religious life thus remains a difficult task, one which would have to take into account not only formal religious involvement and activity but also the extent to which an as yet indeterminate number of people chose not to become affiliated or who were directly critical of Christianity and its institutions. Moreover, the historical calculus would have to take into account changes over time. Out of This Furnace offers a stimulating if obviously truncated impression of Slovak religious life during the first few crucial decades of this group's history in industrial America. Indeed, when one considers Bell's personal separation from that important dimension of his ethnic heritage, it is arguably surprising how many aspects of it appear in this novel. One finds observations about inter a/ia priestly ministry, interaction with non-Slovak churches, efforts to raise children according to traditional religious values, prayer, community worship, and the relationship between religious institutions and the labor movement. To be sure, there is silence about significant historical matters, such as the Lutheran and other Protestant churches among Slovak immigrants. Far too little about these topics has been published in any genre. Will future litterateurs take up their pens and construct engaging fictional accounts that tell readers far more about the spiritual life of the group, thereby further enriching the colorful tapestry of ethnic historical fiction? To be sure, no amount of meticulous research could replace Bell ' s first-hand knowledge of Slovak immigrant life in Braddock, but many historical novelists have crafted credible works about topics which they did not experience. While we might be ill-advised to hold our breath, we can find comfort in Alexander Pope ' s oft-quoted words, " Hope springs eternal in the human breast." 35 Paul Froese, "Secular Czechs and Devout Slova ks: Ex ploring Religious Differences," Review of Religious Research XL VI , no. 3 (March 2005): 269, 280. � SLOVAKIA 2021 53 RECONSIDERING SLOVAK-AMERICAN RELIGIOUS COMMITMENT: THOMAS BELL'S OUT OF THIS FURNACE IN HISTORIOGRAPHICAL CONTEXT Frederick Hale Introduction If any work of fiction deserves to be called " the great SlovakAmerican historical novel ," it is undoubtedly Thomas Bell 's Out of This Furnace. To be sure, the competition is nearly non-existent. 1 Nevertheless, since its initial publication in 1941 , thi s volume of more than 400 pages has offered readers a hi ghly readable and insightful view of immigrant laborers and their descendants, chiefly in the steel mill town s of western Pennsylvania where many Slovaks toiled. Their presence became woven into the multicolored ethni c fabric of that once-booming region. Though for many upward social mobility came at a snai l's pace, organized community li fe began early and remained vibrant, and the members of the group contributed mightily to the prosperity of the cities in which they sacrificed seemingly endless hours on the a ltars of an economy of wh ich they were far more the victims than the lords. Beg inning, apparently, as economically virtually powerless and thus wi lling to accept their su bservient lot in life, many gradua lly gained a bolder spirit through the labor movements in which they participated . In tandem with their inevitable assim ilation, Slovak-Americans eventuall y gained a greater voice in the direction of their working lives. These interrelated matters form much of the thematic warp and woof of Bell 's much-lauded novel , which traces three generations through their tribul ations to a more ass imilated 1 Michael ovak 's quasi-autobiogra phical The Tiber Was S ilver ( 1961) failed to make a perceptible splash in the waters of American literature, and hi s Naked I l eave ( 1970), whi ch was more widely rev iewed, was a lso criticall y interpreted as a fictional ized mirror of hi s transition from Roman Catho li c se minarian to journalist. These intensely personal works by a prominent Slovak-American inte llectua l whose life began in Jo hn stown , Pennsylvania, in 1933 are not w itho ut arti stic merit , but th ey belo ng to a sub-genre o f ficti o n quite different from Be ll 's realistic po rtraya l of th e ethni c g roup's hi story in th e late nin eteenth and ea rl y twenti eth centuri es. �54 SLOVAKIA 2021 status and to higher rungs of the socio-economic ladder. Mu tat is mutandis, the story it tells echoes that of numerous other immigrant groups in urban America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Conceivably the eventual upward mobility-engendered in part by the labor movement- underlay the translation of this work into Slovak and its publication in 1949 in Czechoslovakia, when that country was to a great degree under the hegemony of the Soviet Union during the chilliest days of the Cold War. Furthermore, owing to its pedagogical value for teaching American immigration and labor hi story, in 1976 the University of Pittsburgh reprinted Out of This Furnace in response to a proposal by Professor David P. Demarest of Carnegie Mellon University. It fitted this social activist's converging interests in workingclass literature and labor history hand-in-glove. The relative popularity of the book led to a fiftieth anniversary edition in 1991. Bell illuminated many facets of Slovak-American working-class life and did not hesitate to include in his narrati ve several less savory dimensions of it that less candid writers might have chosen to minimize or ignore entirely in the interests of presenting palatable impressions of their respective ethnic groups. As Professor David J. Goldberg noted in 20 IO when advocating the assignment of Out of This Furnace to university students, " Men get drunk in saloons. Weddings and funerals are occasions for arguments." 2 A Limited Tradition of Scholarly Consideration Out of This Furnace has been neither the beneficiary nor the victim of extensive scholarly criticism, but it has not been completely ignored. In hi s study of American writers of the 1930s, especially those on the political Left, Leo Gurko devoted a few paragraphs to Bell ' s authorship and commented on this novel. However, Gurko did not evince adequate familiarity with this novelist's oeuvre. He judged that the ideological positions taken by Bell's characters "end with trade-unionism and anti-fascism," a myopic observation that overlooks the central character in All Brides Are Beautiful. Turning specifically to the hi storical span of Out o_fThis Furnace, Gurko thought that 2 David J. Goldberg, "Thomas Bell's 0111 o_(This Furnace: An Evaluation and an Appreciation," Journal of American Ethnic History, XXIX, no. 2 (Winter 2010), p. 664 . �SLOVAKIA 2021 55 it covered two generations of Slovak-Americans, when in fact it dealt with three. 3 In 1975, i.e. a year before its republication by the University of Pittsburgh Press, John F. Berko contributed an article about Bell as a novelist to the journal Slovak Studies but devoted only one page to this particular novel. 4 Furthermore, after encouraging its republication Demarest wrote a moderately detailed Afterword in which he provided useful information without dissecting the text. The eminent historian of Slovak immigrants in North America Marian Mark Stolarik has credited Bell with describing Slovak-American life "very we ll" but lamented that he had "completely ignored the religiosity" of this ethnic group. 5 Stolarik's criticism at this point dovetails neatly with what he and other historians have repeatedly stated about the enthusiasm of Slovak-Americans for ecclesiastical life. In his article " Religious Developments Among the Slovaks in America," for example, published in the Slovak League of America's celebratory bicentennial volume in 1978, Daniel F. Tanzone could declare without reserve that "the most di stinctive characteristic of the Slovaks is their deep and abiding faith in God." The zeal they evinced in Central Europe, he emphasized, became transatlantic as immigrants from Slovakia " made great effort to hear the word of God preached to them in their native Slovak tongue." 6 The linkage between social and religious life has also been highlighted in the pertinent historiography. As Stolarik explained in the 1980s, upon settling in the United States Slovaks typically initiated this by founding "fraternal-benefit" societies to provide emotional and economic safety nets. These lodges usually reflected the discrete religious affiliations of individuals within the larger group and were identifiable as de facto Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Lutheran, or Calvinist. From the religious cohesion of such local societies formal , 3 Leo Gurko, The Angty Decade (New York : Dodd, Mead and Company, 1947), 66-9. John F. Berko, "Thomas Bell ( 1903- 196 1) Slovak-Ameri can Novelist," Slovak S1udies, XV ( 1975), 143-58. 5 M. Mark Stolarik to Frederick Hale, 14 November 20 17 (electronic correspondence) . 6 Daniel F. Tanzone, "Religious Developments Among the Slovaks in America," in Slovaks in America: A Bicenlennial S!udy (Middletown, Pennsylvani a: The Slovak League of America, 1978), 57 . 4 �56 SLOVAKIA 2021 distinctly Slovak parishes sprang, often after a period of worshiping with, for example, Polish fellow immigrants.7 In his history of three generations of Slovak-Americans in the steel mill town of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, from the 1880s until the 1970s, Stolarik related in some detail how they were divided into three religious communities, chiefly Roman Catholic but also Greek Catholic and Lutheran . Church life among many of these people appears to have been vibrant, despite chronic financial hardship that, for example, protracted the amortization of mortgages. Church edifices began to appear at a very early stage. 8 He was thus not in doubt that " religion played a central role in the life of Bethlehem Slovaks."9 Of particular relevance to Out of This Furnace, Stolarik argued that on a national basis the "overwhelming loyalty" of Slovak-Americans to their religious life helped to immunize them from an early stage of their history to socialist movements which were drawing support from many other working-class immigrants well before the end of the nineteenth century. 10 More than two decades later, Stolarik published what may be the most up-to-date, albeit still brief, scholarly consideration of SlovakAmerican religious life. Writing in The Catholic Historical Review, he emphasized why the immigrants in question were divided into four denominations and how they adjusted to ecclesiastical circumstances in the United States of America and Canada, particularly the creation of specific ethnic parishes. Stolarik did not, however, deal with such matters as the non-affiliation of individuals with churches, anticlericalism, and hostility to or disagreement with religion as such. He judiciously acknowledged that much research remained to be done before historians could paint anything approaching a comprehensive portrait of the spiritual life of Slovak-Americans generally. 11 7 Marian Mark Stolarik , Immigration and Urbanization: The Slovak Experience, 18701918 (New York: AMS Press, Inc ., 1989), 82-3 . 8 M. Mark Stolarik, Growing Up on the South Side: Three Genera/ions of Slovaks in Bethlehem. Pennsylvania. 1880-/9 76 (Lewisburg, Pennsylvania: Bucknell University Press, 1985), 44-62. 44. 10 Stolarik, Immigration and Urbanization, 8 1. 11 M. Mark Stolarik, " Slovak Immigrants Come to Term s with Reli g ious Diversity in North America," The Catholic Historical Review, XCVI , no. I (January 20 I 0): 5684. 9 Ibid ., �SLOVAKIA 2021 57 The publication in 2012 of his lengthy Where Is My Home? Slovak Immigration to North America (/ 870-2010) gave Stolarik an opportunity to touch on aspects of Slovak immigrants ' religious life in North America. His seventh chapter, "Slovak Marxists Disagree" dealt with what he acknowledged were the "few Marxists" among the Slovaks in the United States and Canada. This minuscule segment established mutual benefit societies which competed on a minor scale with the churches for the loyalty of the immigrants and their descendants but, as Stolarik emphasized, "their number remained small." 12 He briefly traced a waning of the socialists ' initially strident criticism ofreligious life and concluded that by the 1940s the verbal warfare had ceased. 13 The di sagreements to which the chapter' s title refers were largely those among the socialists themselves, especially with regard to political developments in their homeland, not to disputes between these men of the left and the ecclesiastical traditions they had left behind. The empirically challenging question of the scope of general SlovakAmerican indifference to and non-participation in formal religious life thus remained essentially unanswered. Regarding participation in secular campaigns to improve working conditions in industrial America, it is difficult to ascertain how many of these newcomers and their descendants supported the more inclusive labor movement, which in the USA was only partly socialist. However, it is known that Bell himself was a man of the Left, albeit not in a consistently outspoken way. How unrepresentative of SlovakAmericans he was in that regard is an interesting question, though one that necessarily lies beyond the scope of the present article. At any rate, in Out o_f This Furnace Bell presented the labor movement in a positive manner and highlighted the participation of at least a small number of Slovak-Americans in it. This is probably significant to an understanding of the dispersed treatment of religion in this fictional construction. 12 M. Mark Stolarik, Where Is My Home? Slovak Immigration to North America ( / 87020 10) (Bern : Peter Lang AG, Internati onal Academi c Publishers, 201 2), p. 205. 13 Stolarik, Wh ere Is My Home?, pp. 2 12-2 13. �58 SLOVAKIA 2021 A Little-known Literary A rtist Bell ' s earl y li fe endowed him with an intimate know ledge of hi s subj ect. His parents were fro m the village of Ni zny Tvarozec in the Bardejov d istri ct of the Presov reg ion of northwestern Slovaki a. He was born in the mill tow n of Braddock, Penn sylvani a, j ust east of Pi ttsburgh, in 1903 . 14 That small c ity had a popul ati on of 15,654 in 1900, a fig ure whi ch rose to sli ghtly over 20,000 two decades later before a persistent dec line reduced it to a poverty-stri cken village in the late twentieth century. His origi nal name was Ada lbert Thomas Belejcak, a cu mbersome moniker whi ch he never used during hi s career as a nove li st. Leav ing schoo l as an ado lescent, he worked loca ll y from age fifteen as an electri c ian' s apprenti ce but in 1922 re located to New York and was vari ously empl oyed fo r approximate ly a decade as a merchant sea man, boo kstore clerk , and mechani c. Bell 's first nove l, The Breed of Bas il, appeared in 1930, and from 1933 onward he was a fu ll -time writer, th ough onl y fi ve of hi s nove ls were issued. Hi s All Brides Are Beautiful was the bas is of a motion picture starrin g Joa n Fonta ine and Mark Stevens, and Till! Come Back to You was dramati zed and produced on Broadway by Jed Harri s. In other noteworthy d imensions of his career w ith the pen, Be ll contri buted short stori es to such magazi nes as McCall 's and Ladies ' Home J ournal, and eventuall y worked as a Holl ywood screenwriter. After mov ing to Cali fo rni a in 1955 , he continued to write sporadi ca ll y whil e operating the East Side Gift and Stati onery Shop in Santa Cruz. His hea lth deteri orated in the late 1950s, and he di ed of cancer in 196 1. The fun era l was held in a mortuary chapel rather than a church, and Bell 's ashes were interred at the crematory of the Independent Order of Odd Fell ows . 15 The few sources of readil y ava il able info rmation about hi s li fe do not suggest th at he had any ex perience in Slovaki a, and nothin g in Out of This Furnace indi cates that he had noteworthy know ledge of that coun try apart fro m what may have been handed down ora ll y from hi s fo rebears. Bell appears to have reli ed almost exc lusive ly on ora l traditi on and memories of hi s childhood in western Penn sy lvani a when craftin g thi s nove l. 14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wikiff homas_ Bell_(nove list). Accessed 2 January 2020. For SC ovelist T homas Bell Set," Santa Cruz Sentinel, 17 January I 96 1, p. 12. 15 " Servi ces �SLOVAKIA 2021 59 Ideologically, Bell stood unabashedly on the left flank of the American political spectrum. This comes to the fore more vividly in his credible proletarian novel of 1936, All Brides Are Beautiful, which was the basis of the motion picture From This Day Forward, which premiered in 1946. Set in New York during the Depression of the 1930s, its principal protagonist is an Irish-American named Peter Cummings who, like many of his fellow citizens, suffers from underemployment and discrimination in the labor market. He reads a new book of British origin, The Nature of Capitalist Crisis, by John Strachey, a Labour Party politician who, despite his bourgeois origins (his father edited the Conservative-supporting periodical The Spectator) and privileged education at Eton College and the University of Oxford , was a communist sympathizer before turning against Communism in 1940. The narrative is peppered with references to inter alia the Workers Bookshop and the newspaper Daily Worker, published in New York by the Communist Party of the United States of America. In response to a query by another character, Cummings confirms his suspected political sympathies but qualifies this by assuring her, "I ' m not a very good Communist." 16 In the general scholarly literature about American literature (in which works by many individuals about immigrant groups are relatively well represented), Bell remains almost completely invisible. Never did an article about him appear in the hundreds of volumes in the nearly exhaustive reference work Contemporary Authors. As of 2020, the seemingly very inclusive Dictionary of Literary Biography, well over 300 volumes strong, has not included an essay about Bell. Rarely is he even mentioned in general surveys of the wider subject. Anyone searching for information about this fairly productive writer' s life and oeuvre will be fortunate to reap even a meager harvest of information . Contemporary reviews of his novels are a partial exception to this generalization, but even they are not particularly abundant. Out of This Furnace is a constructed family epic, and not even the later stages of the saga, which overlap with its author' s life, are quite autobiographical. In his Afterword in the 1976 edition, Demarest relied heavily on information gleaned from Bell's younger brother, 16 Thomas Bell , All Brides Are Beautiful (Boston: Linle, Brown, and Company, 1936), 21 6. �60 SLOVAKIA 2021 Anthony, to highlight certain fictional departures from the ostensible facts of the Belejcak family history . Plot Summary Out of This Furnace is structured in four parts. The first deals principally with George (or "Djuro") Kracha, who leaves his Slovak peasant life (and, temporarily, his young and pregnant wife in the care of his mother) in the autumn of 1881. After giving birth to a son a few months later, she joins him in Pennsylvania. They eke out a basic existence as George finds employment in a steel mill but his upward mobility is limited to operating a temporarily profitable butcher shop. There is no moral progression in this character. After his wife dies, he marries a fellow Slovak who emigrated simultaneous ly with him, but this frequently inebriated and cognitively unimpressive man is jailed for beating her. The second and third parts relate in much detail the lives of his daughter, Mary, and her husband, Mike Dobrejcak. These members of the second-generation toil arduously but receive scant reward for their labors. However, they are confident that their son, Dobie, can enjoy a materially better life than they have, a conviction this quite Americanized lad shares. He fulfills their expectations to a great degree. Having received several years' schooling, he speaks Eng li sh fluently and uses his rhetorical talent to advocate workers ' rights. In the fourth part, Dobie also toils in mills but plays a crucial role in the unionization of the labor force regionally and ventures to Washington to participate in labor negotiations. To a vastly greater degree than his immigrant grandfather, Dobie embodies an altrui stic spirit. He is a considerate husband and parent who is concerned not merely about his own welfare but a lso that of his descendants and of the working class in general. All in all , the saga of this family through three generations relates much about the initially glacial but gradual and inconsistent rise of Slovak-Americans during decades when the spoils of the labor and entrepreneurial spirit that transformed the United States into a massive industrial power were so unevenly distributed. In doing so, Bell's novel sheds much light on social relationships within the ethnic group, the partial retention of ethnic culture, and other related matters. �SLOVAKIA 2021 61 A Miscellany of Religious Motifs The narrative does not deal in nearly as much detail about the reli gious life of Slovak-Americans as historians of Christianity might wi sh. This theme plays second or third fiddle in an otherwise fairly well-deve loped fictional orchestration of immigrant hi story. How much Bell knew about that aspect of his family's story which forms the core of the construction is difficult to assess. According to his brother Anthony, who provided Demarest with information about the clan, their father was a very active layman " in the church and related organizations" whose involvement in them took him to meetings throughout Pennsylvania and in Ohio. 17 In one of the most didactic sections of Part Two, the narrator genera li zes about the characteristics of the ethnic group. " In the o ld country the Slovaks had been an oppressed minority from the beginning of time, a simple, religious, unwarlike people, a nation of peasants and shepherds whom the centuries had taught patience and humility," he declares, though without relating anything to substantiate this. "In America they were all this and more, foreigners in a strange land, ignorant of the land and customs, fearful of authority in whatever guise." 18 Churches exist in the depicted milieu, but much of the time they remain vague entities in the background. There is relatively little description of either individuals or Slovak-American families worshiping regularly or otherwise participating in ecc lesiastical life, and one finds only occasional hints of private religious devotion. (Certa in key exceptions are discussed below.) There are priests, of course, but one gets the impression that in Bell ' s fictional world some of the key characters interact with them only on special occasions, such as at weddings and funerals, or when they encounter a crisis and perceive a need for sacerdotal intervention . The first such instance occurs in the Old World. When Kracha elects to try his luck in America, he leaves his pregnant wife Elena in the care of his mother, an arrangement which proves inauspicious. The otherwise anonymous local priest who writes letters on behalf of these two presumably illiterate women informs Kracha that his a iling wife 17 18 Dav id P. Demarest, Jr. , " Afterword," in Bell , Ou! of This Furnace, 420. Bell , Ow of This Furnace, 123 . �62 SLOVAKIA 2021 and her mother-in-law are not fully compatible, especially when cohabiting in a one-room hut, and that he should do whatever is necessary to enable her relocation to America at the earliest opportunity. 19 Beyond that brief part, there is virtually nothing in Out of This Furnace about religious life in Slovakia. In the scattered comments about Slovak-American churches, one finds themes that reflect what one can read in nonfictional historical surveys. For example, new clusters of Slovak immigrants typically worshipped temporarily in the sanctuaries of non-Slovaks before founding their own parishes. Early in the narrative, a young Slovak immigrant couple have their nuptial mass in an Irish-American Roman Catholic church because there is not yet one of their own national heritage.20 When the number of Slovaks in individual locales increased to the point where they could organize their own parishes, they sometimes bought church edifices from Protestant congregations whose members were gradually moving to other communities. There are two occurrences of this in Out of This Furnace. In Braddock, Slovak Roman Catholics "took over" First Baptist Church and rededicated it as St. Michael's Church.2 1 Their ethnic fellows of Greek Catholi c loyalty followed suit shortly thereafter, purchasing what had been the First Presbyterian Church in an unappealing location a long the railroad tracks in the same small city. In its new denominational iteration, it had become St. Peter and St. Paul ' s. 22 Readers are not given nearly enough information about the ecclesiastica l life of the community to create a comprehensive portrait of that subject in general or the proportion of Slovaks who were active church members. There is no reason to believe that the dissolute Kracha is such an individual. On the other hand, after his sickly spouse Elena recovers sufficiently to leave the house, she begins to go to church every morning. However, this is described as the behavior of a mentally troubled soul who has largely withdrawn into herself, not as that of one with a normal socia l li fe . C lasping her rosary, Elena has " now more than ever a frightened , beaten look," perhaps owing to her 19 Bell , Bell , 21 Bell , 22 Bell , 20 0111 o( This Ou! of This Ou! of This 0111 of This Furnace, 14. Furnace, 19 . Furnace, 38. Furnace, 69. �SLOVAKIA 2021 63 inability to adapt to her difficult life as Kracha's wife in a dismal mill town. 23 The phenomenon of non-involvement in organized community religious life is dealt with only fleetingly . The most explicit example of this stems from Bell's critique of capitalist exploitation of the steelworkers. Kracha's colleague Joe Dubik is introduced as "a Rusnak, a Greek Catholic from Tvarosc in Sarisa." 24 Having preceded Kracha to Braddock, he welcomes his friend when the latter arrives and shows him around the town. Passing the Carnegie public library (endowed by the philanthropy of the Scottish immigrant steel magnate Andrew Carnegie), Dubik admits that he had never entered it. " When do I have the time for such things?" he explains wistfully. "Since they cut wages and put us on twelve hours l've even stopped going to church." 25 But some continue to attend mass. One is Mike Dobrejcak , the long-suffering son-in-law of Kracha, who rarely finds joy in life and is trapped in his career as a steelworker. In a paragraph of several hundred words, the narrator provides moving insight into the spiritual constitution of this second-generation Slovak-American and the personal significance of his religious life. He prefers to attend the evening mass in the Greek Catholic Church. In contrast to high mass, where God seems to be "the thundering, awe-inspiring Lord of the Universe in vestments of white and gold," for after sunset the deity seems to be "a friend whom one dropped in to visit, God still but God at ease, His shoes and trousers showing below His robes." This approachable deity is one to whom Mike can pray for his wife Mary, their children, and him self. He can do so confident that God is superior to steel corporations and their general superintendents. Moreover, and perhaps just as important to Mike, the church in which this relationship unfolds is a social leveler. In its sanctuary " he was not a check number of a Hunky laborer, but a man." God, he believes, cared not a whit about socioeconomic differences or ethnic strata in American society: " Here he was welcome, here he belonged . Here he spoke in his own tongue; and without fear, without awkwardness, he spoke of himself, hi s hopes, hi s troubles, hi s need of help. And God heard him out." The God of the church, and especially of evening mass, " knew him by name, knew 23 Bell , Out a/This Furnace, 64. Bell , Out a/This Furnace, 10. 25 Bell , Out a/This Furnace, 34. 24 �64 SLOVAKIA 2021 about Mary and the children understood how it was with all of them and had a pretty good idea what kind of person, behind his laborer's clothes and poor English, Mike really was. God , in short, liked him ." The psychological impact is subtle but real; "The world was always a less unfriendly place and he nearly always walked a little straighter, heartened, protected, when he came out." 26 Nor is Mike alone. The narrator acknowledges that more pews are empty than filled, but the congregation includes inter alia old parishioners who attended mass daily and twice on Sunday. Far more prevalent in the throng are young couples who also appreciated the subdued sociability of a vespers service. It gave them "an irreproachable excuse to be together and was cheaper than a trip to Kennywood," explains the narrator. 27 No single factor, in other words, expla ins why Slovak-Americans participate in the worship of their churches . Bell ' s fictional construction of Slovak participation in the unsuccessful 1919 Great Steel Strike gave him an opportunity to explore a dimension of the ro le of religious factors in a matter of immense personal interest. Hi s sympathy with the goals of the strike, which took place while he was sti ll a teenager in Braddock, is manifest. Bell included a paragraph listing the union's demands, among them such minimal conditions as an eight-hour day, the right of workers to bargain collectively, and one day off every week. 28 Against this background, the support of the long-serving priest in Braddock, Father Kazincy, for the campaign is understandable. Indeed, he has urged parishioners to join the union , and he allows an organizing committee to meet in the basement of his church. When "veiled threats" are made by an unidentified party to foreclose on the parish's mortgage, Kazincy replies that if that is done he will place a sign on the front of the building announcing: "Thi s Church of Christ c losed by the United States Steel Corporation ." He further show s his so lidari ty after mass at St. Michael's on the Sunday morning immediately before the beginning of the strike when a state trooper orders people who congregate outside the building to disperse: "Father Kazincy came out of the church and protested, a tall , gray-haired man in priestly robes standing 26 Bell , Out of This Furnace, 17 1. Bell, Out of This Furnace, 170. Launched in 1899 in West Miffin. southeast of Pittsburgh, Kenn ywood was an amusement park and picnic area th at attracted large numbers of workin g-cl ass people. 28 Bell, Out of This Furnace, 240. 27 �SLOVAKIA 2021 65 beside the trooper's restless horse, his face uplifted, alight with indignation." 29 This sympathy-inspiring partisanship is juxtaposed with less appealing conduct on the part of the Irish-dominated Roman Catholic Church . At its St. Brendan's Church " in the ' good ' part of town", the priest declares in his homily, "This strike is not being brought about by intelligent English-speaking workmen ... . You can't reason with these people. Don't reason with them." The appropriate response, he preached, was to "knock them down!" In Bell ' s narrative, this hostility meshed with the response of the diocesan hierarchy to the strike. A delegation of Catholic strikers call on the bishop of Pittsburgh (whom Bell calls "Bishop Canavan" but in fact was Regis Canevin from 1904 until 1921) imploring him to support the action, not least because a majority of the strikers are Catholics. But that prelate declines to do so. Underscoring the influence of the industrial magnates on religious life, "not long after that the Pittsburgh Catholic Charities received a check for twenty-five thousand dollars from the Carnegie Steel Company."30 An Atheist to the End Too little is known , and perhaps cannot be known , about Bell ' s low-profile life to trace whatever spiritual journey he may have had followed through his fifty-seven years. What is beyond dispute, however, is that the skepticism expressed in Out of This Furnace foreshadowed acknowledged atheism in his final book, In the Midst of life. This nonfictional volume, approximately 270 pages in length, was published a few months after his death in 1961 . It encompasses a miscellany of his thoughts and musings as a terminally ill cancer patient in Santa Cruz. Bell acknowledged in his first brief chapter that he was not on the same spiritual wavelength with many other people. "While others, in the old phrase, make their peace with God," he stated, "I must make mine with myself." 31 Bell noted that his beliefs differed markedly from those of one of his pious customers, a Mrs. Worth, who had sought to 29 Bell, Out of This Furnace, 241 . Out of This Furnace, 241 -2. 3 1Thomas Bell , In the Mid1·t a/Life (New York: Atheneum, 196 1), 5. 30 Bell, �66 SLOVAKIA 2021 encourage him at that critical stage of his life. He had even prayed to " Mrs. Worth 's God" in the privacy of a toilet at a hospital in Palo Alto, but his cancer had progressed unabated. Bell concluded that "belief in a supernatural god may disappear, and a good thing too," but in the same sentence he admitted that there were times "when one can only envy such people as Mrs. Worth. " 32 If his non credo of ca. 1960 represented his attitude towards the Christian faith two decades earlier, his willingness to write sympathetically, albeit briefly, about the religious life of his fictional characters at that time is all the more remarkable. Conclusion A juxtaposition of Out of This Furnace and the nonfictional texts cited in the present article highlights several problems that serious historians of religion encounter when they are seeking to gauge, even in an approximate way, the spiritual life of Slovak immigrants in North America. On the one hand, there are assertions about the group's devotion to Christianity in several of its denominational forms. These assurances are typically supported by reference to the hundreds of churches which Slovaks founded in the New World, usually in the early stages of their community life in surroundings still only partially familiar to them, and in many instances after unsatisfactory experiences in multi-ethnic parishes. On the other hand, when one reads Out of This Furnace as almost certainly the principal fictional reconstruction of Slovak-American history, one finds significantly less about religion than nonfictional literature might reasonably lead one to expect. Considered in isolation, Out a/This Furnace thus gives an impression that is difficult to harmoni ze with the large number of enduring Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, and other sorts of parishes which these immigrants founded to serve as their spiritual homes. No doubt part of the answer inheres in accepting the fact that Slovak-Americans were by no means a monolithic entity, but a diverse segment of the Euro-American population which probably always included individuals with varying degrees of religious fervor and criticism thereof, different levels of moral development, and no uniformity of commitment to community life. Gauging the percentage of people 32 Bell, In the Mid1·1 a/Life, 8-9. �SLOVAKIA 2021 67 in any historic ethnic group who chose to affiliate with its religious institutions can be prohibitively difficult. Any calculations done in this regard would probably be estimates rather than precise statistics. Furthermore, such figures do not address the underlying problems of assessing personal commitment and spiritual life as opposed to nominal membership. Other dimensions of the phenomenon bedevil quantification . Historians must look carefully at how the character of their subject evolves over time. In this case, they would be compelled to examine, for instance, the religious commitment of the displaced people who formed the first generation in America and then their at least partly assimilated, Anglophone descendants. Did interest in ecclesiastical life vary diachronically? Was it consistent in large cities and small mill towns? Did it appear to be more vibrant in areas where the Slovaks constituted a relatively large percentage of the population than in those areas where they were but a small minority? Were married men more inclined than bachelors to participate in organized religious life? These and related questions are by no means limited to Slovaks or other Eastern and Central Europeans in North America and their descendants but are relevant to much of the ethnic panorama. A broad consideration of this obviously lies beyond the bounds of the present study, but two quite different kinds of examples illustrate the point. One stems from the present writer's extensive, multidenominational research on the history of the approximately 800,000 Norwegians who emigrated to the United States. Most of them were at least nominal members of the established Evangelical Lutheran Church in their homeland, although levels of participation in its sacraments, services, and so on varied greatly from region to region. Numerous " revival" movements, some of them led by lay preachers, had reinvigorated the spiritual life of the nation. Nonconformist denominations also sprouted in the nineteenth century, giving especially those Norwegians who lived in coastal towns some measure of churches from which to choose. At the same time, however, anticlerical critics emerged, sometimes in tandem with an incipient labor movement. After reaching the United States, large numbers of these Nordic newcomers formed many hundreds of Lutheran churches, chiefly in the Upper Midwest, with smaller numbers in other regions. They also founded several church-related undergraduate colleges, most of which continue to thrive in the twenty-first century, and several theological �68 SLOVAKIA 2021 seminaries for training new generations of pastors. All in all , denominational membership statistics clearly indicate that a higher percentage of Norwegian immigrants than their Swedish and Danish counterparts, to cite the most meaningful comparisons, were affiliated with what can be regarded as their birthright religious institutions. However, as I have demonstrated, this involvement varied immensely, and overall only about 30 percent of first-generation Norwegian-Americans became members of the ethnic Lutheran churches in which one might expect to find them .33 The evidence disconfirmed sweeping generalizations that historians of immigration had made for approximately two generations about the supposedly lofty level of religious loyalty among newcomers from Norway. Turning to a significantly different kind of example, in 1964 Rudolph J. Vecoli strongly challenged the generalized portrayal of immigrants in America which Oscar Handlin had presented in his Pulitzer Prize-winning popular history, The Uprooted, twelve years earlier. Writing about the tens of thousands of contadini (i.e. peasants) from southern Italy who had settled in Chicago, Vecoli declared that the noted Harvard historian 's theory that the process of adjusting to life on American shores had strengthened their religious li fe in an ali en environment. Not so, this Italian-American argued. "American priests were scandali zed by the indifference of the Italians to the Church . Even when Italian churches were provided by the Catholic hierarchy, the contadini seldom displayed any religious enthusiasm ." 34 Within the Slavic-American spectrum, the extent of Slovak detachment from organized religious life awaits detailed ana lysis. In 2005 sociologist Paul Froese published an article about the significantly differing levels of involvement in Slovakia and the Czech Republic in recent decades. He attributed the higher degree among Slovaks to a historically different relationship between religion and nationalism . " In Slovakia," he concluded, "Roman Catholi cism and nationalism are conjoined in much the same way as they are in Poland." One consequence of thi s is greater loya lty to the Roman Catholi c 33 Frederi ck Ha le, No rwegian Religious Pluralism: A Trans-Atlantic Comparison (New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1992). 34 Rudo lph J. Vecoli , "Contadini in Chi cago: A Critique of The Uprooted." The Journal of American History LI , no. 3 ( December 1964): 415. �SLOVAKIA 2021 69 Church in Slovakia than in the Czech Republic.35 Froese did not, however, deal at all with the history of religious life among Slovaks who had been transplanted to a different environment in North America. Establishing the defensible perimeter of descriptions of SlovakAmerican religious life thus remains a difficult task, one which would have to take into account not only formal religious involvement and activity but also the extent to which an as yet indeterminate number of people chose not to become affiliated or who were directly critical of Christianity and its institutions. Moreover, the historical calculus would have to take into account changes over time. Out of This Furnace offers a stimulating if obviously truncated impression of Slovak religious life during the first few crucial decades of this group's history in industrial America. Indeed, when one considers Bell's personal separation from that important dimension of his ethnic heritage, it is arguably surprising how many aspects of it appear in this novel. One finds observations about inter a/ia priestly ministry, interaction with non-Slovak churches, efforts to raise children according to traditional religious values, prayer, community worship, and the relationship between religious institutions and the labor movement. To be sure, there is silence about significant historical matters, such as the Lutheran and other Protestant churches among Slovak immigrants. Far too little about these topics has been published in any genre. Will future litterateurs take up their pens and construct engaging fictional accounts that tell readers far more about the spiritual life of the group, thereby further enriching the colorful tapestry of ethnic historical fiction? To be sure, no amount of meticulous research could replace Bell ' s first-hand knowledge of Slovak immigrant life in Braddock, but many historical novelists have crafted credible works about topics which they did not experience. While we might be ill-advised to hold our breath, we can find comfort in Alexander Pope ' s oft-quoted words, " Hope springs eternal in the human breast." 35 Paul Froese, "Secular Czechs and Devout Slova ks: Ex ploring Religious Differences," Review of Religious Research XL VI , no. 3 (March 2005): 269, 280. � 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 53 RECONSIDERING SLOVAK-AMERICAN RELIGIOUS COMMITMENT: THOMAS BELL'S OUT OF THIS FURNACE IN HISTORIOGRAPHICAL CONTEXT Frederick Hale Introduction If any work of fiction deserves to be called " the great SlovakAmerican historical novel ," it is undoubtedly Thomas Bell 's Out of This Furnace. To be sure, the competition is nearly non-existent. 1 Nevertheless, since its initial publication in 1941 , thi s volume of more than 400 pages has offered readers a hi ghly readable and insightful view of immigrant laborers and their descendants, chiefly in the steel mill town s of western Pennsylvania where many Slovaks toiled. Their presence became woven into the multicolored ethni c fabric of that once-booming region. Though for many upward social mobility came at a snai l's pace, organized community li fe began early and remained vibrant, and the members of the group contributed mightily to the prosperity of the cities in which they sacrificed seemingly endless hours on the a ltars of an economy of wh ich they were far more the victims than the lords. Beg inning, apparently, as economically virtually powerless and thus wi lling to accept their su bservient lot in life, many gradua lly gained a bolder spirit through the labor movements in which they participated . In tandem with their inevitable assim ilation, Slovak-Americans eventuall y gained a greater voice in the direction of their working lives. These interrelated matters form much of the thematic warp and woof of Bell 's much-lauded novel , which traces three generations through their tribul ations to a more ass imilated 1 Michael ovak 's quasi-autobiogra phical The Tiber Was S ilver ( 1961) failed to make a perceptible splash in the waters of American literature, and hi s Naked I l eave ( 1970), whi ch was more widely rev iewed, was a lso criticall y interpreted as a fictional ized mirror of hi s transition from Roman Catho li c se minarian to journalist. These intensely personal works by a prominent Slovak-American inte llectua l whose life began in Jo hn stown , Pennsylvania, in 1933 are not w itho ut arti stic merit , but th ey belo ng to a sub-genre o f ficti o n quite different from Be ll 's realistic po rtraya l of th e ethni c g roup's hi story in th e late nin eteenth and ea rl y twenti eth centuri es. 54 SLOVAKIA 2021 status and to higher rungs of the socio-economic ladder. Mu tat is mutandis, the story it tells echoes that of numerous other immigrant groups in urban America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Conceivably the eventual upward mobility-engendered in part by the labor movement- underlay the translation of this work into Slovak and its publication in 1949 in Czechoslovakia, when that country was to a great degree under the hegemony of the Soviet Union during the chilliest days of the Cold War. Furthermore, owing to its pedagogical value for teaching American immigration and labor hi story, in 1976 the University of Pittsburgh reprinted Out of This Furnace in response to a proposal by Professor David P. Demarest of Carnegie Mellon University. It fitted this social activist's converging interests in workingclass literature and labor history hand-in-glove. The relative popularity of the book led to a fiftieth anniversary edition in 1991. Bell illuminated many facets of Slovak-American working-class life and did not hesitate to include in his narrati ve several less savory dimensions of it that less candid writers might have chosen to minimize or ignore entirely in the interests of presenting palatable impressions of their respective ethnic groups. As Professor David J. Goldberg noted in 20 IO when advocating the assignment of Out of This Furnace to university students, " Men get drunk in saloons. Weddings and funerals are occasions for arguments." 2 A Limited Tradition of Scholarly Consideration Out of This Furnace has been neither the beneficiary nor the victim of extensive scholarly criticism, but it has not been completely ignored. In hi s study of American writers of the 1930s, especially those on the political Left, Leo Gurko devoted a few paragraphs to Bell ' s authorship and commented on this novel. However, Gurko did not evince adequate familiarity with this novelist's oeuvre. He judged that the ideological positions taken by Bell's characters "end with trade-unionism and anti-fascism," a myopic observation that overlooks the central character in All Brides Are Beautiful. Turning specifically to the hi storical span of Out o_fThis Furnace, Gurko thought that 2 David J. Goldberg, "Thomas Bell's 0111 o_(This Furnace: An Evaluation and an Appreciation," Journal of American Ethnic History, XXIX, no. 2 (Winter 2010), p. 664 . SLOVAKIA 2021 55 it covered two generations of Slovak-Americans, when in fact it dealt with three. 3 In 1975, i.e. a year before its republication by the University of Pittsburgh Press, John F. Berko contributed an article about Bell as a novelist to the journal Slovak Studies but devoted only one page to this particular novel. 4 Furthermore, after encouraging its republication Demarest wrote a moderately detailed Afterword in which he provided useful information without dissecting the text. The eminent historian of Slovak immigrants in North America Marian Mark Stolarik has credited Bell with describing Slovak-American life "very we ll" but lamented that he had "completely ignored the religiosity" of this ethnic group. 5 Stolarik's criticism at this point dovetails neatly with what he and other historians have repeatedly stated about the enthusiasm of Slovak-Americans for ecclesiastical life. In his article " Religious Developments Among the Slovaks in America," for example, published in the Slovak League of America's celebratory bicentennial volume in 1978, Daniel F. Tanzone could declare without reserve that "the most di stinctive characteristic of the Slovaks is their deep and abiding faith in God." The zeal they evinced in Central Europe, he emphasized, became transatlantic as immigrants from Slovakia " made great effort to hear the word of God preached to them in their native Slovak tongue." 6 The linkage between social and religious life has also been highlighted in the pertinent historiography. As Stolarik explained in the 1980s, upon settling in the United States Slovaks typically initiated this by founding "fraternal-benefit" societies to provide emotional and economic safety nets. These lodges usually reflected the discrete religious affiliations of individuals within the larger group and were identifiable as de facto Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Lutheran, or Calvinist. From the religious cohesion of such local societies formal , 3 Leo Gurko, The Angty Decade (New York : Dodd, Mead and Company, 1947), 66-9. John F. Berko, "Thomas Bell ( 1903- 196 1) Slovak-Ameri can Novelist," Slovak S1udies, XV ( 1975), 143-58. 5 M. Mark Stolarik to Frederick Hale, 14 November 20 17 (electronic correspondence) . 6 Daniel F. Tanzone, "Religious Developments Among the Slovaks in America," in Slovaks in America: A Bicenlennial S!udy (Middletown, Pennsylvani a: The Slovak League of America, 1978), 57 . 4 56 SLOVAKIA 2021 distinctly Slovak parishes sprang, often after a period of worshiping with, for example, Polish fellow immigrants.7 In his history of three generations of Slovak-Americans in the steel mill town of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, from the 1880s until the 1970s, Stolarik related in some detail how they were divided into three religious communities, chiefly Roman Catholic but also Greek Catholic and Lutheran . Church life among many of these people appears to have been vibrant, despite chronic financial hardship that, for example, protracted the amortization of mortgages. Church edifices began to appear at a very early stage. 8 He was thus not in doubt that " religion played a central role in the life of Bethlehem Slovaks."9 Of particular relevance to Out of This Furnace, Stolarik argued that on a national basis the "overwhelming loyalty" of Slovak-Americans to their religious life helped to immunize them from an early stage of their history to socialist movements which were drawing support from many other working-class immigrants well before the end of the nineteenth century. 10 More than two decades later, Stolarik published what may be the most up-to-date, albeit still brief, scholarly consideration of SlovakAmerican religious life. Writing in The Catholic Historical Review, he emphasized why the immigrants in question were divided into four denominations and how they adjusted to ecclesiastical circumstances in the United States of America and Canada, particularly the creation of specific ethnic parishes. Stolarik did not, however, deal with such matters as the non-affiliation of individuals with churches, anticlericalism, and hostility to or disagreement with religion as such. He judiciously acknowledged that much research remained to be done before historians could paint anything approaching a comprehensive portrait of the spiritual life of Slovak-Americans generally. 11 7 Marian Mark Stolarik , Immigration and Urbanization: The Slovak Experience, 18701918 (New York: AMS Press, Inc ., 1989), 82-3 . 8 M. Mark Stolarik, Growing Up on the South Side: Three Genera/ions of Slovaks in Bethlehem. Pennsylvania. 1880-/9 76 (Lewisburg, Pennsylvania: Bucknell University Press, 1985), 44-62. 44. 10 Stolarik, Immigration and Urbanization, 8 1. 11 M. Mark Stolarik, " Slovak Immigrants Come to Term s with Reli g ious Diversity in North America," The Catholic Historical Review, XCVI , no. I (January 20 I 0): 5684. 9 Ibid ., SLOVAKIA 2021 57 The publication in 2012 of his lengthy Where Is My Home? Slovak Immigration to North America (/ 870-2010) gave Stolarik an opportunity to touch on aspects of Slovak immigrants ' religious life in North America. His seventh chapter, "Slovak Marxists Disagree" dealt with what he acknowledged were the "few Marxists" among the Slovaks in the United States and Canada. This minuscule segment established mutual benefit societies which competed on a minor scale with the churches for the loyalty of the immigrants and their descendants but, as Stolarik emphasized, "their number remained small." 12 He briefly traced a waning of the socialists ' initially strident criticism ofreligious life and concluded that by the 1940s the verbal warfare had ceased. 13 The di sagreements to which the chapter' s title refers were largely those among the socialists themselves, especially with regard to political developments in their homeland, not to disputes between these men of the left and the ecclesiastical traditions they had left behind. The empirically challenging question of the scope of general SlovakAmerican indifference to and non-participation in formal religious life thus remained essentially unanswered. Regarding participation in secular campaigns to improve working conditions in industrial America, it is difficult to ascertain how many of these newcomers and their descendants supported the more inclusive labor movement, which in the USA was only partly socialist. However, it is known that Bell himself was a man of the Left, albeit not in a consistently outspoken way. How unrepresentative of SlovakAmericans he was in that regard is an interesting question, though one that necessarily lies beyond the scope of the present article. At any rate, in Out o_f This Furnace Bell presented the labor movement in a positive manner and highlighted the participation of at least a small number of Slovak-Americans in it. This is probably significant to an understanding of the dispersed treatment of religion in this fictional construction. 12 M. Mark Stolarik, Where Is My Home? Slovak Immigration to North America ( / 87020 10) (Bern : Peter Lang AG, Internati onal Academi c Publishers, 201 2), p. 205. 13 Stolarik, Wh ere Is My Home?, pp. 2 12-2 13. 58 SLOVAKIA 2021 A Little-known Literary A rtist Bell ' s earl y li fe endowed him with an intimate know ledge of hi s subj ect. His parents were fro m the village of Ni zny Tvarozec in the Bardejov d istri ct of the Presov reg ion of northwestern Slovaki a. He was born in the mill tow n of Braddock, Penn sylvani a, j ust east of Pi ttsburgh, in 1903 . 14 That small c ity had a popul ati on of 15,654 in 1900, a fig ure whi ch rose to sli ghtly over 20,000 two decades later before a persistent dec line reduced it to a poverty-stri cken village in the late twentieth century. His origi nal name was Ada lbert Thomas Belejcak, a cu mbersome moniker whi ch he never used during hi s career as a nove li st. Leav ing schoo l as an ado lescent, he worked loca ll y from age fifteen as an electri c ian' s apprenti ce but in 1922 re located to New York and was vari ously empl oyed fo r approximate ly a decade as a merchant sea man, boo kstore clerk , and mechani c. Bell 's first nove l, The Breed of Bas il, appeared in 1930, and from 1933 onward he was a fu ll -time writer, th ough onl y fi ve of hi s nove ls were issued. Hi s All Brides Are Beautiful was the bas is of a motion picture starrin g Joa n Fonta ine and Mark Stevens, and Till! Come Back to You was dramati zed and produced on Broadway by Jed Harri s. In other noteworthy d imensions of his career w ith the pen, Be ll contri buted short stori es to such magazi nes as McCall 's and Ladies ' Home J ournal, and eventuall y worked as a Holl ywood screenwriter. After mov ing to Cali fo rni a in 1955 , he continued to write sporadi ca ll y whil e operating the East Side Gift and Stati onery Shop in Santa Cruz. His hea lth deteri orated in the late 1950s, and he di ed of cancer in 196 1. The fun era l was held in a mortuary chapel rather than a church, and Bell 's ashes were interred at the crematory of the Independent Order of Odd Fell ows . 15 The few sources of readil y ava il able info rmation about hi s li fe do not suggest th at he had any ex perience in Slovaki a, and nothin g in Out of This Furnace indi cates that he had noteworthy know ledge of that coun try apart fro m what may have been handed down ora ll y from hi s fo rebears. Bell appears to have reli ed almost exc lusive ly on ora l traditi on and memories of hi s childhood in western Penn sy lvani a when craftin g thi s nove l. 14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wikiff homas_ Bell_(nove list). Accessed 2 January 2020. For SC ovelist T homas Bell Set," Santa Cruz Sentinel, 17 January I 96 1, p. 12. 15 " Servi ces SLOVAKIA 2021 59 Ideologically, Bell stood unabashedly on the left flank of the American political spectrum. This comes to the fore more vividly in his credible proletarian novel of 1936, All Brides Are Beautiful, which was the basis of the motion picture From This Day Forward, which premiered in 1946. Set in New York during the Depression of the 1930s, its principal protagonist is an Irish-American named Peter Cummings who, like many of his fellow citizens, suffers from underemployment and discrimination in the labor market. He reads a new book of British origin, The Nature of Capitalist Crisis, by John Strachey, a Labour Party politician who, despite his bourgeois origins (his father edited the Conservative-supporting periodical The Spectator) and privileged education at Eton College and the University of Oxford , was a communist sympathizer before turning against Communism in 1940. The narrative is peppered with references to inter alia the Workers Bookshop and the newspaper Daily Worker, published in New York by the Communist Party of the United States of America. In response to a query by another character, Cummings confirms his suspected political sympathies but qualifies this by assuring her, "I ' m not a very good Communist." 16 In the general scholarly literature about American literature (in which works by many individuals about immigrant groups are relatively well represented), Bell remains almost completely invisible. Never did an article about him appear in the hundreds of volumes in the nearly exhaustive reference work Contemporary Authors. As of 2020, the seemingly very inclusive Dictionary of Literary Biography, well over 300 volumes strong, has not included an essay about Bell. Rarely is he even mentioned in general surveys of the wider subject. Anyone searching for information about this fairly productive writer' s life and oeuvre will be fortunate to reap even a meager harvest of information . Contemporary reviews of his novels are a partial exception to this generalization, but even they are not particularly abundant. Out of This Furnace is a constructed family epic, and not even the later stages of the saga, which overlap with its author' s life, are quite autobiographical. In his Afterword in the 1976 edition, Demarest relied heavily on information gleaned from Bell's younger brother, 16 Thomas Bell , All Brides Are Beautiful (Boston: Linle, Brown, and Company, 1936), 21 6. 60 SLOVAKIA 2021 Anthony, to highlight certain fictional departures from the ostensible facts of the Belejcak family history . Plot Summary Out of This Furnace is structured in four parts. The first deals principally with George (or "Djuro") Kracha, who leaves his Slovak peasant life (and, temporarily, his young and pregnant wife in the care of his mother) in the autumn of 1881. After giving birth to a son a few months later, she joins him in Pennsylvania. They eke out a basic existence as George finds employment in a steel mill but his upward mobility is limited to operating a temporarily profitable butcher shop. There is no moral progression in this character. After his wife dies, he marries a fellow Slovak who emigrated simultaneous ly with him, but this frequently inebriated and cognitively unimpressive man is jailed for beating her. The second and third parts relate in much detail the lives of his daughter, Mary, and her husband, Mike Dobrejcak. These members of the second-generation toil arduously but receive scant reward for their labors. However, they are confident that their son, Dobie, can enjoy a materially better life than they have, a conviction this quite Americanized lad shares. He fulfills their expectations to a great degree. Having received several years' schooling, he speaks Eng li sh fluently and uses his rhetorical talent to advocate workers ' rights. In the fourth part, Dobie also toils in mills but plays a crucial role in the unionization of the labor force regionally and ventures to Washington to participate in labor negotiations. To a vastly greater degree than his immigrant grandfather, Dobie embodies an altrui stic spirit. He is a considerate husband and parent who is concerned not merely about his own welfare but a lso that of his descendants and of the working class in general. All in all , the saga of this family through three generations relates much about the initially glacial but gradual and inconsistent rise of Slovak-Americans during decades when the spoils of the labor and entrepreneurial spirit that transformed the United States into a massive industrial power were so unevenly distributed. In doing so, Bell's novel sheds much light on social relationships within the ethnic group, the partial retention of ethnic culture, and other related matters. SLOVAKIA 2021 61 A Miscellany of Religious Motifs The narrative does not deal in nearly as much detail about the reli gious life of Slovak-Americans as historians of Christianity might wi sh. This theme plays second or third fiddle in an otherwise fairly well-deve loped fictional orchestration of immigrant hi story. How much Bell knew about that aspect of his family's story which forms the core of the construction is difficult to assess. According to his brother Anthony, who provided Demarest with information about the clan, their father was a very active layman " in the church and related organizations" whose involvement in them took him to meetings throughout Pennsylvania and in Ohio. 17 In one of the most didactic sections of Part Two, the narrator genera li zes about the characteristics of the ethnic group. " In the o ld country the Slovaks had been an oppressed minority from the beginning of time, a simple, religious, unwarlike people, a nation of peasants and shepherds whom the centuries had taught patience and humility," he declares, though without relating anything to substantiate this. "In America they were all this and more, foreigners in a strange land, ignorant of the land and customs, fearful of authority in whatever guise." 18 Churches exist in the depicted milieu, but much of the time they remain vague entities in the background. There is relatively little description of either individuals or Slovak-American families worshiping regularly or otherwise participating in ecc lesiastical life, and one finds only occasional hints of private religious devotion. (Certa in key exceptions are discussed below.) There are priests, of course, but one gets the impression that in Bell ' s fictional world some of the key characters interact with them only on special occasions, such as at weddings and funerals, or when they encounter a crisis and perceive a need for sacerdotal intervention . The first such instance occurs in the Old World. When Kracha elects to try his luck in America, he leaves his pregnant wife Elena in the care of his mother, an arrangement which proves inauspicious. The otherwise anonymous local priest who writes letters on behalf of these two presumably illiterate women informs Kracha that his a iling wife 17 18 Dav id P. Demarest, Jr. , " Afterword," in Bell , Ou! of This Furnace, 420. Bell , Ow of This Furnace, 123 . 62 SLOVAKIA 2021 and her mother-in-law are not fully compatible, especially when cohabiting in a one-room hut, and that he should do whatever is necessary to enable her relocation to America at the earliest opportunity. 19 Beyond that brief part, there is virtually nothing in Out of This Furnace about religious life in Slovakia. In the scattered comments about Slovak-American churches, one finds themes that reflect what one can read in nonfictional historical surveys. For example, new clusters of Slovak immigrants typically worshipped temporarily in the sanctuaries of non-Slovaks before founding their own parishes. Early in the narrative, a young Slovak immigrant couple have their nuptial mass in an Irish-American Roman Catholic church because there is not yet one of their own national heritage.20 When the number of Slovaks in individual locales increased to the point where they could organize their own parishes, they sometimes bought church edifices from Protestant congregations whose members were gradually moving to other communities. There are two occurrences of this in Out of This Furnace. In Braddock, Slovak Roman Catholics "took over" First Baptist Church and rededicated it as St. Michael's Church.2 1 Their ethnic fellows of Greek Catholi c loyalty followed suit shortly thereafter, purchasing what had been the First Presbyterian Church in an unappealing location a long the railroad tracks in the same small city. In its new denominational iteration, it had become St. Peter and St. Paul ' s. 22 Readers are not given nearly enough information about the ecclesiastica l life of the community to create a comprehensive portrait of that subject in general or the proportion of Slovaks who were active church members. There is no reason to believe that the dissolute Kracha is such an individual. On the other hand, after his sickly spouse Elena recovers sufficiently to leave the house, she begins to go to church every morning. However, this is described as the behavior of a mentally troubled soul who has largely withdrawn into herself, not as that of one with a normal socia l li fe . C lasping her rosary, Elena has " now more than ever a frightened , beaten look," perhaps owing to her 19 Bell , Bell , 21 Bell , 22 Bell , 20 0111 o( This Ou! of This Ou! of This 0111 of This Furnace, 14. Furnace, 19 . Furnace, 38. Furnace, 69. SLOVAKIA 2021 63 inability to adapt to her difficult life as Kracha's wife in a dismal mill town. 23 The phenomenon of non-involvement in organized community religious life is dealt with only fleetingly . The most explicit example of this stems from Bell's critique of capitalist exploitation of the steelworkers. Kracha's colleague Joe Dubik is introduced as "a Rusnak, a Greek Catholic from Tvarosc in Sarisa." 24 Having preceded Kracha to Braddock, he welcomes his friend when the latter arrives and shows him around the town. Passing the Carnegie public library (endowed by the philanthropy of the Scottish immigrant steel magnate Andrew Carnegie), Dubik admits that he had never entered it. " When do I have the time for such things?" he explains wistfully. "Since they cut wages and put us on twelve hours l've even stopped going to church." 25 But some continue to attend mass. One is Mike Dobrejcak , the long-suffering son-in-law of Kracha, who rarely finds joy in life and is trapped in his career as a steelworker. In a paragraph of several hundred words, the narrator provides moving insight into the spiritual constitution of this second-generation Slovak-American and the personal significance of his religious life. He prefers to attend the evening mass in the Greek Catholic Church. In contrast to high mass, where God seems to be "the thundering, awe-inspiring Lord of the Universe in vestments of white and gold," for after sunset the deity seems to be "a friend whom one dropped in to visit, God still but God at ease, His shoes and trousers showing below His robes." This approachable deity is one to whom Mike can pray for his wife Mary, their children, and him self. He can do so confident that God is superior to steel corporations and their general superintendents. Moreover, and perhaps just as important to Mike, the church in which this relationship unfolds is a social leveler. In its sanctuary " he was not a check number of a Hunky laborer, but a man." God, he believes, cared not a whit about socioeconomic differences or ethnic strata in American society: " Here he was welcome, here he belonged . Here he spoke in his own tongue; and without fear, without awkwardness, he spoke of himself, hi s hopes, hi s troubles, hi s need of help. And God heard him out." The God of the church, and especially of evening mass, " knew him by name, knew 23 Bell , Out a/This Furnace, 64. Bell , Out a/This Furnace, 10. 25 Bell , Out a/This Furnace, 34. 24 64 SLOVAKIA 2021 about Mary and the children understood how it was with all of them and had a pretty good idea what kind of person, behind his laborer's clothes and poor English, Mike really was. God , in short, liked him ." The psychological impact is subtle but real; "The world was always a less unfriendly place and he nearly always walked a little straighter, heartened, protected, when he came out." 26 Nor is Mike alone. The narrator acknowledges that more pews are empty than filled, but the congregation includes inter alia old parishioners who attended mass daily and twice on Sunday. Far more prevalent in the throng are young couples who also appreciated the subdued sociability of a vespers service. It gave them "an irreproachable excuse to be together and was cheaper than a trip to Kennywood," explains the narrator. 27 No single factor, in other words, expla ins why Slovak-Americans participate in the worship of their churches . Bell ' s fictional construction of Slovak participation in the unsuccessful 1919 Great Steel Strike gave him an opportunity to explore a dimension of the ro le of religious factors in a matter of immense personal interest. Hi s sympathy with the goals of the strike, which took place while he was sti ll a teenager in Braddock, is manifest. Bell included a paragraph listing the union's demands, among them such minimal conditions as an eight-hour day, the right of workers to bargain collectively, and one day off every week. 28 Against this background, the support of the long-serving priest in Braddock, Father Kazincy, for the campaign is understandable. Indeed, he has urged parishioners to join the union , and he allows an organizing committee to meet in the basement of his church. When "veiled threats" are made by an unidentified party to foreclose on the parish's mortgage, Kazincy replies that if that is done he will place a sign on the front of the building announcing: "Thi s Church of Christ c losed by the United States Steel Corporation ." He further show s his so lidari ty after mass at St. Michael's on the Sunday morning immediately before the beginning of the strike when a state trooper orders people who congregate outside the building to disperse: "Father Kazincy came out of the church and protested, a tall , gray-haired man in priestly robes standing 26 Bell , Out of This Furnace, 17 1. Bell, Out of This Furnace, 170. Launched in 1899 in West Miffin. southeast of Pittsburgh, Kenn ywood was an amusement park and picnic area th at attracted large numbers of workin g-cl ass people. 28 Bell, Out of This Furnace, 240. 27 SLOVAKIA 2021 65 beside the trooper's restless horse, his face uplifted, alight with indignation." 29 This sympathy-inspiring partisanship is juxtaposed with less appealing conduct on the part of the Irish-dominated Roman Catholic Church . At its St. Brendan's Church " in the ' good ' part of town", the priest declares in his homily, "This strike is not being brought about by intelligent English-speaking workmen ... . You can't reason with these people. Don't reason with them." The appropriate response, he preached, was to "knock them down!" In Bell ' s narrative, this hostility meshed with the response of the diocesan hierarchy to the strike. A delegation of Catholic strikers call on the bishop of Pittsburgh (whom Bell calls "Bishop Canavan" but in fact was Regis Canevin from 1904 until 1921) imploring him to support the action, not least because a majority of the strikers are Catholics. But that prelate declines to do so. Underscoring the influence of the industrial magnates on religious life, "not long after that the Pittsburgh Catholic Charities received a check for twenty-five thousand dollars from the Carnegie Steel Company."30 An Atheist to the End Too little is known , and perhaps cannot be known , about Bell ' s low-profile life to trace whatever spiritual journey he may have had followed through his fifty-seven years. What is beyond dispute, however, is that the skepticism expressed in Out of This Furnace foreshadowed acknowledged atheism in his final book, In the Midst of life. This nonfictional volume, approximately 270 pages in length, was published a few months after his death in 1961 . It encompasses a miscellany of his thoughts and musings as a terminally ill cancer patient in Santa Cruz. Bell acknowledged in his first brief chapter that he was not on the same spiritual wavelength with many other people. "While others, in the old phrase, make their peace with God," he stated, "I must make mine with myself." 31 Bell noted that his beliefs differed markedly from those of one of his pious customers, a Mrs. Worth, who had sought to 29 Bell, Out of This Furnace, 241 . Out of This Furnace, 241 -2. 3 1Thomas Bell , In the Mid1·t a/Life (New York: Atheneum, 196 1), 5. 30 Bell, 66 SLOVAKIA 2021 encourage him at that critical stage of his life. He had even prayed to " Mrs. Worth 's God" in the privacy of a toilet at a hospital in Palo Alto, but his cancer had progressed unabated. Bell concluded that "belief in a supernatural god may disappear, and a good thing too," but in the same sentence he admitted that there were times "when one can only envy such people as Mrs. Worth. " 32 If his non credo of ca. 1960 represented his attitude towards the Christian faith two decades earlier, his willingness to write sympathetically, albeit briefly, about the religious life of his fictional characters at that time is all the more remarkable. Conclusion A juxtaposition of Out of This Furnace and the nonfictional texts cited in the present article highlights several problems that serious historians of religion encounter when they are seeking to gauge, even in an approximate way, the spiritual life of Slovak immigrants in North America. On the one hand, there are assertions about the group's devotion to Christianity in several of its denominational forms. These assurances are typically supported by reference to the hundreds of churches which Slovaks founded in the New World, usually in the early stages of their community life in surroundings still only partially familiar to them, and in many instances after unsatisfactory experiences in multi-ethnic parishes. On the other hand, when one reads Out of This Furnace as almost certainly the principal fictional reconstruction of Slovak-American history, one finds significantly less about religion than nonfictional literature might reasonably lead one to expect. Considered in isolation, Out a/This Furnace thus gives an impression that is difficult to harmoni ze with the large number of enduring Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, and other sorts of parishes which these immigrants founded to serve as their spiritual homes. No doubt part of the answer inheres in accepting the fact that Slovak-Americans were by no means a monolithic entity, but a diverse segment of the Euro-American population which probably always included individuals with varying degrees of religious fervor and criticism thereof, different levels of moral development, and no uniformity of commitment to community life. Gauging the percentage of people 32 Bell, In the Mid1·1 a/Life, 8-9. SLOVAKIA 2021 67 in any historic ethnic group who chose to affiliate with its religious institutions can be prohibitively difficult. Any calculations done in this regard would probably be estimates rather than precise statistics. Furthermore, such figures do not address the underlying problems of assessing personal commitment and spiritual life as opposed to nominal membership. Other dimensions of the phenomenon bedevil quantification . Historians must look carefully at how the character of their subject evolves over time. In this case, they would be compelled to examine, for instance, the religious commitment of the displaced people who formed the first generation in America and then their at least partly assimilated, Anglophone descendants. Did interest in ecclesiastical life vary diachronically? Was it consistent in large cities and small mill towns? Did it appear to be more vibrant in areas where the Slovaks constituted a relatively large percentage of the population than in those areas where they were but a small minority? Were married men more inclined than bachelors to participate in organized religious life? These and related questions are by no means limited to Slovaks or other Eastern and Central Europeans in North America and their descendants but are relevant to much of the ethnic panorama. A broad consideration of this obviously lies beyond the bounds of the present study, but two quite different kinds of examples illustrate the point. One stems from the present writer's extensive, multidenominational research on the history of the approximately 800,000 Norwegians who emigrated to the United States. Most of them were at least nominal members of the established Evangelical Lutheran Church in their homeland, although levels of participation in its sacraments, services, and so on varied greatly from region to region. Numerous " revival" movements, some of them led by lay preachers, had reinvigorated the spiritual life of the nation. Nonconformist denominations also sprouted in the nineteenth century, giving especially those Norwegians who lived in coastal towns some measure of churches from which to choose. At the same time, however, anticlerical critics emerged, sometimes in tandem with an incipient labor movement. After reaching the United States, large numbers of these Nordic newcomers formed many hundreds of Lutheran churches, chiefly in the Upper Midwest, with smaller numbers in other regions. They also founded several church-related undergraduate colleges, most of which continue to thrive in the twenty-first century, and several theological 68 SLOVAKIA 2021 seminaries for training new generations of pastors. All in all , denominational membership statistics clearly indicate that a higher percentage of Norwegian immigrants than their Swedish and Danish counterparts, to cite the most meaningful comparisons, were affiliated with what can be regarded as their birthright religious institutions. However, as I have demonstrated, this involvement varied immensely, and overall only about 30 percent of first-generation Norwegian-Americans became members of the ethnic Lutheran churches in which one might expect to find them .33 The evidence disconfirmed sweeping generalizations that historians of immigration had made for approximately two generations about the supposedly lofty level of religious loyalty among newcomers from Norway. Turning to a significantly different kind of example, in 1964 Rudolph J. Vecoli strongly challenged the generalized portrayal of immigrants in America which Oscar Handlin had presented in his Pulitzer Prize-winning popular history, The Uprooted, twelve years earlier. Writing about the tens of thousands of contadini (i.e. peasants) from southern Italy who had settled in Chicago, Vecoli declared that the noted Harvard historian 's theory that the process of adjusting to life on American shores had strengthened their religious li fe in an ali en environment. Not so, this Italian-American argued. "American priests were scandali zed by the indifference of the Italians to the Church . Even when Italian churches were provided by the Catholic hierarchy, the contadini seldom displayed any religious enthusiasm ." 34 Within the Slavic-American spectrum, the extent of Slovak detachment from organized religious life awaits detailed ana lysis. In 2005 sociologist Paul Froese published an article about the significantly differing levels of involvement in Slovakia and the Czech Republic in recent decades. He attributed the higher degree among Slovaks to a historically different relationship between religion and nationalism . " In Slovakia," he concluded, "Roman Catholi cism and nationalism are conjoined in much the same way as they are in Poland." One consequence of thi s is greater loya lty to the Roman Catholi c 33 Frederi ck Ha le, No rwegian Religious Pluralism: A Trans-Atlantic Comparison (New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1992). 34 Rudo lph J. Vecoli , "Contadini in Chi cago: A Critique of The Uprooted." The Journal of American History LI , no. 3 ( December 1964): 415. SLOVAKIA 2021 69 Church in Slovakia than in the Czech Republic.35 Froese did not, however, deal at all with the history of religious life among Slovaks who had been transplanted to a different environment in North America. Establishing the defensible perimeter of descriptions of SlovakAmerican religious life thus remains a difficult task, one which would have to take into account not only formal religious involvement and activity but also the extent to which an as yet indeterminate number of people chose not to become affiliated or who were directly critical of Christianity and its institutions. Moreover, the historical calculus would have to take into account changes over time. Out of This Furnace offers a stimulating if obviously truncated impression of Slovak religious life during the first few crucial decades of this group's history in industrial America. Indeed, when one considers Bell's personal separation from that important dimension of his ethnic heritage, it is arguably surprising how many aspects of it appear in this novel. One finds observations about inter a/ia priestly ministry, interaction with non-Slovak churches, efforts to raise children according to traditional religious values, prayer, community worship, and the relationship between religious institutions and the labor movement. To be sure, there is silence about significant historical matters, such as the Lutheran and other Protestant churches among Slovak immigrants. Far too little about these topics has been published in any genre. Will future litterateurs take up their pens and construct engaging fictional accounts that tell readers far more about the spiritual life of the group, thereby further enriching the colorful tapestry of ethnic historical fiction? To be sure, no amount of meticulous research could replace Bell ' s first-hand knowledge of Slovak immigrant life in Braddock, but many historical novelists have crafted credible works about topics which they did not experience. While we might be ill-advised to hold our breath, we can find comfort in Alexander Pope ' s oft-quoted words, " Hope springs eternal in the human breast." 35 Paul Froese, "Secular Czechs and Devout Slova ks: Ex ploring Religious Differences," Review of Religious Research XL VI , no. 3 (March 2005): 269, 280.  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 Reconsidering Slovak-American Religious Commitment: Thomas Bell's Out of this Furnace in Historiographical Context Description An account of the resource Frederick Hale Slovakia, Vol. 45 (No. 84-85), 2021 pp. 53-69 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hale, Frederick, 1948- 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/f2743a1b81c3613d99ff1c7f593cdace.pdf 34d976aff6498f6356c62713eb72ce0a PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 33 The Slovaks fared better even during the last war than they had at any tíme during the past 1000 years. They managed their own household and loved lt. Their homes really became their castles. They breathed and lived as free men, even though forced into war and all its hardships. Whosoever denies the Slovaks the right to their own way of life, - to freedom, independence and statehood denies the law of God and nature and betrays the ideals of true democracy. • • * • RED TRAITORS (h) - We have pointed to the danger of Communlsm for many years in our paper. We have also cautioned the gentlemen in Washington about thls enemy of human freedom and dignity. lt ls not our fault lf some of the gentlemen preferred to listen to Beneš and hls underlings and paid no attention to American citizens. We have, however, saved many of oor countrymen, whom the Reds wanted to ensnare with nice and enticing mottos. We can say, therefore, that the Slovaks kept away from Communlsm. They dld not want to have anything to do wlth it. But such was not the case wlth the so-called "Czechoslovaks." When the professional revolutionists could not galn the Slovaks, they became friendly wlth Communists and paved the way for them to get to Washington. It is to the credit of American Slovaks that they dld not play second flddle to the Communists, that they dld not collaborate with them and that they did not allow them among themselves. The Czechoslovaks, however, are deslgnated as collaborators with Communism. The NEW YORKSKÝ DENNÚ{ (New York Daily) and the Czech NEW YORKSKÉ LISTY (New York News) even imported communist editors. And they even published many, many artlcles of communist wr!ters. This they cannot deny, because lt ls all perpetuated black on white. These journals were no better than the communist ĽUDOVli: NOVINY (People's News) or the Canadian ĽUDOVÉ ZVESTI (People's Tidings). Today it is difficult to distingulsh between a Commun!st and a Czechoslovak, because both are so closely united. Both walked along the same road, both spoke and wrote the same thlngs. Both villified the Slovaks, because they exposed their dirty plans. Even Washington is fina\ly noting whence the wind is blowlng. The aim of the Communists !s clear, because it was stated by Stalin in simple words. Twenty-two years ago Stalin told us who was an internatlonalist. He said: "An internatlonallst 1s a person who unconditionally, without hesitation and without limitation is willing to defend the USSR, because the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) is the foundation of the world revolutlonary movement, and to defend this movement, make lt progress is not posslble wlthout the protection of the USSR. Who WQUld defend the world revolutionary movement wlthout and against the USSR. that person goes agalnst the revolution, that person necessarlly falls into the camp of the enemles ot the revolutlon." �34 SLOVAKIA lt is not long ago that the ĽUDOVÝ DENNll{ (today the shrunken ĽUDOVl!l NOVINY) wrote: "We are internatlonalists." And Stalin explained what internationalists are. That means that Communists must defend and work for Russia even against the interests of their own country. In the past several months several of these loyal servants of Moscow, who betrayed our atomic secrets, were apprehended in America. Just recently Julíus Rosenberg was arrested. Before he was taken, Harry Gold, David Greenglass and Alfred Slack had been apprehended. There are more of the same kind of communist scamps around. Not every one had the opportunity to betray but every one of them is Ioyal to Moscow. lf the opportunity presents itself, they will sabo• tage, strike, and probably even murder. The Communlsts form the interna! Fifth Column which is more dangerous than an armed, open enemy. These Flfth-Columnists conceal themselves and work like thieves and gangsters. We must be on our guard against these evil-doers, especially now. It is the duty of every Citizen to report all Communlsts to the FBI. The latter will then see to it that these interna! enemles are properly inveslgated. - (SLOVENSKÁ OBRANA, Scranton, Pa., 7-25·50) . • • • WHO SAID IT? "Dr, Benei never faltered . . . . He wa.s party to no sch~e to di· vide the n.atural enemles ot fascist aggresslon. Dr. Benei 1tood with hl1 people. He stood and he stands today for right to govern themselves and to make democra.tic social progresa." - (Congressman Hugh De Lacy, THE SLAVONIC MONTHLY, Sept. 1945) . • "CZECH COMMUNISTS ARE FRIENDS OF THE USA - AH m&mbeľ1! o! the Communlst Party in Prestice, a town in southern Boh&mla, became members ot t.he society "Friends o! the Unlted States." - (HLASATEL, Chicago, Ill., 6-13-47) . • "We know that without Russia's fr lendshlp none or her small neigilbors can r&vert to independent natlonal Ufe. In negotiating the treaty we have jwit signed, I DID NOT SELL OUT TO RUSSIA. We lntend to live our own life i n our own way and WE KNOW THAT RUSSIA WILL RESPECT OUR WAY OF LIVING. . . You and we are golng to contlnue our pollcy of collaboration, trlendship, confi· äence In and good falth towards Soviet Russla. I am never golng to undertake anything - and neither are you - wblch could be in any way against the interests ot the vitally nec&asary collaboration." (Jan Masaryk, Dinner speech, Russian War Rellef, lne., NEW YORK TIMES, 12-21-43). • " There ls definitely no Iron curtain in Czechoslovakia. Forelgn correspondents are free to travel about the country and write as they please, and the people are not afrald to volce their oplnion1. The CZECHS are a hard-worklng people and POLITICALLY AND ECONOMICALLY THEY ARE MAKING A SPLENDID RECOVERV." (Laur&nce A. Stelnhardt, NEW YORK TIMES, 2-1-47). � SLOVAKIA 33 The Slovaks fared better even during the last war than they had at any tíme during the past 1000 years. They managed their own household and loved lt. Their homes really became their castles. They breathed and lived as free men, even though forced into war and all its hardships. Whosoever denies the Slovaks the right to their own way of life, - to freedom, independence and statehood denies the law of God and nature and betrays the ideals of true democracy. • • * • RED TRAITORS (h) - We have pointed to the danger of Communlsm for many years in our paper. We have also cautioned the gentlemen in Washington about thls enemy of human freedom and dignity. lt ls not our fault lf some of the gentlemen preferred to listen to Beneš and hls underlings and paid no attention to American citizens. We have, however, saved many of oor countrymen, whom the Reds wanted to ensnare with nice and enticing mottos. We can say, therefore, that the Slovaks kept away from Communlsm. They dld not want to have anything to do wlth it. But such was not the case wlth the so-called "Czechoslovaks." When the professional revolutionists could not galn the Slovaks, they became friendly wlth Communists and paved the way for them to get to Washington. It is to the credit of American Slovaks that they dld not play second flddle to the Communists, that they dld not collaborate with them and that they did not allow them among themselves. The Czechoslovaks, however, are deslgnated as collaborators with Communism. The NEW YORKSKÝ DENNÚ{ (New York Daily) and the Czech NEW YORKSKÉ LISTY (New York News) even imported communist editors. And they even published many, many artlcles of communist wr!ters. This they cannot deny, because lt ls all perpetuated black on white. These journals were no better than the communist ĽUDOVli: NOVINY (People's News) or the Canadian ĽUDOVÉ ZVESTI (People's Tidings). Today it is difficult to distingulsh between a Commun!st and a Czechoslovak, because both are so closely united. Both walked along the same road, both spoke and wrote the same thlngs. Both villified the Slovaks, because they exposed their dirty plans. Even Washington is fina\ly noting whence the wind is blowlng. The aim of the Communists !s clear, because it was stated by Stalin in simple words. Twenty-two years ago Stalin told us who was an internatlonalist. He said: "An internatlonallst 1s a person who unconditionally, without hesitation and without limitation is willing to defend the USSR, because the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) is the foundation of the world revolutlonary movement, and to defend this movement, make lt progress is not posslble wlthout the protection of the USSR. Who WQUld defend the world revolutionary movement wlthout and against the USSR. that person goes agalnst the revolution, that person necessarlly falls into the camp of the enemles ot the revolutlon." �34 SLOVAKIA lt is not long ago that the ĽUDOVÝ DENNll{ (today the shrunken ĽUDOVl!l NOVINY) wrote: "We are internatlonalists." And Stalin explained what internationalists are. That means that Communists must defend and work for Russia even against the interests of their own country. In the past several months several of these loyal servants of Moscow, who betrayed our atomic secrets, were apprehended in America. Just recently Julíus Rosenberg was arrested. Before he was taken, Harry Gold, David Greenglass and Alfred Slack had been apprehended. There are more of the same kind of communist scamps around. Not every one had the opportunity to betray but every one of them is Ioyal to Moscow. lf the opportunity presents itself, they will sabo• tage, strike, and probably even murder. The Communlsts form the interna! Fifth Column which is more dangerous than an armed, open enemy. These Flfth-Columnists conceal themselves and work like thieves and gangsters. We must be on our guard against these evil-doers, especially now. It is the duty of every Citizen to report all Communlsts to the FBI. The latter will then see to it that these interna! enemles are properly inveslgated. - (SLOVENSKÁ OBRANA, Scranton, Pa., 7-25·50) . • • • WHO SAID IT? "Dr, Benei never faltered . . . . He wa.s party to no sch~e to di· vide the n.atural enemles ot fascist aggresslon. Dr. Benei 1tood with hl1 people. He stood and he stands today for right to govern themselves and to make democra.tic social progresa." - (Congressman Hugh De Lacy, THE SLAVONIC MONTHLY, Sept. 1945) . • "CZECH COMMUNISTS ARE FRIENDS OF THE USA - AH m&mbeľ1! o! the Communlst Party in Prestice, a town in southern Boh&mla, became members ot t.he society "Friends o! the Unlted States." - (HLASATEL, Chicago, Ill., 6-13-47) . • "We know that without Russia's fr lendshlp none or her small neigilbors can r&vert to independent natlonal Ufe. In negotiating the treaty we have jwit signed, I DID NOT SELL OUT TO RUSSIA. We lntend to live our own life i n our own way and WE KNOW THAT RUSSIA WILL RESPECT OUR WAY OF LIVING. . . You and we are golng to contlnue our pollcy of collaboration, trlendship, confi· äence In and good falth towards Soviet Russla. I am never golng to undertake anything - and neither are you - wblch could be in any way against the interests ot the vitally nec&asary collaboration." (Jan Masaryk, Dinner speech, Russian War Rellef, lne., NEW YORK TIMES, 12-21-43). • " There ls definitely no Iron curtain in Czechoslovakia. Forelgn correspondents are free to travel about the country and write as they please, and the people are not afrald to volce their oplnion1. The CZECHS are a hard-worklng people and POLITICALLY AND ECONOMICALLY THEY ARE MAKING A SPLENDID RECOVERV." (Laur&nce A. Stelnhardt, NEW YORK TIMES, 2-1-47). � 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 SLOVAKIA 33 The Slovaks fared better even during the last war than they had at any tíme during the past 1000 years. They managed their own household and loved lt. Their homes really became their castles. They breathed and lived as free men, even though forced into war and all its hardships. Whosoever denies the Slovaks the right to their own way of life, - to freedom, independence and statehood denies the law of God and nature and betrays the ideals of true democracy. • • * • RED TRAITORS (h) - We have pointed to the danger of Communlsm for many years in our paper. We have also cautioned the gentlemen in Washington about thls enemy of human freedom and dignity. lt ls not our fault lf some of the gentlemen preferred to listen to Beneš and hls underlings and paid no attention to American citizens. We have, however, saved many of oor countrymen, whom the Reds wanted to ensnare with nice and enticing mottos. We can say, therefore, that the Slovaks kept away from Communlsm. They dld not want to have anything to do wlth it. But such was not the case wlth the so-called "Czechoslovaks." When the professional revolutionists could not galn the Slovaks, they became friendly wlth Communists and paved the way for them to get to Washington. It is to the credit of American Slovaks that they dld not play second flddle to the Communists, that they dld not collaborate with them and that they did not allow them among themselves. The Czechoslovaks, however, are deslgnated as collaborators with Communism. The NEW YORKSKÝ DENNÚ{ (New York Daily) and the Czech NEW YORKSKÉ LISTY (New York News) even imported communist editors. And they even published many, many artlcles of communist wr!ters. This they cannot deny, because lt ls all perpetuated black on white. These journals were no better than the communist ĽUDOVli: NOVINY (People's News) or the Canadian ĽUDOVÉ ZVESTI (People's Tidings). Today it is difficult to distingulsh between a Commun!st and a Czechoslovak, because both are so closely united. Both walked along the same road, both spoke and wrote the same thlngs. Both villified the Slovaks, because they exposed their dirty plans. Even Washington is fina\ly noting whence the wind is blowlng. The aim of the Communists !s clear, because it was stated by Stalin in simple words. Twenty-two years ago Stalin told us who was an internatlonalist. He said: "An internatlonallst 1s a person who unconditionally, without hesitation and without limitation is willing to defend the USSR, because the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) is the foundation of the world revolutlonary movement, and to defend this movement, make lt progress is not posslble wlthout the protection of the USSR. Who WQUld defend the world revolutionary movement wlthout and against the USSR. that person goes agalnst the revolution, that person necessarlly falls into the camp of the enemles ot the revolutlon." 34 SLOVAKIA lt is not long ago that the ĽUDOVÝ DENNll{ (today the shrunken ĽUDOVl!l NOVINY) wrote: "We are internatlonalists." And Stalin explained what internationalists are. That means that Communists must defend and work for Russia even against the interests of their own country. In the past several months several of these loyal servants of Moscow, who betrayed our atomic secrets, were apprehended in America. Just recently Julíus Rosenberg was arrested. Before he was taken, Harry Gold, David Greenglass and Alfred Slack had been apprehended. There are more of the same kind of communist scamps around. Not every one had the opportunity to betray but every one of them is Ioyal to Moscow. lf the opportunity presents itself, they will sabo• tage, strike, and probably even murder. The Communlsts form the interna! Fifth Column which is more dangerous than an armed, open enemy. These Flfth-Columnists conceal themselves and work like thieves and gangsters. We must be on our guard against these evil-doers, especially now. It is the duty of every Citizen to report all Communlsts to the FBI. The latter will then see to it that these interna! enemles are properly inveslgated. - (SLOVENSKÁ OBRANA, Scranton, Pa., 7-25·50) . • • • WHO SAID IT? "Dr, Benei never faltered . . . . He wa.s party to no sch~e to di· vide the n.atural enemles ot fascist aggresslon. Dr. Benei 1tood with hl1 people. He stood and he stands today for right to govern themselves and to make democra.tic social progresa." - (Congressman Hugh De Lacy, THE SLAVONIC MONTHLY, Sept. 1945) . • "CZECH COMMUNISTS ARE FRIENDS OF THE USA - AH m&mbeľ1! o! the Communlst Party in Prestice, a town in southern Boh&mla, became members ot t.he society "Friends o! the Unlted States." - (HLASATEL, Chicago, Ill., 6-13-47) . • "We know that without Russia's fr lendshlp none or her small neigilbors can r&vert to independent natlonal Ufe. In negotiating the treaty we have jwit signed, I DID NOT SELL OUT TO RUSSIA. We lntend to live our own life i n our own way and WE KNOW THAT RUSSIA WILL RESPECT OUR WAY OF LIVING. . . You and we are golng to contlnue our pollcy of collaboration, trlendship, confi· äence In and good falth towards Soviet Russla. I am never golng to undertake anything - and neither are you - wblch could be in any way against the interests ot the vitally nec&asary collaboration." (Jan Masaryk, Dinner speech, Russian War Rellef, lne., NEW YORK TIMES, 12-21-43). • " There ls definitely no Iron curtain in Czechoslovakia. Forelgn correspondents are free to travel about the country and write as they please, and the people are not afrald to volce their oplnion1. The CZECHS are a hard-worklng people and POLITICALLY AND ECONOMICALLY THEY ARE MAKING A SPLENDID RECOVERV." (Laur&nce A. Stelnhardt, NEW YORK TIMES, 2-1-47).  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 Red Traitors Description An account of the resource Slovakia, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1), May 1951 pp. 33-34 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource May 1951 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/3a823f2f39ca0ebe74a15054e883f343.pdf b4b83f53dbab03ee2267a07c3949cb2e PDF Text Text 56 SLOVAKIA Reflections on the Downfall of Communism and the Transition to Capitalism Jan Chryzostom Cardinal Korec (Address of His Eminence on the Occasion of the Conferral on him of the degree Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, by Sacred Heart University, Bridgeport, CT February 22, 1992) Eminences, Excellencies, Reverend Fathers, Mr. President, venerable members of the Board of Trustees, professors, students, honourable guests, dear American friends, beloved Slovak compatriots! I would like to say a few words about my life in bondage over the last forty years, and about our current search for a new way of life in our reborn democracy. I will not address you as a teacher--you have here excellent professors and competent lecturers. Instead, I would like to bear witness to an experience which did not arise from academia, but from sweatshops where I labored for the last twenty years, and from jail cells which I and others inhabited during our fight against the forces of totalitarianism. I was secretly consecrated a bishop during severe persecutions forty years ago, in a time when the prisons were overcrowded, and people were being executed. At that time I tried to promote a Christian way of life, especially among students and families. As a worker, I clandestinely wrote books that are still �SLOVAKIA 57 being read today-books that defended life and faith in order to raise people's hopes and spread the message of love. Only today do we realize how many things we were deprived of by the Marxist-atheists for forty years, and how backward we are today. Our teachers lack solid knowledge, the new politicians do not have the necessary experience of life, many writers are mindless, others have no conscience or character. We live in a country whose ecology and spiritual life has been devastated. We face the huge task of educating a new generation of young people, fathers and mothers, intellectuals and leaders of the nation. It will have to be an all-embracing education, which will not consider people to be merely cogs in a machine, or mute faces in the hands of powerful dictators and tyrants. Such an education will have to seek its inspiration in the Gospels, in our only true teacher Jesus Christ, and in our mother Church, which has experienced the true Spirit of God for twenty centuries. As we approached the end of the twentieth century, we were surprised by unexpected events. Communism collapsed in most of the world. This collapse was preceded by the disintegration of an artificial and inhumane ideology which had propped it up. Carl Friedrich von Weizsacker, the president of Germany, recently said at a symposium in Bratislava that, "The year 1989 will never be forgotten. Six states in eastern Europe experienced revolutions that led to their freedom. In five of these countries, it happened without any bloodshed, which is unique in history. This road to freedom is an unforseen and exciting gift. But, in the long run, it is in danger. 11 Mr. Weizsacker then expressed some concerns about this freedom: Economic freedom became one of the most important events. But, does the market economy solve social problems? Is it able, for instance, to prevent our living space from being destroyed? The social and economic order, as well as that of our living space, are determined within the framework of the �58 SLOVAKIA state. But there is not only one state in the world. It is humanity as a whole that must face the problems of the modem world. But how? The first necessity is to change people's consciousness. Thus, Germany's president has also expressed the main goal of education--to change people's way of thinking about themselves and the world in which they live. Economic freedom alone cannot solve our problems. The market economy is essentially restricted in itself--because of the egoism of its practitioners. This danger was revealed very emphatically in all of the papal social encyclicals, including the "Centesimus Annus." It's one thing to be ambitious and diligent; it's quite another to be egotistical. The latter is a menace to every community. Egoism, which rejects concern for one's neighbor, is not only un-Christian, but it is inhuman and even stupid. Society cannot be better than the capacity of all its members to look at each other respectfully. This is man's fundamental calling. If we have to create new laws, then let us do so with the goal of changing people's minds and consciences. This is the mission of the Church. Just as the market economy will not save us in our new-found freedom, so too will technology not save us. Technology is dangerous if it does not consider the good of all nations and of all of humankind. That is why we need a good moral education, in addition to technical expertise, in order to change our ways of thinking. In eastern Europe there exist nations, which were almost destroyed by Communism, that are experiencing a rebirth. It is important to note that this is not a re-awakening of the "masses," but of nations. This is a phenomenon that is not always acknowledged or understood in the west. For us it is very evident. Once there existed only tribes, towns, principalities and empires. After �SLOVAKIA 59 that nations with a Christian tradition were formed. Today the term "nation" is unavoidable. The French, the Germans and the Italians are nations. The Croats and the Slovaks are nations as well. The largest organization in the world bears the name "United Nations." It is a natural right and desire of every nation to be independent. This right is also embodied in the Charter of the United Nations. We know that Communism tried to be international but it did not work. Communist internationalism nearly destroyed our country's national traditions and devastated our lives. Now our nation has experienced a revival and has rediscovered its Christian tradition. Nations, as such, must not succumb to chauvinism. They must be open to each other, without barbed-wire frontiers, and they must also develop a mutual exchange of spiritual and economic goods. This should hold true not only in a united Europe, but in a united world. Since 1948 in central and eastern Europe we experienced a harsh rule of selfish and unscrupulous regimes that considered people as mere cogs in machines. Everything was moral which served those in power. Everybody had to accept Marxist ideology. Those who refused lost their jobs because the state was the only employer. The Communist Party directed the school curriculum, controlled radio and television programs, as well as the press and culture in general. The Church was regarded as Communism's greatest enemy. All of its institutionsmonasteries, schools, seminaries and publishing houses-were closed. Almost all the bishops, many priests and laypersons were imprisoned, and the Greek Catholic Church was dissolved. In this situation, at the age of 27, I was secretly consecrated a bishop in 1951. For the next 20 years I lived the life of a worker. Since the visible Church was controlled by the Communists, I did my religious work underground. Meanwhile, the cruelty of the regime spread. Even Communist ministers were imprisoned! Everybody suspected everybody else. Many people informed on �60 SLOVAKIA each other. In this way, the atheistic regime poisoned our lives. Politicians ruled in the name of the "working class," but from my experience as a worker I can attest to the fact that the workers toiled in dirty factories while the ruling class lived in palaces, villas and hunting lodges. Any kind of criticism was dangerous, and many critics were executed. When in 1960 I was discovered and sentenced to twelve years of prison for my pastoral work, I met six other bishops and 200 priests in jail! After the failure of the experiment to create "socialism with a human face" in 1968, resistance against totalitarianism began in earnest. Some former Communists, who had fallen into disgrace, became dissidents, but their number was small. The main resistance to Communism in Slovakia was still organized by believers. They defended the dignity of the human person, and demanded the freedom to educate their children as they pleased. They risked a lot. Many were imprisoned, faced discrimination at school, in their professions and in public life in general. They could not teach, become historians or philosophers, were never given any responsible jobs, whether in civilian life or in the army. But, they did not give up. They met in the privacy of their homes, or in the woods. Later on they participated 'en masse' in pilgrimages, sometimes attracting over 200,000 followers! On March 25th, 1988, many thousands held a public prayer-meeting at Hviezdoslav square in Bratislava. They were attacked by police armed with truncheons and water-cannons. A Marxist dissident described it as a unique manifestation because it was not for better wages but rather for human rights. State atheism, with its cruelty and emptiness, had awakened the force of faith and the immense dynamism of the Church! The fight for freedom and human rights in our country was closely linked with the defense of the nation and its Christian traditions. Nowadays it quite often happens that the reality which �SLOVAKIA 61 we call a nation is regarded with suspicion. In our country the existence of the nation always fulfilled, and continues to fulfil, a positive role. Pope John Paul II had a similar experience in Poland and he expressed it to UNESCO in the following words: I am the son of a nation that has overcome the most horrible experience in history .. .It has preserved its Christian identity ... only with the help of its own national culture which has proved to be stronger than any other numerical superiority ... This is not a remote echo of nationalism, but a permanent element of human experience and humanistic perspective on the whole subsequent development of man! Eastern Europe was quite fortunate to find, at first, individuals, then groups, and finally hundreds and thousands of people who resisted the humiliation of Communism. At first, after 1948, there were only tiny pockets of resistance among believers. A great many, however, resisted quietly, but firmly. In 1946 the anti-Communist Democratic Party won 62% of the vote in Slovakia. Now, in 1991, 65% of the population of Slovakia reported that they were practicing Catholics. What helped our people to keep their faith during the last 40 years of persecution? There are several reasons. The proclamation of Sts. Cyril and Methodius as co-parton Saints of Europe by Pope John Paul II in 1980 certainly helped. Indeed, the interventions of Pope Paul VI and John Paul II, who publicly addressed us on several occasions, gave us great encouragement. By citing the Gospels, the Church defended humanity and freedom, and it helped the workers to stand up against the only employer under Communism, the state with all of its power. What can we learn from our experiences? Marxism brought with it only totalitarianism and inhumanity. A person can develop his real abilities and his moral being only if he is free. �62 SLOVAKIA Communism interpreted this freedom as submitting oneself to the necessity of history. This necessity was determined by a few leaders of the Party. Everyone else had to obey and fill the quotas. Hatred became the principle of life. The enemy of the working class had to be destroyed, even if that enemy was your father, your brother or sister. Human life in such a system became slavery. The roots of morality were severed by atheism. People became an anonymous herd, in the beginning filled with enthusiasm and many promises, later becoming cowardly, and finally frightened and powerless in the merciless grip of the well-paid police. During the era of Communism, people lost their individuality. Children did not belong to their parents, but to the state. The student was not allowed to think independently. He had to embrace the convictions of the state. He had to be an atheist. Only atheists were allowed to become teachers, professors, military officers, government officials, and so on. Therefore, some people conformed to the system, others played along, and society was deformed. People were not allowed to o._wn property, or even to possess themselves. In public everybody had to speak the language of the state. So, people were alienated. Only in private could people speak their minds. The following joke summed it up: At a political screening, an employee was asked for his reaction to a recent government measure. He professed to agree with it. His bosses wanted him to elaborate. He answered, "Even if I had an opinion, I could not agree with it!" Nobody could publicly agree with his own convictions. This state of permanent hypocrisy was terrible. But what is offered to us in the post-Communist era? Some people think it is liberalism in its economic, political, cultural and ethical forms. What does this mean? If it means "everything goes," it is but another route to the cemetery. Dostoevski once said that if atheism and life without God took over, it would no �SLOVAKIA 63 longer be possible to determine what is good and what is bad, and in the end everything would be allowed. Communism sanctioned everything, even the murder of tens of thousands of people. Hitler did the same thing. Without God there was no morality. And, without morality, society is destroyed. Dostoevski wrote that, if that moment arrived, such a darkness would come over us that the whole structure would collapse under the burden of human blasphemy. The structure of Communism fell in the same way as Nazism. Whenever life lost its conscience, good and evil lost their meaning. The only measure of morality was usefulness--either to the pure race or to the working-class. What are we offered now? If we conceive of liberalism as a system where everything is allowed, we have a new reason to worry. Francis Fukuzama writes that the fall of Communism does not spell the victory of economic and political liberalism, and therefore, he does not foresee a new golden age for mankind; he even fears the end of history, where the spirit of sacrifice for an ideal or a moral value will perish. The struggle for ideas requiring courage and enthusiasm will be replaced by purely economic calculations and technological solutions. Everything will be concentrated on care for the environment, on consumer claims, and on unlimited entertainment. If Communism maintained that it marked the end of history, and that afterwards there was nothing else to be expected, it represented something like the end of history. Time came to a standstill, the system blocked all new ideas, and dead precepts no longer worked. We withdrew from history for decades. Now that we have abandoned Communism, we can re-enter into history and can help to re-build it. But which road should we now follow? Pure liberalism, as some people assert, is the offer of some kind of new paradise. We are offered the market economy, free enterprise, private ownership, a share in the profits, respect for a plurality of ideas in matters of morality, art, �64 SLOVAKIA culture, and all that goes with them without any inhibitions. We are offered consumer goodies of every kind, starting with food of all sorts, holidays by the sea, as well as pornography and sex without any barriers. Liberal well-being without any limits is being offered to us. And this is supposed to bring us happiness? Our believers did not resist Communist tyranny for this kind of happiness. We resisted in the name of God and for the respect of the human being! Communism failed because it did not understand man, either in his greatness, or in his weakness. At the same time, it sought to create a new man. But it did not. It produced some tyrants, many egotists and a great many cowards. Liberalism, which some people are trying to introduce into our country, is a faulty system which does not understand man, and makes many of the same mistakes as Communism. A man is not a man because he has many choices in what he eats. Consumption is not enough. And, man is a sinner--he can be ferocious, selfish and uncaring. That is why he has to set limits for himself. If he does not do it by himself, then society must do it for him. Therefore, Communism cannot just be replaced by a boundless liberalism where a few thousand people live in luxury, as they had under Communism, while the great majority toil in factories without question. Christianity offers us a much fuller life, one of liberty but guided by our consciences as ordered by God. During the Communist era history seemed to stop. Mankind had reached the last stage of its development, according to Marxist theory. Collective ownership was the key to paradise. But there was no paradise. Instead, there was hell. Stalin gave orders to execute thousands of workers, then hundreds of thousands of his own soldiers, among them Marshal Tuchacevski, and others. Together with Molotov and Lazar M. Kaganovich, he signed a list ordering the execution of about 230,000 people at once! Similar things happened in Poland, Czecho- �SLOVAKIA 65 Slovakia, Hungary, in Cambodia and Ethiopia later on. Man was valued only for his capacity to work. If he disagreed with those in power, he lost his value and was shot. This was the horror of Christian Europe. What was moral and just was what served the so-called working class, and this was decided by three or four people in power. Everybody else trembled with fear, even among co-workers or friends. The atheist totalitarian state tried to buy everyone off, especially the young. It constructed an open morality. It tried to awake base passions. It created slogans such as "Whoever is not with us, is against us!" or "Down with religion! It is the opiate of the people!" and "Man must redeem himself. Paradise is here on earth. The Soviet Union is our model!" It was all done by force. Prisons were overcrowded, labor camps were organized, and false accusations abounded: "collaborator," "saboteur," "enemy of the working-class," "spy," "traitor," "subversive," "reactionary," "clerical," and so on were hurled about. If a worker criticized his master, it was considered an attack upon socialism and the whole Republic. Therefore, workers stayed quiet and were the most wretched class of people. I toiled among them for about twenty-five years, whether at liberty or in prison. In my last job I repaired elevators. The workers I knew had minds of their own, but during official meetings they said not a word. How did this dehumanized life shape our people? It deformed them. It affected families, workers, officials, prisoners and even children, because everyone was encouraged to become an informer! In his Gulag Archipelago Solzhenitsyn describes the effects of this suffocating atheism. In 1955 the writer A.A. Fadeev committed suicide in the USSR. He explained his action in the following words: "The best writers died all too soon ... they did not even make it to age forty or fifty ... My life as a writer has lost its purpose and I am running away from an existence where man is turned over to emptiness and lies." �66 SLOVAKIA The Slovak writer Dominik Tatarka wrote similarly before his death: "All the authorities who were blaspheming God were humiliating us." Another writer who supported the atheistic regime for decades wrote in 1990: "Marxism has been dead for a long time .. .It could not stand up to the social or personal test of time. The blackboard of hope is empty." Still another wrote in 1992 after he was hospitalized: "And suddenly it has dawned! Without being aware of it, you realize that you have changed. Everything that you mocked yesterday you understand today. And you start to enjoy God's blessings in order not to walk alone with empty hands on such a long journey ... " These are no longer complaints. They reflect the search for and the discovery of life in God and His Church. What are our experiences and attitudes after the collapse of 40 years totalitarianism? We face a lot of shortcomings and diseases. But neither the country, not the nation is dead, although they have been severely weakened by many vices. Every society is beset by vices. The important thing is to recognize our vices, and to try to overcome them. The Church, which viewed man as the personification of God, played a major role in the struggle with atheistic regimes. It never ceased to stress the dignity and greatness of the human being, who cannot be altered into an obedient tool of tyrants, or into a mere worker or a powerless sheep in a large herd. Man is born free, made into the image and likeness of God, and is on his way to eternity with Him. The Church has to remind man of his greatness, it must educate and protect him. This is the Church's mission, whether it is practiced at Masses or at universities. This is the only road to true freedom and happiness. During the last forty years we had to fight against atheistic slavery for freedom. Again and again we preached that "Man does not live by bread alone." Without freedom even well-fed people committed suicide. Freedom is not found in material �SLOVAKIA 67 goods, but in people. That is the message we preached. Our goal was always clear, and it was worth every sacrifice. We now face a new problem. Our people are divided on how to interpret and live in the new freedom. That is because two generations were educated in atheistic Marxism. To many intellectuals the idea that man was created in the image of God is a foreign concept. They still conceive of man as a product of his environment. To them it is very difficult to define what is a "conscience," what are "ethics," what is "responsibility" and what is man's goal in life? In such a confused state, they mistake freedom for wilfulness, and decide that everything is permitted. Thus, there are no limits of morality in art, science, in sexual practices, and so on. That is why it is so difficult to have a dialogue with them. That is why we often have to begin it with pragmatic and practical arguments. However, we cannot stop here. We have to convince everyone that it is wrong to attack or to kill someone; it is anti-social and destructive to spread drugs; it is wilful to use guns just as it is forbidden to poison wells. The freedom of the individual has limits; certain principles must be accepted. The state is bound by laws, just as the whole world community is bound by conventions based on moral principles. After a forty-year struggle for the lower limit of freedom, we are now struggling with the upper limit of human freedom. But at which point can man become happy in his freedom? We have learned that not everything that can be done by man is moral. Life teaches us that. I will conclude with a reference to science and technology. If people doubt the validity of Christian principles in matters of abortion or euthanasia, then surely they must face other situations where they are confronted by the matter of morals and ethics. Nowadays we have to ask ourselves if humankind is permitted to do all that it is capable of doing physically with nuclear weapons and biogenetics. We already have international agreements that prohibit the use of chemical �68 SLOVAKIA weapons, that prohibit nuclear testing, and that provide for the gradual reduction of the nuclear arsenal. It is at this point that science runs into religion, and Christianity in particular. A meeting of the two could prove useful in reconciling these opposite poles. In his unrestrained desire for power, man could devastate our planet. This must never happen! Here is where the dialogue between people of good will must begin. A common formulation and elaboration of questions would be a good starting point. Shortly before his death in 1973, the Nobel Prize-winner Werner Heisenberg wrote in Der Tei] und das Ganze (The Part and the Whole): While in our western world we often ask the question what is good and bad, what is worth fighting for and what must be refused, we still run into Christianity's measures of values, even when many people do not understand the images and allegories used by this religion. Should this magnetic force directing the compass of our life ever disappear, then I am afraid that many terrible things would occur, even more terrible than concentration camps and nuclear bombs ... After our experience of life without God for over forty years, we can appreciate these words of warning. Christianity has something to say about man, about nations and about the world. In 1945 Europe was liberated from the horrors of Nazism. But this liberation did not bring us liberty. It brought us a new slavery called Communism. Now we are liberated from this slavery as well. Some of the new programs that are offered to us keep repeating the same mistakes as before. Real freedom is not self-will. This is what threatens us all, whether in the economic sphere or in culture. Our experience tells us that real freedom can only take root in a ground that is based upon truth. And only the �SLOVAKIA 69 truth as revealed by Gcxt will make us free. It is the task of those of us who are believers to spread this truth, and to build our lives upon it in our quest for eternal happiness. This is exactly what your famous University tries to teach, as your president Mr. Cemera wrote to me a few weeks ago: "The University aims to assist in the development of people, knowledge of self, rooted in faith, educated in mind, compassionate in heart, responsive to social and civic obligations, and able to respond to an everchanging world." Envy is a sin and we must avoid it. However, if there exists something outwardly similar, in reality it is admiration and the desire to achieve the same result. In this sense we admire you and your University and in our hearts we long for all that you have here. It is an excellent gift of Gcxt and an important means of education for new generations of scholars. � 56 SLOVAKIA Reflections on the Downfall of Communism and the Transition to Capitalism Jan Chryzostom Cardinal Korec (Address of His Eminence on the Occasion of the Conferral on him of the degree Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, by Sacred Heart University, Bridgeport, CT February 22, 1992) Eminences, Excellencies, Reverend Fathers, Mr. President, venerable members of the Board of Trustees, professors, students, honourable guests, dear American friends, beloved Slovak compatriots! I would like to say a few words about my life in bondage over the last forty years, and about our current search for a new way of life in our reborn democracy. I will not address you as a teacher--you have here excellent professors and competent lecturers. Instead, I would like to bear witness to an experience which did not arise from academia, but from sweatshops where I labored for the last twenty years, and from jail cells which I and others inhabited during our fight against the forces of totalitarianism. I was secretly consecrated a bishop during severe persecutions forty years ago, in a time when the prisons were overcrowded, and people were being executed. At that time I tried to promote a Christian way of life, especially among students and families. As a worker, I clandestinely wrote books that are still �SLOVAKIA 57 being read today-books that defended life and faith in order to raise people's hopes and spread the message of love. Only today do we realize how many things we were deprived of by the Marxist-atheists for forty years, and how backward we are today. Our teachers lack solid knowledge, the new politicians do not have the necessary experience of life, many writers are mindless, others have no conscience or character. We live in a country whose ecology and spiritual life has been devastated. We face the huge task of educating a new generation of young people, fathers and mothers, intellectuals and leaders of the nation. It will have to be an all-embracing education, which will not consider people to be merely cogs in a machine, or mute faces in the hands of powerful dictators and tyrants. Such an education will have to seek its inspiration in the Gospels, in our only true teacher Jesus Christ, and in our mother Church, which has experienced the true Spirit of God for twenty centuries. As we approached the end of the twentieth century, we were surprised by unexpected events. Communism collapsed in most of the world. This collapse was preceded by the disintegration of an artificial and inhumane ideology which had propped it up. Carl Friedrich von Weizsacker, the president of Germany, recently said at a symposium in Bratislava that, "The year 1989 will never be forgotten. Six states in eastern Europe experienced revolutions that led to their freedom. In five of these countries, it happened without any bloodshed, which is unique in history. This road to freedom is an unforseen and exciting gift. But, in the long run, it is in danger. 11 Mr. Weizsacker then expressed some concerns about this freedom: Economic freedom became one of the most important events. But, does the market economy solve social problems? Is it able, for instance, to prevent our living space from being destroyed? The social and economic order, as well as that of our living space, are determined within the framework of the �58 SLOVAKIA state. But there is not only one state in the world. It is humanity as a whole that must face the problems of the modem world. But how? The first necessity is to change people's consciousness. Thus, Germany's president has also expressed the main goal of education--to change people's way of thinking about themselves and the world in which they live. Economic freedom alone cannot solve our problems. The market economy is essentially restricted in itself--because of the egoism of its practitioners. This danger was revealed very emphatically in all of the papal social encyclicals, including the "Centesimus Annus." It's one thing to be ambitious and diligent; it's quite another to be egotistical. The latter is a menace to every community. Egoism, which rejects concern for one's neighbor, is not only un-Christian, but it is inhuman and even stupid. Society cannot be better than the capacity of all its members to look at each other respectfully. This is man's fundamental calling. If we have to create new laws, then let us do so with the goal of changing people's minds and consciences. This is the mission of the Church. Just as the market economy will not save us in our new-found freedom, so too will technology not save us. Technology is dangerous if it does not consider the good of all nations and of all of humankind. That is why we need a good moral education, in addition to technical expertise, in order to change our ways of thinking. In eastern Europe there exist nations, which were almost destroyed by Communism, that are experiencing a rebirth. It is important to note that this is not a re-awakening of the "masses," but of nations. This is a phenomenon that is not always acknowledged or understood in the west. For us it is very evident. Once there existed only tribes, towns, principalities and empires. After �SLOVAKIA 59 that nations with a Christian tradition were formed. Today the term "nation" is unavoidable. The French, the Germans and the Italians are nations. The Croats and the Slovaks are nations as well. The largest organization in the world bears the name "United Nations." It is a natural right and desire of every nation to be independent. This right is also embodied in the Charter of the United Nations. We know that Communism tried to be international but it did not work. Communist internationalism nearly destroyed our country's national traditions and devastated our lives. Now our nation has experienced a revival and has rediscovered its Christian tradition. Nations, as such, must not succumb to chauvinism. They must be open to each other, without barbed-wire frontiers, and they must also develop a mutual exchange of spiritual and economic goods. This should hold true not only in a united Europe, but in a united world. Since 1948 in central and eastern Europe we experienced a harsh rule of selfish and unscrupulous regimes that considered people as mere cogs in machines. Everything was moral which served those in power. Everybody had to accept Marxist ideology. Those who refused lost their jobs because the state was the only employer. The Communist Party directed the school curriculum, controlled radio and television programs, as well as the press and culture in general. The Church was regarded as Communism's greatest enemy. All of its institutionsmonasteries, schools, seminaries and publishing houses-were closed. Almost all the bishops, many priests and laypersons were imprisoned, and the Greek Catholic Church was dissolved. In this situation, at the age of 27, I was secretly consecrated a bishop in 1951. For the next 20 years I lived the life of a worker. Since the visible Church was controlled by the Communists, I did my religious work underground. Meanwhile, the cruelty of the regime spread. Even Communist ministers were imprisoned! Everybody suspected everybody else. Many people informed on �60 SLOVAKIA each other. In this way, the atheistic regime poisoned our lives. Politicians ruled in the name of the "working class," but from my experience as a worker I can attest to the fact that the workers toiled in dirty factories while the ruling class lived in palaces, villas and hunting lodges. Any kind of criticism was dangerous, and many critics were executed. When in 1960 I was discovered and sentenced to twelve years of prison for my pastoral work, I met six other bishops and 200 priests in jail! After the failure of the experiment to create "socialism with a human face" in 1968, resistance against totalitarianism began in earnest. Some former Communists, who had fallen into disgrace, became dissidents, but their number was small. The main resistance to Communism in Slovakia was still organized by believers. They defended the dignity of the human person, and demanded the freedom to educate their children as they pleased. They risked a lot. Many were imprisoned, faced discrimination at school, in their professions and in public life in general. They could not teach, become historians or philosophers, were never given any responsible jobs, whether in civilian life or in the army. But, they did not give up. They met in the privacy of their homes, or in the woods. Later on they participated 'en masse' in pilgrimages, sometimes attracting over 200,000 followers! On March 25th, 1988, many thousands held a public prayer-meeting at Hviezdoslav square in Bratislava. They were attacked by police armed with truncheons and water-cannons. A Marxist dissident described it as a unique manifestation because it was not for better wages but rather for human rights. State atheism, with its cruelty and emptiness, had awakened the force of faith and the immense dynamism of the Church! The fight for freedom and human rights in our country was closely linked with the defense of the nation and its Christian traditions. Nowadays it quite often happens that the reality which �SLOVAKIA 61 we call a nation is regarded with suspicion. In our country the existence of the nation always fulfilled, and continues to fulfil, a positive role. Pope John Paul II had a similar experience in Poland and he expressed it to UNESCO in the following words: I am the son of a nation that has overcome the most horrible experience in history .. .It has preserved its Christian identity ... only with the help of its own national culture which has proved to be stronger than any other numerical superiority ... This is not a remote echo of nationalism, but a permanent element of human experience and humanistic perspective on the whole subsequent development of man! Eastern Europe was quite fortunate to find, at first, individuals, then groups, and finally hundreds and thousands of people who resisted the humiliation of Communism. At first, after 1948, there were only tiny pockets of resistance among believers. A great many, however, resisted quietly, but firmly. In 1946 the anti-Communist Democratic Party won 62% of the vote in Slovakia. Now, in 1991, 65% of the population of Slovakia reported that they were practicing Catholics. What helped our people to keep their faith during the last 40 years of persecution? There are several reasons. The proclamation of Sts. Cyril and Methodius as co-parton Saints of Europe by Pope John Paul II in 1980 certainly helped. Indeed, the interventions of Pope Paul VI and John Paul II, who publicly addressed us on several occasions, gave us great encouragement. By citing the Gospels, the Church defended humanity and freedom, and it helped the workers to stand up against the only employer under Communism, the state with all of its power. What can we learn from our experiences? Marxism brought with it only totalitarianism and inhumanity. A person can develop his real abilities and his moral being only if he is free. �62 SLOVAKIA Communism interpreted this freedom as submitting oneself to the necessity of history. This necessity was determined by a few leaders of the Party. Everyone else had to obey and fill the quotas. Hatred became the principle of life. The enemy of the working class had to be destroyed, even if that enemy was your father, your brother or sister. Human life in such a system became slavery. The roots of morality were severed by atheism. People became an anonymous herd, in the beginning filled with enthusiasm and many promises, later becoming cowardly, and finally frightened and powerless in the merciless grip of the well-paid police. During the era of Communism, people lost their individuality. Children did not belong to their parents, but to the state. The student was not allowed to think independently. He had to embrace the convictions of the state. He had to be an atheist. Only atheists were allowed to become teachers, professors, military officers, government officials, and so on. Therefore, some people conformed to the system, others played along, and society was deformed. People were not allowed to o._wn property, or even to possess themselves. In public everybody had to speak the language of the state. So, people were alienated. Only in private could people speak their minds. The following joke summed it up: At a political screening, an employee was asked for his reaction to a recent government measure. He professed to agree with it. His bosses wanted him to elaborate. He answered, "Even if I had an opinion, I could not agree with it!" Nobody could publicly agree with his own convictions. This state of permanent hypocrisy was terrible. But what is offered to us in the post-Communist era? Some people think it is liberalism in its economic, political, cultural and ethical forms. What does this mean? If it means "everything goes," it is but another route to the cemetery. Dostoevski once said that if atheism and life without God took over, it would no �SLOVAKIA 63 longer be possible to determine what is good and what is bad, and in the end everything would be allowed. Communism sanctioned everything, even the murder of tens of thousands of people. Hitler did the same thing. Without God there was no morality. And, without morality, society is destroyed. Dostoevski wrote that, if that moment arrived, such a darkness would come over us that the whole structure would collapse under the burden of human blasphemy. The structure of Communism fell in the same way as Nazism. Whenever life lost its conscience, good and evil lost their meaning. The only measure of morality was usefulness--either to the pure race or to the working-class. What are we offered now? If we conceive of liberalism as a system where everything is allowed, we have a new reason to worry. Francis Fukuzama writes that the fall of Communism does not spell the victory of economic and political liberalism, and therefore, he does not foresee a new golden age for mankind; he even fears the end of history, where the spirit of sacrifice for an ideal or a moral value will perish. The struggle for ideas requiring courage and enthusiasm will be replaced by purely economic calculations and technological solutions. Everything will be concentrated on care for the environment, on consumer claims, and on unlimited entertainment. If Communism maintained that it marked the end of history, and that afterwards there was nothing else to be expected, it represented something like the end of history. Time came to a standstill, the system blocked all new ideas, and dead precepts no longer worked. We withdrew from history for decades. Now that we have abandoned Communism, we can re-enter into history and can help to re-build it. But which road should we now follow? Pure liberalism, as some people assert, is the offer of some kind of new paradise. We are offered the market economy, free enterprise, private ownership, a share in the profits, respect for a plurality of ideas in matters of morality, art, �64 SLOVAKIA culture, and all that goes with them without any inhibitions. We are offered consumer goodies of every kind, starting with food of all sorts, holidays by the sea, as well as pornography and sex without any barriers. Liberal well-being without any limits is being offered to us. And this is supposed to bring us happiness? Our believers did not resist Communist tyranny for this kind of happiness. We resisted in the name of God and for the respect of the human being! Communism failed because it did not understand man, either in his greatness, or in his weakness. At the same time, it sought to create a new man. But it did not. It produced some tyrants, many egotists and a great many cowards. Liberalism, which some people are trying to introduce into our country, is a faulty system which does not understand man, and makes many of the same mistakes as Communism. A man is not a man because he has many choices in what he eats. Consumption is not enough. And, man is a sinner--he can be ferocious, selfish and uncaring. That is why he has to set limits for himself. If he does not do it by himself, then society must do it for him. Therefore, Communism cannot just be replaced by a boundless liberalism where a few thousand people live in luxury, as they had under Communism, while the great majority toil in factories without question. Christianity offers us a much fuller life, one of liberty but guided by our consciences as ordered by God. During the Communist era history seemed to stop. Mankind had reached the last stage of its development, according to Marxist theory. Collective ownership was the key to paradise. But there was no paradise. Instead, there was hell. Stalin gave orders to execute thousands of workers, then hundreds of thousands of his own soldiers, among them Marshal Tuchacevski, and others. Together with Molotov and Lazar M. Kaganovich, he signed a list ordering the execution of about 230,000 people at once! Similar things happened in Poland, Czecho- �SLOVAKIA 65 Slovakia, Hungary, in Cambodia and Ethiopia later on. Man was valued only for his capacity to work. If he disagreed with those in power, he lost his value and was shot. This was the horror of Christian Europe. What was moral and just was what served the so-called working class, and this was decided by three or four people in power. Everybody else trembled with fear, even among co-workers or friends. The atheist totalitarian state tried to buy everyone off, especially the young. It constructed an open morality. It tried to awake base passions. It created slogans such as "Whoever is not with us, is against us!" or "Down with religion! It is the opiate of the people!" and "Man must redeem himself. Paradise is here on earth. The Soviet Union is our model!" It was all done by force. Prisons were overcrowded, labor camps were organized, and false accusations abounded: "collaborator," "saboteur," "enemy of the working-class," "spy," "traitor," "subversive," "reactionary," "clerical," and so on were hurled about. If a worker criticized his master, it was considered an attack upon socialism and the whole Republic. Therefore, workers stayed quiet and were the most wretched class of people. I toiled among them for about twenty-five years, whether at liberty or in prison. In my last job I repaired elevators. The workers I knew had minds of their own, but during official meetings they said not a word. How did this dehumanized life shape our people? It deformed them. It affected families, workers, officials, prisoners and even children, because everyone was encouraged to become an informer! In his Gulag Archipelago Solzhenitsyn describes the effects of this suffocating atheism. In 1955 the writer A.A. Fadeev committed suicide in the USSR. He explained his action in the following words: "The best writers died all too soon ... they did not even make it to age forty or fifty ... My life as a writer has lost its purpose and I am running away from an existence where man is turned over to emptiness and lies." �66 SLOVAKIA The Slovak writer Dominik Tatarka wrote similarly before his death: "All the authorities who were blaspheming God were humiliating us." Another writer who supported the atheistic regime for decades wrote in 1990: "Marxism has been dead for a long time .. .It could not stand up to the social or personal test of time. The blackboard of hope is empty." Still another wrote in 1992 after he was hospitalized: "And suddenly it has dawned! Without being aware of it, you realize that you have changed. Everything that you mocked yesterday you understand today. And you start to enjoy God's blessings in order not to walk alone with empty hands on such a long journey ... " These are no longer complaints. They reflect the search for and the discovery of life in God and His Church. What are our experiences and attitudes after the collapse of 40 years totalitarianism? We face a lot of shortcomings and diseases. But neither the country, not the nation is dead, although they have been severely weakened by many vices. Every society is beset by vices. The important thing is to recognize our vices, and to try to overcome them. The Church, which viewed man as the personification of God, played a major role in the struggle with atheistic regimes. It never ceased to stress the dignity and greatness of the human being, who cannot be altered into an obedient tool of tyrants, or into a mere worker or a powerless sheep in a large herd. Man is born free, made into the image and likeness of God, and is on his way to eternity with Him. The Church has to remind man of his greatness, it must educate and protect him. This is the Church's mission, whether it is practiced at Masses or at universities. This is the only road to true freedom and happiness. During the last forty years we had to fight against atheistic slavery for freedom. Again and again we preached that "Man does not live by bread alone." Without freedom even well-fed people committed suicide. Freedom is not found in material �SLOVAKIA 67 goods, but in people. That is the message we preached. Our goal was always clear, and it was worth every sacrifice. We now face a new problem. Our people are divided on how to interpret and live in the new freedom. That is because two generations were educated in atheistic Marxism. To many intellectuals the idea that man was created in the image of God is a foreign concept. They still conceive of man as a product of his environment. To them it is very difficult to define what is a "conscience," what are "ethics," what is "responsibility" and what is man's goal in life? In such a confused state, they mistake freedom for wilfulness, and decide that everything is permitted. Thus, there are no limits of morality in art, science, in sexual practices, and so on. That is why it is so difficult to have a dialogue with them. That is why we often have to begin it with pragmatic and practical arguments. However, we cannot stop here. We have to convince everyone that it is wrong to attack or to kill someone; it is anti-social and destructive to spread drugs; it is wilful to use guns just as it is forbidden to poison wells. The freedom of the individual has limits; certain principles must be accepted. The state is bound by laws, just as the whole world community is bound by conventions based on moral principles. After a forty-year struggle for the lower limit of freedom, we are now struggling with the upper limit of human freedom. But at which point can man become happy in his freedom? We have learned that not everything that can be done by man is moral. Life teaches us that. I will conclude with a reference to science and technology. If people doubt the validity of Christian principles in matters of abortion or euthanasia, then surely they must face other situations where they are confronted by the matter of morals and ethics. Nowadays we have to ask ourselves if humankind is permitted to do all that it is capable of doing physically with nuclear weapons and biogenetics. We already have international agreements that prohibit the use of chemical �68 SLOVAKIA weapons, that prohibit nuclear testing, and that provide for the gradual reduction of the nuclear arsenal. It is at this point that science runs into religion, and Christianity in particular. A meeting of the two could prove useful in reconciling these opposite poles. In his unrestrained desire for power, man could devastate our planet. This must never happen! Here is where the dialogue between people of good will must begin. A common formulation and elaboration of questions would be a good starting point. Shortly before his death in 1973, the Nobel Prize-winner Werner Heisenberg wrote in Der Tei] und das Ganze (The Part and the Whole): While in our western world we often ask the question what is good and bad, what is worth fighting for and what must be refused, we still run into Christianity's measures of values, even when many people do not understand the images and allegories used by this religion. Should this magnetic force directing the compass of our life ever disappear, then I am afraid that many terrible things would occur, even more terrible than concentration camps and nuclear bombs ... After our experience of life without God for over forty years, we can appreciate these words of warning. Christianity has something to say about man, about nations and about the world. In 1945 Europe was liberated from the horrors of Nazism. But this liberation did not bring us liberty. It brought us a new slavery called Communism. Now we are liberated from this slavery as well. Some of the new programs that are offered to us keep repeating the same mistakes as before. Real freedom is not self-will. This is what threatens us all, whether in the economic sphere or in culture. Our experience tells us that real freedom can only take root in a ground that is based upon truth. And only the �SLOVAKIA 69 truth as revealed by Gcxt will make us free. It is the task of those of us who are believers to spread this truth, and to build our lives upon it in our quest for eternal happiness. This is exactly what your famous University tries to teach, as your president Mr. Cemera wrote to me a few weeks ago: "The University aims to assist in the development of people, knowledge of self, rooted in faith, educated in mind, compassionate in heart, responsive to social and civic obligations, and able to respond to an everchanging world." Envy is a sin and we must avoid it. However, if there exists something outwardly similar, in reality it is admiration and the desire to achieve the same result. In this sense we admire you and your University and in our hearts we long for all that you have here. It is an excellent gift of Gcxt and an important means of education for new generations of scholars. � 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 56 SLOVAKIA Reflections on the Downfall of Communism and the Transition to Capitalism Jan Chryzostom Cardinal Korec (Address of His Eminence on the Occasion of the Conferral on him of the degree Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, by Sacred Heart University, Bridgeport, CT February 22, 1992) Eminences, Excellencies, Reverend Fathers, Mr. President, venerable members of the Board of Trustees, professors, students, honourable guests, dear American friends, beloved Slovak compatriots! I would like to say a few words about my life in bondage over the last forty years, and about our current search for a new way of life in our reborn democracy. I will not address you as a teacher--you have here excellent professors and competent lecturers. Instead, I would like to bear witness to an experience which did not arise from academia, but from sweatshops where I labored for the last twenty years, and from jail cells which I and others inhabited during our fight against the forces of totalitarianism. I was secretly consecrated a bishop during severe persecutions forty years ago, in a time when the prisons were overcrowded, and people were being executed. At that time I tried to promote a Christian way of life, especially among students and families. As a worker, I clandestinely wrote books that are still SLOVAKIA 57 being read today-books that defended life and faith in order to raise people's hopes and spread the message of love. Only today do we realize how many things we were deprived of by the Marxist-atheists for forty years, and how backward we are today. Our teachers lack solid knowledge, the new politicians do not have the necessary experience of life, many writers are mindless, others have no conscience or character. We live in a country whose ecology and spiritual life has been devastated. We face the huge task of educating a new generation of young people, fathers and mothers, intellectuals and leaders of the nation. It will have to be an all-embracing education, which will not consider people to be merely cogs in a machine, or mute faces in the hands of powerful dictators and tyrants. Such an education will have to seek its inspiration in the Gospels, in our only true teacher Jesus Christ, and in our mother Church, which has experienced the true Spirit of God for twenty centuries. As we approached the end of the twentieth century, we were surprised by unexpected events. Communism collapsed in most of the world. This collapse was preceded by the disintegration of an artificial and inhumane ideology which had propped it up. Carl Friedrich von Weizsacker, the president of Germany, recently said at a symposium in Bratislava that, "The year 1989 will never be forgotten. Six states in eastern Europe experienced revolutions that led to their freedom. In five of these countries, it happened without any bloodshed, which is unique in history. This road to freedom is an unforseen and exciting gift. But, in the long run, it is in danger. 11 Mr. Weizsacker then expressed some concerns about this freedom: Economic freedom became one of the most important events. But, does the market economy solve social problems? Is it able, for instance, to prevent our living space from being destroyed? The social and economic order, as well as that of our living space, are determined within the framework of the 58 SLOVAKIA state. But there is not only one state in the world. It is humanity as a whole that must face the problems of the modem world. But how? The first necessity is to change people's consciousness. Thus, Germany's president has also expressed the main goal of education--to change people's way of thinking about themselves and the world in which they live. Economic freedom alone cannot solve our problems. The market economy is essentially restricted in itself--because of the egoism of its practitioners. This danger was revealed very emphatically in all of the papal social encyclicals, including the "Centesimus Annus." It's one thing to be ambitious and diligent; it's quite another to be egotistical. The latter is a menace to every community. Egoism, which rejects concern for one's neighbor, is not only un-Christian, but it is inhuman and even stupid. Society cannot be better than the capacity of all its members to look at each other respectfully. This is man's fundamental calling. If we have to create new laws, then let us do so with the goal of changing people's minds and consciences. This is the mission of the Church. Just as the market economy will not save us in our new-found freedom, so too will technology not save us. Technology is dangerous if it does not consider the good of all nations and of all of humankind. That is why we need a good moral education, in addition to technical expertise, in order to change our ways of thinking. In eastern Europe there exist nations, which were almost destroyed by Communism, that are experiencing a rebirth. It is important to note that this is not a re-awakening of the "masses," but of nations. This is a phenomenon that is not always acknowledged or understood in the west. For us it is very evident. Once there existed only tribes, towns, principalities and empires. After SLOVAKIA 59 that nations with a Christian tradition were formed. Today the term "nation" is unavoidable. The French, the Germans and the Italians are nations. The Croats and the Slovaks are nations as well. The largest organization in the world bears the name "United Nations." It is a natural right and desire of every nation to be independent. This right is also embodied in the Charter of the United Nations. We know that Communism tried to be international but it did not work. Communist internationalism nearly destroyed our country's national traditions and devastated our lives. Now our nation has experienced a revival and has rediscovered its Christian tradition. Nations, as such, must not succumb to chauvinism. They must be open to each other, without barbed-wire frontiers, and they must also develop a mutual exchange of spiritual and economic goods. This should hold true not only in a united Europe, but in a united world. Since 1948 in central and eastern Europe we experienced a harsh rule of selfish and unscrupulous regimes that considered people as mere cogs in machines. Everything was moral which served those in power. Everybody had to accept Marxist ideology. Those who refused lost their jobs because the state was the only employer. The Communist Party directed the school curriculum, controlled radio and television programs, as well as the press and culture in general. The Church was regarded as Communism's greatest enemy. All of its institutionsmonasteries, schools, seminaries and publishing houses-were closed. Almost all the bishops, many priests and laypersons were imprisoned, and the Greek Catholic Church was dissolved. In this situation, at the age of 27, I was secretly consecrated a bishop in 1951. For the next 20 years I lived the life of a worker. Since the visible Church was controlled by the Communists, I did my religious work underground. Meanwhile, the cruelty of the regime spread. Even Communist ministers were imprisoned! Everybody suspected everybody else. Many people informed on 60 SLOVAKIA each other. In this way, the atheistic regime poisoned our lives. Politicians ruled in the name of the "working class," but from my experience as a worker I can attest to the fact that the workers toiled in dirty factories while the ruling class lived in palaces, villas and hunting lodges. Any kind of criticism was dangerous, and many critics were executed. When in 1960 I was discovered and sentenced to twelve years of prison for my pastoral work, I met six other bishops and 200 priests in jail! After the failure of the experiment to create "socialism with a human face" in 1968, resistance against totalitarianism began in earnest. Some former Communists, who had fallen into disgrace, became dissidents, but their number was small. The main resistance to Communism in Slovakia was still organized by believers. They defended the dignity of the human person, and demanded the freedom to educate their children as they pleased. They risked a lot. Many were imprisoned, faced discrimination at school, in their professions and in public life in general. They could not teach, become historians or philosophers, were never given any responsible jobs, whether in civilian life or in the army. But, they did not give up. They met in the privacy of their homes, or in the woods. Later on they participated 'en masse' in pilgrimages, sometimes attracting over 200,000 followers! On March 25th, 1988, many thousands held a public prayer-meeting at Hviezdoslav square in Bratislava. They were attacked by police armed with truncheons and water-cannons. A Marxist dissident described it as a unique manifestation because it was not for better wages but rather for human rights. State atheism, with its cruelty and emptiness, had awakened the force of faith and the immense dynamism of the Church! The fight for freedom and human rights in our country was closely linked with the defense of the nation and its Christian traditions. Nowadays it quite often happens that the reality which SLOVAKIA 61 we call a nation is regarded with suspicion. In our country the existence of the nation always fulfilled, and continues to fulfil, a positive role. Pope John Paul II had a similar experience in Poland and he expressed it to UNESCO in the following words: I am the son of a nation that has overcome the most horrible experience in history .. .It has preserved its Christian identity ... only with the help of its own national culture which has proved to be stronger than any other numerical superiority ... This is not a remote echo of nationalism, but a permanent element of human experience and humanistic perspective on the whole subsequent development of man! Eastern Europe was quite fortunate to find, at first, individuals, then groups, and finally hundreds and thousands of people who resisted the humiliation of Communism. At first, after 1948, there were only tiny pockets of resistance among believers. A great many, however, resisted quietly, but firmly. In 1946 the anti-Communist Democratic Party won 62% of the vote in Slovakia. Now, in 1991, 65% of the population of Slovakia reported that they were practicing Catholics. What helped our people to keep their faith during the last 40 years of persecution? There are several reasons. The proclamation of Sts. Cyril and Methodius as co-parton Saints of Europe by Pope John Paul II in 1980 certainly helped. Indeed, the interventions of Pope Paul VI and John Paul II, who publicly addressed us on several occasions, gave us great encouragement. By citing the Gospels, the Church defended humanity and freedom, and it helped the workers to stand up against the only employer under Communism, the state with all of its power. What can we learn from our experiences? Marxism brought with it only totalitarianism and inhumanity. A person can develop his real abilities and his moral being only if he is free. 62 SLOVAKIA Communism interpreted this freedom as submitting oneself to the necessity of history. This necessity was determined by a few leaders of the Party. Everyone else had to obey and fill the quotas. Hatred became the principle of life. The enemy of the working class had to be destroyed, even if that enemy was your father, your brother or sister. Human life in such a system became slavery. The roots of morality were severed by atheism. People became an anonymous herd, in the beginning filled with enthusiasm and many promises, later becoming cowardly, and finally frightened and powerless in the merciless grip of the well-paid police. During the era of Communism, people lost their individuality. Children did not belong to their parents, but to the state. The student was not allowed to think independently. He had to embrace the convictions of the state. He had to be an atheist. Only atheists were allowed to become teachers, professors, military officers, government officials, and so on. Therefore, some people conformed to the system, others played along, and society was deformed. People were not allowed to o._wn property, or even to possess themselves. In public everybody had to speak the language of the state. So, people were alienated. Only in private could people speak their minds. The following joke summed it up: At a political screening, an employee was asked for his reaction to a recent government measure. He professed to agree with it. His bosses wanted him to elaborate. He answered, "Even if I had an opinion, I could not agree with it!" Nobody could publicly agree with his own convictions. This state of permanent hypocrisy was terrible. But what is offered to us in the post-Communist era? Some people think it is liberalism in its economic, political, cultural and ethical forms. What does this mean? If it means "everything goes," it is but another route to the cemetery. Dostoevski once said that if atheism and life without God took over, it would no SLOVAKIA 63 longer be possible to determine what is good and what is bad, and in the end everything would be allowed. Communism sanctioned everything, even the murder of tens of thousands of people. Hitler did the same thing. Without God there was no morality. And, without morality, society is destroyed. Dostoevski wrote that, if that moment arrived, such a darkness would come over us that the whole structure would collapse under the burden of human blasphemy. The structure of Communism fell in the same way as Nazism. Whenever life lost its conscience, good and evil lost their meaning. The only measure of morality was usefulness--either to the pure race or to the working-class. What are we offered now? If we conceive of liberalism as a system where everything is allowed, we have a new reason to worry. Francis Fukuzama writes that the fall of Communism does not spell the victory of economic and political liberalism, and therefore, he does not foresee a new golden age for mankind; he even fears the end of history, where the spirit of sacrifice for an ideal or a moral value will perish. The struggle for ideas requiring courage and enthusiasm will be replaced by purely economic calculations and technological solutions. Everything will be concentrated on care for the environment, on consumer claims, and on unlimited entertainment. If Communism maintained that it marked the end of history, and that afterwards there was nothing else to be expected, it represented something like the end of history. Time came to a standstill, the system blocked all new ideas, and dead precepts no longer worked. We withdrew from history for decades. Now that we have abandoned Communism, we can re-enter into history and can help to re-build it. But which road should we now follow? Pure liberalism, as some people assert, is the offer of some kind of new paradise. We are offered the market economy, free enterprise, private ownership, a share in the profits, respect for a plurality of ideas in matters of morality, art, 64 SLOVAKIA culture, and all that goes with them without any inhibitions. We are offered consumer goodies of every kind, starting with food of all sorts, holidays by the sea, as well as pornography and sex without any barriers. Liberal well-being without any limits is being offered to us. And this is supposed to bring us happiness? Our believers did not resist Communist tyranny for this kind of happiness. We resisted in the name of God and for the respect of the human being! Communism failed because it did not understand man, either in his greatness, or in his weakness. At the same time, it sought to create a new man. But it did not. It produced some tyrants, many egotists and a great many cowards. Liberalism, which some people are trying to introduce into our country, is a faulty system which does not understand man, and makes many of the same mistakes as Communism. A man is not a man because he has many choices in what he eats. Consumption is not enough. And, man is a sinner--he can be ferocious, selfish and uncaring. That is why he has to set limits for himself. If he does not do it by himself, then society must do it for him. Therefore, Communism cannot just be replaced by a boundless liberalism where a few thousand people live in luxury, as they had under Communism, while the great majority toil in factories without question. Christianity offers us a much fuller life, one of liberty but guided by our consciences as ordered by God. During the Communist era history seemed to stop. Mankind had reached the last stage of its development, according to Marxist theory. Collective ownership was the key to paradise. But there was no paradise. Instead, there was hell. Stalin gave orders to execute thousands of workers, then hundreds of thousands of his own soldiers, among them Marshal Tuchacevski, and others. Together with Molotov and Lazar M. Kaganovich, he signed a list ordering the execution of about 230,000 people at once! Similar things happened in Poland, Czecho- SLOVAKIA 65 Slovakia, Hungary, in Cambodia and Ethiopia later on. Man was valued only for his capacity to work. If he disagreed with those in power, he lost his value and was shot. This was the horror of Christian Europe. What was moral and just was what served the so-called working class, and this was decided by three or four people in power. Everybody else trembled with fear, even among co-workers or friends. The atheist totalitarian state tried to buy everyone off, especially the young. It constructed an open morality. It tried to awake base passions. It created slogans such as "Whoever is not with us, is against us!" or "Down with religion! It is the opiate of the people!" and "Man must redeem himself. Paradise is here on earth. The Soviet Union is our model!" It was all done by force. Prisons were overcrowded, labor camps were organized, and false accusations abounded: "collaborator," "saboteur," "enemy of the working-class," "spy," "traitor," "subversive," "reactionary," "clerical," and so on were hurled about. If a worker criticized his master, it was considered an attack upon socialism and the whole Republic. Therefore, workers stayed quiet and were the most wretched class of people. I toiled among them for about twenty-five years, whether at liberty or in prison. In my last job I repaired elevators. The workers I knew had minds of their own, but during official meetings they said not a word. How did this dehumanized life shape our people? It deformed them. It affected families, workers, officials, prisoners and even children, because everyone was encouraged to become an informer! In his Gulag Archipelago Solzhenitsyn describes the effects of this suffocating atheism. In 1955 the writer A.A. Fadeev committed suicide in the USSR. He explained his action in the following words: "The best writers died all too soon ... they did not even make it to age forty or fifty ... My life as a writer has lost its purpose and I am running away from an existence where man is turned over to emptiness and lies." 66 SLOVAKIA The Slovak writer Dominik Tatarka wrote similarly before his death: "All the authorities who were blaspheming God were humiliating us." Another writer who supported the atheistic regime for decades wrote in 1990: "Marxism has been dead for a long time .. .It could not stand up to the social or personal test of time. The blackboard of hope is empty." Still another wrote in 1992 after he was hospitalized: "And suddenly it has dawned! Without being aware of it, you realize that you have changed. Everything that you mocked yesterday you understand today. And you start to enjoy God's blessings in order not to walk alone with empty hands on such a long journey ... " These are no longer complaints. They reflect the search for and the discovery of life in God and His Church. What are our experiences and attitudes after the collapse of 40 years totalitarianism? We face a lot of shortcomings and diseases. But neither the country, not the nation is dead, although they have been severely weakened by many vices. Every society is beset by vices. The important thing is to recognize our vices, and to try to overcome them. The Church, which viewed man as the personification of God, played a major role in the struggle with atheistic regimes. It never ceased to stress the dignity and greatness of the human being, who cannot be altered into an obedient tool of tyrants, or into a mere worker or a powerless sheep in a large herd. Man is born free, made into the image and likeness of God, and is on his way to eternity with Him. The Church has to remind man of his greatness, it must educate and protect him. This is the Church's mission, whether it is practiced at Masses or at universities. This is the only road to true freedom and happiness. During the last forty years we had to fight against atheistic slavery for freedom. Again and again we preached that "Man does not live by bread alone." Without freedom even well-fed people committed suicide. Freedom is not found in material SLOVAKIA 67 goods, but in people. That is the message we preached. Our goal was always clear, and it was worth every sacrifice. We now face a new problem. Our people are divided on how to interpret and live in the new freedom. That is because two generations were educated in atheistic Marxism. To many intellectuals the idea that man was created in the image of God is a foreign concept. They still conceive of man as a product of his environment. To them it is very difficult to define what is a "conscience," what are "ethics," what is "responsibility" and what is man's goal in life? In such a confused state, they mistake freedom for wilfulness, and decide that everything is permitted. Thus, there are no limits of morality in art, science, in sexual practices, and so on. That is why it is so difficult to have a dialogue with them. That is why we often have to begin it with pragmatic and practical arguments. However, we cannot stop here. We have to convince everyone that it is wrong to attack or to kill someone; it is anti-social and destructive to spread drugs; it is wilful to use guns just as it is forbidden to poison wells. The freedom of the individual has limits; certain principles must be accepted. The state is bound by laws, just as the whole world community is bound by conventions based on moral principles. After a forty-year struggle for the lower limit of freedom, we are now struggling with the upper limit of human freedom. But at which point can man become happy in his freedom? We have learned that not everything that can be done by man is moral. Life teaches us that. I will conclude with a reference to science and technology. If people doubt the validity of Christian principles in matters of abortion or euthanasia, then surely they must face other situations where they are confronted by the matter of morals and ethics. Nowadays we have to ask ourselves if humankind is permitted to do all that it is capable of doing physically with nuclear weapons and biogenetics. We already have international agreements that prohibit the use of chemical 68 SLOVAKIA weapons, that prohibit nuclear testing, and that provide for the gradual reduction of the nuclear arsenal. It is at this point that science runs into religion, and Christianity in particular. A meeting of the two could prove useful in reconciling these opposite poles. In his unrestrained desire for power, man could devastate our planet. This must never happen! Here is where the dialogue between people of good will must begin. A common formulation and elaboration of questions would be a good starting point. Shortly before his death in 1973, the Nobel Prize-winner Werner Heisenberg wrote in Der Tei] und das Ganze (The Part and the Whole): While in our western world we often ask the question what is good and bad, what is worth fighting for and what must be refused, we still run into Christianity's measures of values, even when many people do not understand the images and allegories used by this religion. Should this magnetic force directing the compass of our life ever disappear, then I am afraid that many terrible things would occur, even more terrible than concentration camps and nuclear bombs ... After our experience of life without God for over forty years, we can appreciate these words of warning. Christianity has something to say about man, about nations and about the world. In 1945 Europe was liberated from the horrors of Nazism. But this liberation did not bring us liberty. It brought us a new slavery called Communism. Now we are liberated from this slavery as well. Some of the new programs that are offered to us keep repeating the same mistakes as before. Real freedom is not self-will. This is what threatens us all, whether in the economic sphere or in culture. Our experience tells us that real freedom can only take root in a ground that is based upon truth. And only the SLOVAKIA 69 truth as revealed by Gcxt will make us free. It is the task of those of us who are believers to spread this truth, and to build our lives upon it in our quest for eternal happiness. This is exactly what your famous University tries to teach, as your president Mr. Cemera wrote to me a few weeks ago: "The University aims to assist in the development of people, knowledge of self, rooted in faith, educated in mind, compassionate in heart, responsive to social and civic obligations, and able to respond to an everchanging world." Envy is a sin and we must avoid it. However, if there exists something outwardly similar, in reality it is admiration and the desire to achieve the same result. In this sense we admire you and your University and in our hearts we long for all that you have here. It is an excellent gift of Gcxt and an important means of education for new generations of scholars.  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 Reflections on the Downfall of Communism and the Transition to Capitalism Description An account of the resource Ján Chryzostom Cardinal Korec Slovakia, Vol. 36 (No. 66-67), 1998 pp. 56-69 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Korec, Ján Chryzostom, 1924-2015 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1998 SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/56d04b1b183ad87ba1111fba4989ab07.pdf fc1dae71100e15a9b672c29140f57429 PDF Text Text 78 SLOVAKIA Relations Between Slovaks and Czechs in the First CSR SUSAN MIKULA At this particular point in the history of the Czechs and Slovaks, the question of the nature of the relationship between these two nations has assumed a renewed significance and interest. The disintegration of the common state which had existed for 74 years is often presented in the popular press as the result of Slovak backwardness, provincialism, undemocratic tendencies, vestiges of communist influence; in short as anything but the consequence of a long historical process. There has in fact been a persistent tendency throughout much of the 20th century, whether by popular writers or even some professional scholars, to view Slovak demands for structural changes in their relationship with the Czechs along much the same lines, that is as reflective of fascist or communist extremists, of political, economic or cultural immaturity, or of a destructive opportunism. The prime reason for such tendencies may be that the prism through which the "Slovak problem" has often been viewed is the Czech or Czechoslovak. In other words, there are certain a priori assumptions being made about the nature of the problem which affect the analysis of the problem. One such tendency is to see it as just that, a Slovak problem, that is, as a problem between two competing Slovak factions, rather than as a problem between Czechs and Slovaks. The consequence of that has been the tendency to dismiss the problem and then be repeatedly surprised and dismayed when the central nature of the issues resurfaced and influenced the �SLOVAKIA 79 entire state and people. Another tendency is to identify the Slovak nationalist aspirations in the First Czechoslovak Republic (CSR) with the extreme nationalist movements of the inter-war era, that is with fascism. The problem thus becomes reduced to the analysis of Andrej Hlinka and the Slovak People's Party, which is designated as a clerical-fascist movement. The problem is then still a Slovak problem - the authoritarian tendencies of a huge segment of the Slovak population - and also an external one - the broad movement of European fascism. The difficulty comes with trying to account for the persistence of the Slovak national aspirations, long after the dismantling and systematic discrediting of the Slovak Republic. Here the notion of backwardness (economic and political) and immaturity (political and cultural) assumes a satisfactory explanatory character. What has been common in the great majority of these analyses, written mostly from the Czechoslovak perspective, is this notion that it is the Slovak's problem . On the other hand, the few works written from the Slovak perspective , at least until very recently , have tended to veer in the opposite direction, to view it as strictly a Czech problem, that is as the result of a systematic and deliberate policy of Czechoslovakization (analogous to Magyarization). This tendency has likewise but limited value. The Czech/Slovak problem has, rather, been a structural, historical problem, especially in the First Republic. With the creation of that state an attempt was made to apply an undifferentiated model of the nation-state to a society in which a number of nations were undergoing the process of national self-actualization accelerated beyond previous historical experience. The attempt to establish a unitary nation-state comprised of a hastily constructed nation (Czechoslovak) was thus flying in the face of the very process which had led to the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian empire and which had precisely allowed for the possibility of self-determination for the various nations of the empire. From this perspective, the problem ceases to be a Czech or Slovak problem and becomes a problem of �80 SLOVAKIA the very idea of the Czechoslovak state as it emerged by 1920.19 The unitary, power-based political structure (mocensko-politicky system)20 of the First Republic could not satisfy the needs of the Slovaks without significant revision. However the very real successes and achievements of that state, especially for the Czechs, meant that the need for revision met with incomprehension and therefore indifference and then resistance. An examination of some critical economic and political issues affecting the Slovaks illustrates the fundamental nature of the problem for the Czechoslovak republic. To do so, certain inescapable realities must be recognized. The first is that the economic conditions of the Czech and Slovak lands were vastly different at the very onset of the Republic. A further inescapable reality is that that differences persisted throughout the First Republic and in fact deepened. A third inescapable reality is that l 9 A recent example in Western scholarship which looks at how the structure of the state related to the national struggle of the Slovaks is Carol Skalnik Leff's book , National Conflict in Czechoslovakia, Princeton University Press, I 988 . The Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Science (Historicky ustav SA V) has just published the papers from the symposium held November, 1991 entitled Slovensko v politickom systeme Ceskoslovenska, Bratislava, Historicky ustav , 1992. Here both Czech and Slovak scholars examined the political and structural aspects of the Slovak position in the First Republic; most of them have taken a hard look at the system itself. In that vein, some of the recent writings by Czech scholars, such as Vojtech Mencl a kollectiv, Krizovatky 20. stoleti, Prague, Na~e Vojsko, 1990; Petr Pithart Dejiny a politika , Prague, Prostor , 1990; and Zdenek Pinc "The Idea of the Czechoslovak State: History, Theory and Political Reality" in Czechoslovak and Central European Journal, Vol. 10, no . I, 1991, pp. 36-45 have also taken a more critical approach to the analysis of the political system of the First Republic . There are a variety of viewpoints here and not all agree with the notion that the very structure of the First Republic, namely that of a unitary nation-state, almost certainly precluded a satisfactory resolution of conflicting national aspirations, but all recognize that at issue was much more than competing Slovak factions or Slovak immaturity. On a related subject, the theoretical and methodological approach used by Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1984, is very useful. 20 Josef Harna uses that term to characterize the operational structure of the First Republic . See Politickf system a statni politika v prvnfch Jetech existence Ceskoslo venske republiky (1918-1923), Praha, Historicky ustav, 1990. �SLOVAKIA 81 these circumstances were at the root of Slovak grievances and frustrations, which came to be shared by nearly all Slovaks, irrespective of their political beliefs. The initial differences between the two arose from their historical conditions, and are well known. While due to some degree to natural environmental factors (resources, terrain, geophysical placement) they are also the result of differing economic and political policies and interests on the part of the Austrians and the Magyars. While the Czechs had become the industrial nucleus of the Habsburg Empire and were well advanced in industrialization and urbanization by the latter decades of the 19th century, Slovak industrialization was at that time at its beginning stages. The Slovaks did have an analogous position within the Hungarian kingdom, designated to become industrially active for that sector of the Empire, but this was in its infancy stage when compared to the Czechs. Thus the creation of Czecho-Slovakia in 1918 joined together two very different economic regions. The effects of that union were also very different. While the Czech Lands continued to develop, after some initial adjustments, at least until the Great Depression, Slovakia stagnated throughout the entire period in almost every category of economic activity. 21 In attempting to explain this fact, one has to recognize that there was little if any economic planning prior to the establishment of the First Republic. In the immediate postwar period, Slovaks recognized the need for economic development and submitted plans and requests to Prague. However, their weak political representation in the crucial first years, the liquidation of the Slovak National Council, which left a leadership vacuum in Slovakia, and the small number of economic leaders in Slovakia all meant that these early efforts were without success. Equally powerless in the realm of economics were the Ministry of Unification of Laws and the Minister Plenipotentiary for Slovakia. The structure of the system did not allow for conside21 For an analysis of the Slovak economic situation in the First Republic , see the works of Miroslav Fabricius, Hospodarsky vjvoj Slovenska do konca predmnfchovskej republiky, 1987, no. 75 and Vjvoj nazorov na postavenie ekonomiky Sloven ska v prednmfchovskej republike, Bratislava, Eckonomicky ustav SAV , I 990, no. 79. �82 SLOVAKIA ration of Slovakia's economic development; it was rather submerged into the whole. In fact, the strongest protests over the restructuring of the historic counties came from those county boards most concerned with economic issues. Economic policy in the new republic was highly centralized, as was the political system. Prague was the political and economic center where all the offices and organs were located. Slovakia was not viewed as one of the two integrating units, but rather as a region to be appended to the Historic Lands.22 If there was any recognition of Slovakia's role in the economy as a distinct sector, it was to serve as the agricultural sector, to insure the agrarian self-sufficiency of the state. This theory of an "agrarian Slovakia" was the cornerstone of economic policy in the 1920's, in particular within the Agrarian Party, where political considerations played a part. Slovak Agrarian politicians also supported this notion, although by the end of the 1920's even Milan Hodfa recognized the need to bring industry to Slovakia.23 It was difficult to overcome this notion that the agrarian character of Slovakia was both natural and desirable, even while it was recognized that industrialization was essential to economic development in other areas of East Europe and also that there were actually less than optimal conditions for agriculture in Slovakia. This was especially unfortunate because there was plenty of available evidence which pointed to the social and economic inequality of the two halves of the state and their undesirable social and political consequences. The chief reason for failing to address this problem was the commitment to a laissez-faire policy of economic development. It was argued that to target Slovakia for special investment and\or development would create a dualistic policy while there existed a unitary society. In fact, 22 Vlastislav Lacina, "Uloha hospodai'ske politiky pri vytvlii'enf nove ceskoslovenske ekonomiky 1918-1923" in Politicky system a statni politika v prvnich Jetech existence Ceskoslovenske republiky, p. 86. 23 A summary of this debate about agrarian versus industrial Slovakia is to be found in Fabricius, Vyvoj nazorov na posta venie ekonomiky Slovenska v predmnfchovskej republike . �SLOVAKIA 83 economic dualism already existed and persisted and the failure to deal with it had enormous consequences for both people. Nor did Czechoslovakia actually pursue a laissez-faire economic policy, especially in the first years of the Republic. Rather what occurred was a failure to recognize the special Slovak economic needs, within the context of Slovakia rather than the context of the whole state. As a result the Slovak economy stagnated, with social, economic and political consequences. Evidence of this economic dualism can be found in both the agricultural and industrial sectors. In agriculture, between 19191927, for instance, 87,263 hectares of land in the Czech region underwent improvement while in Slovakia it amounted to 9,323 hectares or 9.6% of the total land improved . The division of investment costs for rural modernization were 95 .1 % to the Czech lands and 4.3% to Slovakia.2 4 Another indicator of the disparity was the rate of rural electrification; in 1933 , for example 125 villages were joined to the electrical network in the Czech lands, 112 in Moravia and Silesia and only 9 in Slovakia. Altogether only 1.9% of agricultural enterprises were electrified in Slovakia compared to 31.7% in Czech lands and 25.2% in Moravia.25 As a consequence, throughout the 1920 1s, Slovak agriculture remained essentially stagnant and less productive and in the 19301s the world agricultural crisis had a greater adverse effect on the Slovaks. In the industrial sector there was a whole battery of problems, so much so that it was referred to as the 11 complex of Slovak industrial woes (komplex bolesti slovenskeho priemyslu)" _26 The restructuring of Slovak industry during the period 19191921 led to an emphasis on the production of consumable (primary) goods, so that the percentage of activity devoted to producing export oriented goods declined. In spite of the fact that Slovakia needed greater modernization and improvement in its economic situation, the 24 Fabricius, Hospodarsky vyvoj S/ovenska do konca predmnichovskej republiky, p. 47 . 25 Jbid. , p. 64. 26 Ibid., p. 52. �84 SLOVAKIA pace of improvement here too was slower than in the Czech Lands. In fact, when in 1921-23 industrial output fell by 30%, some even began to talk about a policy of de-industrialization (odburavanie priemyslu). This was not quite the case but it did ring true for heavy industry; between 1918 and 1932, 260 enterprises were dismantled; by 1937 this had reached another 680 _2 7 Another severe problem was the lack of capital investment; the Czech bourgeoisie invested in existing Slovak firms, not in new ones and those listed in statistics as new were in fact results of transfer of capital and ownership. This process (nostrifikacia) was the road by which Czech capital was able to entrench itself in key positions , especially in banking, industry and marketing. 28 By 1930, after a 10 year period of the integration process, Slovakia was more clearly agrarian in character than before. The Slovak industrial labor share was at 19 .4% while Czech industrial labor rate reached 42.1 % . In the mid-1930's there was a brief spurt of "re-industrialization" in Slovakia, largely in defenserelated industries (perhaps to move them eastward, away from the German border), but even with this , at the end of the First Republic there was still a relative 6% decrease of industrial employment in Slovakia. The percentage of Slovaks in the total industrial employment in Czechoslovakia did not rise above 8% during the entire period. 29 Over the twenty year existence of the First Republic, Slovak economic development consistently lagged behind that of the Czechs, producing a highly developed sense of economic grievance among Slovaks of all political persuasions, including the centrists. On the issue of the economy there existed near unanimity of opinion among the Slovaks. The inability of the Slovaks, however, to effect significant changes in the economic policies and expenditures of the 27 Mencl , p. 143. 28 see Fabricius, Hospodarsky vyvoj S/ovenska do konca predmnfchovskej repub liky, pp . 40-56 and Lacina, pp . 87 and passim for a discusstion of Czech fin ancial investment policies in Slovakia. 29 Radoslav Selucky, "The Economic Equalization of Slovakia with the Czech Lands ", East European Economics, 4/1965, pp . 42-59. �SLOVAKIA 85 central government served to make manifest the structural impediments to full Slovak self-fulfillment within the framework of the unitary Czechoslovak republic. The result was frustration and alienation, both in the economic and the political sphere. In the political sphere, one could almost say that the very decision to create an unitary state of the "Czechoslovak" nation created an untenable situation. Even the most cursory examination of the process by which the unitary state was formed and the structure through which it functioned reveals that the system itself contributed to the erosion of the viability of the unitary Czechoslovak state. The prevailing opinions have generally been that this decision was necessary and beneficial: necessary because of the international situation, the Wilsonian commitment to national self-determination and above all by the fact that the Germans constituted the second largest national group in the new state. And it was beneficial because by that process the Slovaks became a state people rather than a national minority. The assumption therefore is that an unitary state structure was in response to these factors, and not a political decision by the Czech leadership, less a political opportunity but rather an historical necessity. What is generally glossed over is that until almost the very end of the peace process, the dualistic principle was a very real option, that is Czecho-Slovakia, as indicated by the use of the hyphen until 1920 _30 What decided the issue was not Wilsonian expectations but the military turmoil in Slovakia, necessitating occupation and creating fears for the safety of the whole republic . The structure of the state was influenced as much by some short-term problems which could have been resolved in several ways as by broad historical forces . Nor was the decision made because Slovaks were unprepared or disinterested in the structure of the new state. From the time that the Slovak League of America was empowered to negotiate for the Slovaks (Martin Memorandum, 1906) to the Pittsburgh Agreement to the various plans and statements made by Slovak leaders 30 see Joseph Kalvoda, The Genesis of Czechoslo vakia , Boulder, East European Monographs , 1986. �86 SLOVAKIA throughout 1918, it was clear the Slovaks were formulating concepts about their relationship with the Czechs. Examination of the meetings, speeches, correspondence of Slovak leaders, especially in 1918 reveals wide-ranging discussions about the anticipated relationship; autonomy was perhaps the most consistent expectation. For example, Matus Dula wrote on November 23, 1918: "when I discussed our autonomy with responsible [rozhodnymi] Czech leaders, they attested that Slovaks would get full autonomy autonomous rights would fall under the competency of the regional diet." 31 It is clear that in 1918 Slovaks were willing to join their sovereignty with that of the Czechs as partners in a new state, because that afforded them the best opportunity for political emancipation; what they were not expecting to do was to blend and blur their hardfought national identity. The decision to postulate a "Czechoslovak nation" was not made by Slovak political representatives, and these did exist, as did political parties, nor by any electoral process, but rather by a very small group of appointed politicians not very representative of the political, economic, social and cultural spectrum of Slovakia.32 There is no question that conditions were such that it did not appear that reasoned debates and consensus building were luxuries which could be afforded. What needs to be understood however is that decisions were made due to very specific historical events which led to the choice of certain options, which were not necessarily the optimal or sole options and which therefore could 31 Milan Krajcovic, "Slovensko v zahranicnopolitickych suvislostiach 1918-1922", in Slovensko v politickom systeme Ceskoslovenska, p. 148 . See also the article by Vladimir Zuberec, "Vyznamny dokument o postaveni Slovenska za burfoaznej CSR v zbierkach Slovenskeho Narodneho Muzea" in Zbornik Slovenskeho Narodneho Muzea, LXXXIII , 1989, pp. 201-207 . 32 r:ubomir Liptak points out that there were 10,000 people with, if not political experience, certainly with experience in a variety of organizations and public life. And while the number of Slovak schools had dramatically declined , the number of Slovak students had gone up; these could all be acclimated quickly to the new Slovak reality . See "Pripravenosi Slovenska na demokraciu" in Slovensko v politickom systeme Ceskoslovenska, pp. 7-12. �SLOVAKIA 87 have been readdressed as the situation changed. An underlying element in the creation of the new state was the notion that the year 1918 was the year zero - a new beginning with a clean slate. The failure to recognize and internalize the fundamentally different historical experiences and character of the two people, to recognize that in fact two separate nations existed, not branches of one nation, and that these two had differing notions about both the nature of their new relationship and its state structure influenced the subsequent development of the state as well as the two peoples. As Josef Hama points out "On the Czech side there was not the willingness to understand the differences; on the Slovak side there was impatience and anxiety arising from the feeling of powerlessness to achieve their objectives. Czechoslovakia was formed from the prevailing weight of the Czechs as a unitary state with significant characteristics of centralism." _33 The construct of the unitary state, and the method of ratification of the constitution, meant that there was no national debate and therefore no national consensus on the very definition of the nation state . In the formative period, the hyphenated form, suggesting a state of the Czechs and Slovaks, often was used interchangeably with the Czechoslovak. The definitive proclamation in the Constitution that the "Czechoslovak nation" was the creator of the state and "Czechoslovak" the language of the state created the situation in which those large numbers of Slovaks who resisted the label Czechoslovak were forced into opposition not just against the policies of the state, a normal aspect of parliamentary systems, but against the very nature of the state itself, a position the Slovaks initially had no desire to take and in fact until the very end of the republic sought to avoid. As a consequence the fiction of the single Czechoslovak nation was assumed to be the selfevident principle on which relations between Czechs and Slovaks were based. From the viewpoint of the overwhelming majority of Czech politicians, therefore, neither Slovak autonomy nor the federalization of the state on the basis of the national principle was deemed to be at all 33 Harna, p. 14. �88 SLOVAKIA necessary. This attitude prevailed even as the very construct "two branches of the Czechoslovak nation" would seem to demand the necessity of constitutional elaboration and resolution of the individuality contained within the notion of two branches _34 Once the decision was made to create a unitary state, the opportunities for initiating and implementing Slovak policies and political objectives were circumscribed at best, both by the structure of the state system, the political party structure and to an extent the Slovak political forms. The peculiar structure of the party system meant that opposition parties had no realistic chance of modifying the system. The frustration that results from the perceived inability to influence the system in any way often leads to radicalism and this was certainly the case in Czechoslovakia. The power politics party system in the interwar republic proved to be remarkably stable, even though it was a multi-party system in which significant groups were polarized. Stability was achieved at a price, namely the diminution of the role of Parliament and the enhancement of the power of the President and of the government forming coalition parties. A further price was the perception that these centrist parties (generally known as the Petka) had to achieve a consensus and cohesiveness in the face of the fundamental divergence of views from the outsider parties. Hence opposition becomes not something to be tolerated and contested, but something threatening and destabilizing. In effect, the coalition parties could not afford the luxury of opposition; aware of the differences in the state, they felt compelled to focus on retaining and centralizing power. The political cabinet of party leaders essentially overshadowed the ministerial cabinet and tended to make of Parliament a virtual rubber stamp, at least for deputies from the governing parties. What that meant in practice was that the system was impervious to any fundamental change through the normal parliamentary 34M. Matula, "Nektere problemy souvisejfci s institucionalnfm aspektem narodnfc h vztahu CSR v letech 1918-1938" in Slovensko v politickom syst6me Ceskoslovenska, p. 91 . �SLOVAKIA 89 process. What ensued then was the belief that the structure itself had to be modified if any real political power was to develop among the Slovaks. As one historian writes: The issue was not really whether or not the Slovaks achieved immediate autonomy but the Jack of understanding and the unwillingness of the Czech parties even to recognize the problem. Thus the spokesmen for the Slovak position were pushed into opposition and progressively forced into a negative stance relative to the existing regime.3 5 Illustrative of the unwillingness even to address the question of constitutional organization was the fate of administrative reconstruction. The County Law of 1920 was designed to integrate Slovakia into the new state by creating a new county structure to replace the old. What especially generated protests by Slovak administrators was that financial control at the county level was taken over by the central Ministries oflnterior and Finance. During 1921-22, several proposals were made in Parliament to address these Slovak concerns. The Hlinka Slovak People's Party (HSPP) called for selfadministration in Slovak affairs, a provincial Diet and a provincial government named by the President. There were also other variants, some more radical, of Slovak autonomy. Hodza, who at this time was still looking for a means of unifying Slovak political power, suggested a County Union with competencies in health, welfare, economic and cultural spheres precisely to shift administrative power in Slovakia out of Prague's bureaucratic hands and into Slovak political hands. The debate on these issues in the ministerial circles in Prague revealed a reluctance to delegate any real powers, even to a body like the County Union. The only concessions to be made were delegating powers addressing the needs of the feeble-minded, blind, deaf, epileptic, supervising forced labor and the poorhouses .36 35 Hama, p. 19. 36 For an analysis of the debate over the administration of Slovakia, see Natalia Krajcovicovli , "Politicke strany na Slovensku a usilie o samosprlivu v dvadsiatich rokoch" in Slovensko v politickom systeme Ceskoslovenska, pp . 47-55 . See also Ladislav Lipscher, K vyvinu politickej spravy na Slovensku v rokoch 1918-1938, Bratislava, SA V, 1966. �90 SLOVAKIA The political concerns behind such positions were evident, as expressed in the magazine Tribuna: "It is certain that a County Union in Slovakia would be a constant threat to the unity of the state. Who can guarantee that it would not give birth to some kind of autonomous Diet for Slovakia?"3 7 The result was that the administrative structure for Slovakia was extraordinarily limited, always under the strict supervision of Prague. Slovaks lost even a modicum of local autonomy, under a system which was not implemented in the rest of the country precisely because the example of centralized power as manifested in Slovakia aroused local opposition in Bohemia and Moravia. The anomaly could not be sustained and in 1927 the Provincial Law replaced the county system with the four historic provinces. While this acknowledged the territorial existence of Slovakia as an entity, little was done to give that entity any real administrative powers. The failure of these administrative efforts indicated that no serious attempt would be made to bring about a measure of decentralization of government. Problems of special significance to the Slovaks, such as the economic imbalance, the lower standard of living, the dearth of jobs for the growing numbers of university trained younger leaders, the preservation of religious and cultural values were thus not addressed regionally, but left to the central government in Prague, where Slovak power was minimal at best. It could be argued, and often has been, that the lack of Slovak power was more the result of the divisions among the Slovaks themselves than of the unitary and centralized nature of the system. The inability of the Slovaks to form a cohesive bloc was a factor, but not a decisive factor, for as long as even one Slovak was found who would enter the government in the name of the Slovaks (and in fact three, namely Vavro Srobar, Ivan Derer, Hod:fa, were all that were basically necessary during the First Republic) and while coalition parties could attract a Slovak following, (and two did), the power of the coalition bloc would outweigh any Slovak bloc. The ambiguity about the nature of the Czech-Slovak problem would however have 37Krajfovicovii, p. 51. �SLOVAKIA 91 been clarified had the Slovaks achieved a Slovak party. Hod:fa and others recognized this and an attempt was made to form a National Bloc or even a Political Committee (which Hod:fa tried) which would have functioned in a manner analogous to the Petka. This failed because of the inability to achieve a uniform stand on the question of the Slovak position in the state and also to a diversity of views on some specific issues, a problem partially attributable to confessional differences. There did exist a basic consensus on general principles; only a few Slovaks were convinced Czechoslovaks. Unfortunately it was precisely these few who were able to join the government in Prague and were thus considered to represent the Slovaks. There was in fact a fundamental unity among the Slovak populace: a rejection of ethnic and linguistic Czechoslovakism, a commitment to the Czechoslovak state, albeit a reformed one, and a recognition of the pluralistic nature of the state and society. If there was division among the Slovaks, it came on the question of how, not whether, to reform the state: regionalism or autonomy. The Slovak Agrarians, under Hod:fa's leadership, were centrist in that they worked within the system to bring about a modification of some of the system, but especially in the 1930's were also advocates of regionalism. Hodfa came to advocate an intermediary notion, looking at it from a pragmatic perspective, which "means neither centralism nor autonomy, but state-political unity and regionalism with administrative self-government" .38 Hodfa was trying to find a bridge between two ever diverging assessments (one Czech and the other Slovak) of the satisfaction level with the existing political system. The escalating criticism by Slovaks of their position in the First Republic is evident from the following editorial in Zem, the journal of the younger generation of Agrarians: The aversion of Czechs and Slovaks arises from economic and social problems . Czechs accept our arguments with a judicious attentiveness , while they continue to make their own national , cultural and linguistic politics .. . Currently a majority of the Slovaks want to acknowledge their own nation .... and the unfortunate tendencies (potmehudske narazky) seen 38Milan Hodfa, C/anky, reci, §tudie, Prague , Novina , 1934, Vol. 7, pp . xxxii-iii . �92 SLOVAKIA in various Czech newspapers, to suggest that Slovak efforts to achieve their rights somehow indicates political unreliabi lity, wi ll not deter the Slovaks. 39 If even Hodza's and the Agrarians' moderate call for regionalism was ignored , the possibility for substantive constitutional reform was all the more remote. The position of the HSPP, which consistently included Slovak autonomy as its basic program, is certainly a case in point. Representing a large portion of the Slovak people,40 they were systematically frustrated in their attempts to implement their programs. Ignored most of the time, only in times of crisis did the governing powers seek to integrate the HSPP into the process , such as the coalition crisis of the late 192O's or the presidential elections of 1935 ; once the crisis was resolved, any further negotiations were deemed unnecessary. A good illustration of this can be seen from the December 1935 talks between President Edvard Benes and Andrej Hlinka, leader of the HSPP. Hlinka asked for decentralization and legislative power for regional Slovak organs and for the post of Minister for Slovakia for the HSPP. Benes promised to give the Slovaks all that was possible without undermining the unity of the state. In February 1936 Benes noted that the entry of HSPP into the government was delayed due to unacceptable nature of the demands: the same demands which were made in negotiations in December. The governing coalition rejected the demands and the matter was closed.41 No matter what route the Slovaks followed in their efforts to modify the structure and political system, they had little success. Political parties in Slovakia were unable to compete nationally, for 39zem, IV , 4 , 20 . February , 1938, p. 39 . 40 one could argue that at times it did indeed represent a majority of the Slovaks, if one assumes that Czechs voting in Slovakia supported centrist parties and Magyars their own parties . 41 E.F. Firsov, "K problemu modifik,kif parlamentneho systemu CSR a narodnopolitickeho konsenzu Cechov a Slovakov na prelome 20. a 30 . rokov" in Slo vensk o v politickom systeme Ceskos/ovenska, p. 104. �SLOVAKIA 93 the state was in the hands of the centrist parties and thus no shadow coalition or cabinet could form. Slovaks were united in their efforts to gain control of the bureaucratic apparatus in Slovakia, as a means of indirect access to the power center. This too was frustrated by the bureaucratic structure of centralism. It took the crisis of 1938 to bring about some readjustment in the state relations between Czechs and Slovaks, a settlement subsequently repudiated as being forcibly imposed. 42 By that time however a more aggressive and assertive stance had been taken by the HSPP; 20 years of waiting for the system to change from above had led to the radicalization of the efforts to change it. It is often argued that in time of crisis the Slovaks abandoned the Czechs, generating the notion of ungrateful Slovaks. One could likewise argue that only in times of crisis did the Czechs remember the Slovaks .. . one can go to the well only so many times. There is no question that fascist elements had entered into the Slovak political arena, fueled in part by economic grievances and political frustration . The fact that fascism was a force sweeping across the disaffected sectors of Europe does not absolve the Slovaks of responsibility for those fascist features; nor does however the argument that Czechoslovakia, while it had its faults, was still the only functioning democracy in Eastern Europe and better than the surrounding systems excuse those faults and deny their consequences. For both, historical relativism is a tempting but ultimately unsatisfying position. 43 42 An interesting side point here is Hodza's argument that the political cabinet's acceptance of Slovak self-administration, as negotiated in the summer of 1938 was in fact valid , against Bene§' subsequent argument , after W .W .II broke out , that Parliament had not approved it and it was therefore invalid. Hodza was correct in his perception that the political cabinet was the crucial decision making body . That was why Slovak political efforts were in fact so often frustrated, because Parliament tended only to reflect the decisions of the political cabinet. 43 As a prominent Czech historian has observed: "The ideal of democracy became a self-indulgent compliment, nurturing the need of the Czechs for universal recognition and admiration. Czech nationalism greeted the foundation of the republic not only as an occasion to score points in the nationalistic struggle with imperialistic �94 SLOVAKIA The analogy of a marriage is perhaps an appropriate metaphor for the course of Czech and Slovaks relations . In May of 1918, as the Austro-Hungarian Empire was moving inexorably toward its demise, Hlinka declared: "It is absolutely necessary for us to decide if we will continue with the Magyars, or go with the Czechs. Let us not evade the question, let us say openly that we are for the CzechoSlovak orientation. The thousand year marriage with the Magyars has not worked. A divorce is necessary." 44 The marriage of the Czechs and Slovaks in 1918 was a classic war-time marriage: undertaken in haste, without adequate courtship, with both partners moving immediately from divorce (Austrian and Hungarian partners respectively) into this new relationship. There was no time to discuss the terms and conditions of the marriage, the expectations about what each sought and would bring to the marriage. What little was prepared was done largely by marriage brokers (Toma~ G. Masaryk on one side and the American Slovaks on the other, resulting in the Pittsburgh Agreement of 1918) . The first months of the marriage were very difficult, as the residual effects of the Great War needed to be addressed . It became apparent fairly soon, however, that the two partners in the marriage had very different expectations and notions. The Czech partner clearly saw himself as the preponderant factor, functioning as provider and decision maker in a traditional marriage . This was a natural expectation, given the Czech numerical and material dominance. Thus the Czechs had a clear notion of the nature of the relationship: a unitary state of the Czechoslovak nation. The Slovak partner was much less clear about her role in the marriage. Given her relative lack of wealth and experience, there was a tendency on the part of some to accept a dependent relationship and a subservient role in the marriage. Thus generally more than a third of the Slovaks Germany, but also as a justification of its own colonial ambitions toward Slovakia." Zden~k Pinc, "The Idea of the Czechoslovak State: History, Theory and Political Reality", Czechoslovak and Central European Journal, 10, no. I , 1991, p. 38 . 44 Karol Medvecky, Slovenskf prevrat, Tmava, Spolok Sv. Vojtecha, 1930-31 , Vol. Ill , p. 347 . �SLOVAKIA 95 accepted the Czechoslovak unitary state, though only a tiny minority believed in the notion of the Czechoslovak people and virtually no one subscribed to a Czechoslovak language. There also existed a different notion of the marriage, namely the desire for an equal partnership between two equals. This was manifested in the desire for some form of Slovak autonomy as exemplified by the hyphenated Czecho-Slovakia, a position which generally a majority of the Slovaks supported. As the marriage progressed during the 1920's and 1930's, both internal and external factors escalated Slovak discontent. The Slovaks came to resent their status in the Czechoslovak Republic because they felt increasingly frustrated , both economically and politically and because they perceived a paternalistic indifference to Slovak grievances. Increasingly, this frustration led to a sense of alienation from the marriage and a greater responsiveness to ideological concepts which addressed both the reality and the theory of the inadequacy of an unequal marriage; in this marriage it was the call of nationalism which led the "weaker" partner to re-evaluate her place within the Czech-defined relationship. As storm clouds gathered over Europe, as tension and fear escalated, the Slovaks sought to re-define the marriage precisely at the moment that the Czechs, feeling far more threatened by the forces gathering over Europe, resisted any tampering with what to them was a satisfactory marriage. They in fact did not even comprehend the alienation and sense of frustration prevalent among the Slovaks . Thus the events of Munich and after led to deep bitterness, for the Czechs believed the Slovaks had stabbed them in the back, and the Slovaks felt that, having been denied the opportunity to improve their relationship with the Czechs, they had no obligations to travel the bitter path with a partner who had never listened to them and had never been prepared to engage in a genuine dialogue with a view toward developing a marriage of true partners. During the period of the war, the Czechs and some Slovaks denied that the marriage had broken up; some Czechs even denied that any adjustments were necessary for the marriage to resume. Virtually no Slovak could subscribe to that position; for the Slovaks, at the very minimum, a co-equal marriage was imperative. �96 SLOVAKIA The fall of communism enabled old and new grievances to surface, on both sides, and to be finally openly confronted. The result was a divorce. The seeds of that divorce, not necessarily inevitable , had been planted by failures common to so many marriages: lack of communications and the inability to listen as Czechs and Slovaks talked from different historical perspectives, in different languages and with different objectives , resulting in misunderstandings, undervaluing of roles , responsibilities and contributions, and above all , the lack of commitment to a marriage of diversity and genuine equality. � 78 SLOVAKIA Relations Between Slovaks and Czechs in the First CSR SUSAN MIKULA At this particular point in the history of the Czechs and Slovaks, the question of the nature of the relationship between these two nations has assumed a renewed significance and interest. The disintegration of the common state which had existed for 74 years is often presented in the popular press as the result of Slovak backwardness, provincialism, undemocratic tendencies, vestiges of communist influence; in short as anything but the consequence of a long historical process. There has in fact been a persistent tendency throughout much of the 20th century, whether by popular writers or even some professional scholars, to view Slovak demands for structural changes in their relationship with the Czechs along much the same lines, that is as reflective of fascist or communist extremists, of political, economic or cultural immaturity, or of a destructive opportunism. The prime reason for such tendencies may be that the prism through which the "Slovak problem" has often been viewed is the Czech or Czechoslovak. In other words, there are certain a priori assumptions being made about the nature of the problem which affect the analysis of the problem. One such tendency is to see it as just that, a Slovak problem, that is, as a problem between two competing Slovak factions, rather than as a problem between Czechs and Slovaks. The consequence of that has been the tendency to dismiss the problem and then be repeatedly surprised and dismayed when the central nature of the issues resurfaced and influenced the �SLOVAKIA 79 entire state and people. Another tendency is to identify the Slovak nationalist aspirations in the First Czechoslovak Republic (CSR) with the extreme nationalist movements of the inter-war era, that is with fascism. The problem thus becomes reduced to the analysis of Andrej Hlinka and the Slovak People's Party, which is designated as a clerical-fascist movement. The problem is then still a Slovak problem - the authoritarian tendencies of a huge segment of the Slovak population - and also an external one - the broad movement of European fascism. The difficulty comes with trying to account for the persistence of the Slovak national aspirations, long after the dismantling and systematic discrediting of the Slovak Republic. Here the notion of backwardness (economic and political) and immaturity (political and cultural) assumes a satisfactory explanatory character. What has been common in the great majority of these analyses, written mostly from the Czechoslovak perspective, is this notion that it is the Slovak's problem . On the other hand, the few works written from the Slovak perspective , at least until very recently , have tended to veer in the opposite direction, to view it as strictly a Czech problem, that is as the result of a systematic and deliberate policy of Czechoslovakization (analogous to Magyarization). This tendency has likewise but limited value. The Czech/Slovak problem has, rather, been a structural, historical problem, especially in the First Republic. With the creation of that state an attempt was made to apply an undifferentiated model of the nation-state to a society in which a number of nations were undergoing the process of national self-actualization accelerated beyond previous historical experience. The attempt to establish a unitary nation-state comprised of a hastily constructed nation (Czechoslovak) was thus flying in the face of the very process which had led to the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian empire and which had precisely allowed for the possibility of self-determination for the various nations of the empire. From this perspective, the problem ceases to be a Czech or Slovak problem and becomes a problem of �80 SLOVAKIA the very idea of the Czechoslovak state as it emerged by 1920.19 The unitary, power-based political structure (mocensko-politicky system)20 of the First Republic could not satisfy the needs of the Slovaks without significant revision. However the very real successes and achievements of that state, especially for the Czechs, meant that the need for revision met with incomprehension and therefore indifference and then resistance. An examination of some critical economic and political issues affecting the Slovaks illustrates the fundamental nature of the problem for the Czechoslovak republic. To do so, certain inescapable realities must be recognized. The first is that the economic conditions of the Czech and Slovak lands were vastly different at the very onset of the Republic. A further inescapable reality is that that differences persisted throughout the First Republic and in fact deepened. A third inescapable reality is that l 9 A recent example in Western scholarship which looks at how the structure of the state related to the national struggle of the Slovaks is Carol Skalnik Leff's book , National Conflict in Czechoslovakia, Princeton University Press, I 988 . The Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Science (Historicky ustav SA V) has just published the papers from the symposium held November, 1991 entitled Slovensko v politickom systeme Ceskoslovenska, Bratislava, Historicky ustav , 1992. Here both Czech and Slovak scholars examined the political and structural aspects of the Slovak position in the First Republic; most of them have taken a hard look at the system itself. In that vein, some of the recent writings by Czech scholars, such as Vojtech Mencl a kollectiv, Krizovatky 20. stoleti, Prague, Na~e Vojsko, 1990; Petr Pithart Dejiny a politika , Prague, Prostor , 1990; and Zdenek Pinc "The Idea of the Czechoslovak State: History, Theory and Political Reality" in Czechoslovak and Central European Journal, Vol. 10, no . I, 1991, pp. 36-45 have also taken a more critical approach to the analysis of the political system of the First Republic . There are a variety of viewpoints here and not all agree with the notion that the very structure of the First Republic, namely that of a unitary nation-state, almost certainly precluded a satisfactory resolution of conflicting national aspirations, but all recognize that at issue was much more than competing Slovak factions or Slovak immaturity. On a related subject, the theoretical and methodological approach used by Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1984, is very useful. 20 Josef Harna uses that term to characterize the operational structure of the First Republic . See Politickf system a statni politika v prvnfch Jetech existence Ceskoslo venske republiky (1918-1923), Praha, Historicky ustav, 1990. �SLOVAKIA 81 these circumstances were at the root of Slovak grievances and frustrations, which came to be shared by nearly all Slovaks, irrespective of their political beliefs. The initial differences between the two arose from their historical conditions, and are well known. While due to some degree to natural environmental factors (resources, terrain, geophysical placement) they are also the result of differing economic and political policies and interests on the part of the Austrians and the Magyars. While the Czechs had become the industrial nucleus of the Habsburg Empire and were well advanced in industrialization and urbanization by the latter decades of the 19th century, Slovak industrialization was at that time at its beginning stages. The Slovaks did have an analogous position within the Hungarian kingdom, designated to become industrially active for that sector of the Empire, but this was in its infancy stage when compared to the Czechs. Thus the creation of Czecho-Slovakia in 1918 joined together two very different economic regions. The effects of that union were also very different. While the Czech Lands continued to develop, after some initial adjustments, at least until the Great Depression, Slovakia stagnated throughout the entire period in almost every category of economic activity. 21 In attempting to explain this fact, one has to recognize that there was little if any economic planning prior to the establishment of the First Republic. In the immediate postwar period, Slovaks recognized the need for economic development and submitted plans and requests to Prague. However, their weak political representation in the crucial first years, the liquidation of the Slovak National Council, which left a leadership vacuum in Slovakia, and the small number of economic leaders in Slovakia all meant that these early efforts were without success. Equally powerless in the realm of economics were the Ministry of Unification of Laws and the Minister Plenipotentiary for Slovakia. The structure of the system did not allow for conside21 For an analysis of the Slovak economic situation in the First Republic , see the works of Miroslav Fabricius, Hospodarsky vjvoj Slovenska do konca predmnfchovskej republiky, 1987, no. 75 and Vjvoj nazorov na postavenie ekonomiky Sloven ska v prednmfchovskej republike, Bratislava, Eckonomicky ustav SAV , I 990, no. 79. �82 SLOVAKIA ration of Slovakia's economic development; it was rather submerged into the whole. In fact, the strongest protests over the restructuring of the historic counties came from those county boards most concerned with economic issues. Economic policy in the new republic was highly centralized, as was the political system. Prague was the political and economic center where all the offices and organs were located. Slovakia was not viewed as one of the two integrating units, but rather as a region to be appended to the Historic Lands.22 If there was any recognition of Slovakia's role in the economy as a distinct sector, it was to serve as the agricultural sector, to insure the agrarian self-sufficiency of the state. This theory of an "agrarian Slovakia" was the cornerstone of economic policy in the 1920's, in particular within the Agrarian Party, where political considerations played a part. Slovak Agrarian politicians also supported this notion, although by the end of the 1920's even Milan Hodfa recognized the need to bring industry to Slovakia.23 It was difficult to overcome this notion that the agrarian character of Slovakia was both natural and desirable, even while it was recognized that industrialization was essential to economic development in other areas of East Europe and also that there were actually less than optimal conditions for agriculture in Slovakia. This was especially unfortunate because there was plenty of available evidence which pointed to the social and economic inequality of the two halves of the state and their undesirable social and political consequences. The chief reason for failing to address this problem was the commitment to a laissez-faire policy of economic development. It was argued that to target Slovakia for special investment and\or development would create a dualistic policy while there existed a unitary society. In fact, 22 Vlastislav Lacina, "Uloha hospodai'ske politiky pri vytvlii'enf nove ceskoslovenske ekonomiky 1918-1923" in Politicky system a statni politika v prvnich Jetech existence Ceskoslovenske republiky, p. 86. 23 A summary of this debate about agrarian versus industrial Slovakia is to be found in Fabricius, Vyvoj nazorov na posta venie ekonomiky Slovenska v predmnfchovskej republike . �SLOVAKIA 83 economic dualism already existed and persisted and the failure to deal with it had enormous consequences for both people. Nor did Czechoslovakia actually pursue a laissez-faire economic policy, especially in the first years of the Republic. Rather what occurred was a failure to recognize the special Slovak economic needs, within the context of Slovakia rather than the context of the whole state. As a result the Slovak economy stagnated, with social, economic and political consequences. Evidence of this economic dualism can be found in both the agricultural and industrial sectors. In agriculture, between 19191927, for instance, 87,263 hectares of land in the Czech region underwent improvement while in Slovakia it amounted to 9,323 hectares or 9.6% of the total land improved . The division of investment costs for rural modernization were 95 .1 % to the Czech lands and 4.3% to Slovakia.2 4 Another indicator of the disparity was the rate of rural electrification; in 1933 , for example 125 villages were joined to the electrical network in the Czech lands, 112 in Moravia and Silesia and only 9 in Slovakia. Altogether only 1.9% of agricultural enterprises were electrified in Slovakia compared to 31.7% in Czech lands and 25.2% in Moravia.25 As a consequence, throughout the 1920 1s, Slovak agriculture remained essentially stagnant and less productive and in the 19301s the world agricultural crisis had a greater adverse effect on the Slovaks. In the industrial sector there was a whole battery of problems, so much so that it was referred to as the 11 complex of Slovak industrial woes (komplex bolesti slovenskeho priemyslu)" _26 The restructuring of Slovak industry during the period 19191921 led to an emphasis on the production of consumable (primary) goods, so that the percentage of activity devoted to producing export oriented goods declined. In spite of the fact that Slovakia needed greater modernization and improvement in its economic situation, the 24 Fabricius, Hospodarsky vyvoj S/ovenska do konca predmnichovskej republiky, p. 47 . 25 Jbid. , p. 64. 26 Ibid., p. 52. �84 SLOVAKIA pace of improvement here too was slower than in the Czech Lands. In fact, when in 1921-23 industrial output fell by 30%, some even began to talk about a policy of de-industrialization (odburavanie priemyslu). This was not quite the case but it did ring true for heavy industry; between 1918 and 1932, 260 enterprises were dismantled; by 1937 this had reached another 680 _2 7 Another severe problem was the lack of capital investment; the Czech bourgeoisie invested in existing Slovak firms, not in new ones and those listed in statistics as new were in fact results of transfer of capital and ownership. This process (nostrifikacia) was the road by which Czech capital was able to entrench itself in key positions , especially in banking, industry and marketing. 28 By 1930, after a 10 year period of the integration process, Slovakia was more clearly agrarian in character than before. The Slovak industrial labor share was at 19 .4% while Czech industrial labor rate reached 42.1 % . In the mid-1930's there was a brief spurt of "re-industrialization" in Slovakia, largely in defenserelated industries (perhaps to move them eastward, away from the German border), but even with this , at the end of the First Republic there was still a relative 6% decrease of industrial employment in Slovakia. The percentage of Slovaks in the total industrial employment in Czechoslovakia did not rise above 8% during the entire period. 29 Over the twenty year existence of the First Republic, Slovak economic development consistently lagged behind that of the Czechs, producing a highly developed sense of economic grievance among Slovaks of all political persuasions, including the centrists. On the issue of the economy there existed near unanimity of opinion among the Slovaks. The inability of the Slovaks, however, to effect significant changes in the economic policies and expenditures of the 27 Mencl , p. 143. 28 see Fabricius, Hospodarsky vyvoj S/ovenska do konca predmnfchovskej repub liky, pp . 40-56 and Lacina, pp . 87 and passim for a discusstion of Czech fin ancial investment policies in Slovakia. 29 Radoslav Selucky, "The Economic Equalization of Slovakia with the Czech Lands ", East European Economics, 4/1965, pp . 42-59. �SLOVAKIA 85 central government served to make manifest the structural impediments to full Slovak self-fulfillment within the framework of the unitary Czechoslovak republic. The result was frustration and alienation, both in the economic and the political sphere. In the political sphere, one could almost say that the very decision to create an unitary state of the "Czechoslovak" nation created an untenable situation. Even the most cursory examination of the process by which the unitary state was formed and the structure through which it functioned reveals that the system itself contributed to the erosion of the viability of the unitary Czechoslovak state. The prevailing opinions have generally been that this decision was necessary and beneficial: necessary because of the international situation, the Wilsonian commitment to national self-determination and above all by the fact that the Germans constituted the second largest national group in the new state. And it was beneficial because by that process the Slovaks became a state people rather than a national minority. The assumption therefore is that an unitary state structure was in response to these factors, and not a political decision by the Czech leadership, less a political opportunity but rather an historical necessity. What is generally glossed over is that until almost the very end of the peace process, the dualistic principle was a very real option, that is Czecho-Slovakia, as indicated by the use of the hyphen until 1920 _30 What decided the issue was not Wilsonian expectations but the military turmoil in Slovakia, necessitating occupation and creating fears for the safety of the whole republic . The structure of the state was influenced as much by some short-term problems which could have been resolved in several ways as by broad historical forces . Nor was the decision made because Slovaks were unprepared or disinterested in the structure of the new state. From the time that the Slovak League of America was empowered to negotiate for the Slovaks (Martin Memorandum, 1906) to the Pittsburgh Agreement to the various plans and statements made by Slovak leaders 30 see Joseph Kalvoda, The Genesis of Czechoslo vakia , Boulder, East European Monographs , 1986. �86 SLOVAKIA throughout 1918, it was clear the Slovaks were formulating concepts about their relationship with the Czechs. Examination of the meetings, speeches, correspondence of Slovak leaders, especially in 1918 reveals wide-ranging discussions about the anticipated relationship; autonomy was perhaps the most consistent expectation. For example, Matus Dula wrote on November 23, 1918: "when I discussed our autonomy with responsible [rozhodnymi] Czech leaders, they attested that Slovaks would get full autonomy autonomous rights would fall under the competency of the regional diet." 31 It is clear that in 1918 Slovaks were willing to join their sovereignty with that of the Czechs as partners in a new state, because that afforded them the best opportunity for political emancipation; what they were not expecting to do was to blend and blur their hardfought national identity. The decision to postulate a "Czechoslovak nation" was not made by Slovak political representatives, and these did exist, as did political parties, nor by any electoral process, but rather by a very small group of appointed politicians not very representative of the political, economic, social and cultural spectrum of Slovakia.32 There is no question that conditions were such that it did not appear that reasoned debates and consensus building were luxuries which could be afforded. What needs to be understood however is that decisions were made due to very specific historical events which led to the choice of certain options, which were not necessarily the optimal or sole options and which therefore could 31 Milan Krajcovic, "Slovensko v zahranicnopolitickych suvislostiach 1918-1922", in Slovensko v politickom systeme Ceskoslovenska, p. 148 . See also the article by Vladimir Zuberec, "Vyznamny dokument o postaveni Slovenska za burfoaznej CSR v zbierkach Slovenskeho Narodneho Muzea" in Zbornik Slovenskeho Narodneho Muzea, LXXXIII , 1989, pp. 201-207 . 32 r:ubomir Liptak points out that there were 10,000 people with, if not political experience, certainly with experience in a variety of organizations and public life. And while the number of Slovak schools had dramatically declined , the number of Slovak students had gone up; these could all be acclimated quickly to the new Slovak reality . See "Pripravenosi Slovenska na demokraciu" in Slovensko v politickom systeme Ceskoslovenska, pp. 7-12. �SLOVAKIA 87 have been readdressed as the situation changed. An underlying element in the creation of the new state was the notion that the year 1918 was the year zero - a new beginning with a clean slate. The failure to recognize and internalize the fundamentally different historical experiences and character of the two people, to recognize that in fact two separate nations existed, not branches of one nation, and that these two had differing notions about both the nature of their new relationship and its state structure influenced the subsequent development of the state as well as the two peoples. As Josef Hama points out "On the Czech side there was not the willingness to understand the differences; on the Slovak side there was impatience and anxiety arising from the feeling of powerlessness to achieve their objectives. Czechoslovakia was formed from the prevailing weight of the Czechs as a unitary state with significant characteristics of centralism." _33 The construct of the unitary state, and the method of ratification of the constitution, meant that there was no national debate and therefore no national consensus on the very definition of the nation state . In the formative period, the hyphenated form, suggesting a state of the Czechs and Slovaks, often was used interchangeably with the Czechoslovak. The definitive proclamation in the Constitution that the "Czechoslovak nation" was the creator of the state and "Czechoslovak" the language of the state created the situation in which those large numbers of Slovaks who resisted the label Czechoslovak were forced into opposition not just against the policies of the state, a normal aspect of parliamentary systems, but against the very nature of the state itself, a position the Slovaks initially had no desire to take and in fact until the very end of the republic sought to avoid. As a consequence the fiction of the single Czechoslovak nation was assumed to be the selfevident principle on which relations between Czechs and Slovaks were based. From the viewpoint of the overwhelming majority of Czech politicians, therefore, neither Slovak autonomy nor the federalization of the state on the basis of the national principle was deemed to be at all 33 Harna, p. 14. �88 SLOVAKIA necessary. This attitude prevailed even as the very construct "two branches of the Czechoslovak nation" would seem to demand the necessity of constitutional elaboration and resolution of the individuality contained within the notion of two branches _34 Once the decision was made to create a unitary state, the opportunities for initiating and implementing Slovak policies and political objectives were circumscribed at best, both by the structure of the state system, the political party structure and to an extent the Slovak political forms. The peculiar structure of the party system meant that opposition parties had no realistic chance of modifying the system. The frustration that results from the perceived inability to influence the system in any way often leads to radicalism and this was certainly the case in Czechoslovakia. The power politics party system in the interwar republic proved to be remarkably stable, even though it was a multi-party system in which significant groups were polarized. Stability was achieved at a price, namely the diminution of the role of Parliament and the enhancement of the power of the President and of the government forming coalition parties. A further price was the perception that these centrist parties (generally known as the Petka) had to achieve a consensus and cohesiveness in the face of the fundamental divergence of views from the outsider parties. Hence opposition becomes not something to be tolerated and contested, but something threatening and destabilizing. In effect, the coalition parties could not afford the luxury of opposition; aware of the differences in the state, they felt compelled to focus on retaining and centralizing power. The political cabinet of party leaders essentially overshadowed the ministerial cabinet and tended to make of Parliament a virtual rubber stamp, at least for deputies from the governing parties. What that meant in practice was that the system was impervious to any fundamental change through the normal parliamentary 34M. Matula, "Nektere problemy souvisejfci s institucionalnfm aspektem narodnfc h vztahu CSR v letech 1918-1938" in Slovensko v politickom syst6me Ceskoslovenska, p. 91 . �SLOVAKIA 89 process. What ensued then was the belief that the structure itself had to be modified if any real political power was to develop among the Slovaks. As one historian writes: The issue was not really whether or not the Slovaks achieved immediate autonomy but the Jack of understanding and the unwillingness of the Czech parties even to recognize the problem. Thus the spokesmen for the Slovak position were pushed into opposition and progressively forced into a negative stance relative to the existing regime.3 5 Illustrative of the unwillingness even to address the question of constitutional organization was the fate of administrative reconstruction. The County Law of 1920 was designed to integrate Slovakia into the new state by creating a new county structure to replace the old. What especially generated protests by Slovak administrators was that financial control at the county level was taken over by the central Ministries oflnterior and Finance. During 1921-22, several proposals were made in Parliament to address these Slovak concerns. The Hlinka Slovak People's Party (HSPP) called for selfadministration in Slovak affairs, a provincial Diet and a provincial government named by the President. There were also other variants, some more radical, of Slovak autonomy. Hodza, who at this time was still looking for a means of unifying Slovak political power, suggested a County Union with competencies in health, welfare, economic and cultural spheres precisely to shift administrative power in Slovakia out of Prague's bureaucratic hands and into Slovak political hands. The debate on these issues in the ministerial circles in Prague revealed a reluctance to delegate any real powers, even to a body like the County Union. The only concessions to be made were delegating powers addressing the needs of the feeble-minded, blind, deaf, epileptic, supervising forced labor and the poorhouses .36 35 Hama, p. 19. 36 For an analysis of the debate over the administration of Slovakia, see Natalia Krajcovicovli , "Politicke strany na Slovensku a usilie o samosprlivu v dvadsiatich rokoch" in Slovensko v politickom systeme Ceskoslovenska, pp . 47-55 . See also Ladislav Lipscher, K vyvinu politickej spravy na Slovensku v rokoch 1918-1938, Bratislava, SA V, 1966. �90 SLOVAKIA The political concerns behind such positions were evident, as expressed in the magazine Tribuna: "It is certain that a County Union in Slovakia would be a constant threat to the unity of the state. Who can guarantee that it would not give birth to some kind of autonomous Diet for Slovakia?"3 7 The result was that the administrative structure for Slovakia was extraordinarily limited, always under the strict supervision of Prague. Slovaks lost even a modicum of local autonomy, under a system which was not implemented in the rest of the country precisely because the example of centralized power as manifested in Slovakia aroused local opposition in Bohemia and Moravia. The anomaly could not be sustained and in 1927 the Provincial Law replaced the county system with the four historic provinces. While this acknowledged the territorial existence of Slovakia as an entity, little was done to give that entity any real administrative powers. The failure of these administrative efforts indicated that no serious attempt would be made to bring about a measure of decentralization of government. Problems of special significance to the Slovaks, such as the economic imbalance, the lower standard of living, the dearth of jobs for the growing numbers of university trained younger leaders, the preservation of religious and cultural values were thus not addressed regionally, but left to the central government in Prague, where Slovak power was minimal at best. It could be argued, and often has been, that the lack of Slovak power was more the result of the divisions among the Slovaks themselves than of the unitary and centralized nature of the system. The inability of the Slovaks to form a cohesive bloc was a factor, but not a decisive factor, for as long as even one Slovak was found who would enter the government in the name of the Slovaks (and in fact three, namely Vavro Srobar, Ivan Derer, Hod:fa, were all that were basically necessary during the First Republic) and while coalition parties could attract a Slovak following, (and two did), the power of the coalition bloc would outweigh any Slovak bloc. The ambiguity about the nature of the Czech-Slovak problem would however have 37Krajfovicovii, p. 51. �SLOVAKIA 91 been clarified had the Slovaks achieved a Slovak party. Hod:fa and others recognized this and an attempt was made to form a National Bloc or even a Political Committee (which Hod:fa tried) which would have functioned in a manner analogous to the Petka. This failed because of the inability to achieve a uniform stand on the question of the Slovak position in the state and also to a diversity of views on some specific issues, a problem partially attributable to confessional differences. There did exist a basic consensus on general principles; only a few Slovaks were convinced Czechoslovaks. Unfortunately it was precisely these few who were able to join the government in Prague and were thus considered to represent the Slovaks. There was in fact a fundamental unity among the Slovak populace: a rejection of ethnic and linguistic Czechoslovakism, a commitment to the Czechoslovak state, albeit a reformed one, and a recognition of the pluralistic nature of the state and society. If there was division among the Slovaks, it came on the question of how, not whether, to reform the state: regionalism or autonomy. The Slovak Agrarians, under Hod:fa's leadership, were centrist in that they worked within the system to bring about a modification of some of the system, but especially in the 1930's were also advocates of regionalism. Hodfa came to advocate an intermediary notion, looking at it from a pragmatic perspective, which "means neither centralism nor autonomy, but state-political unity and regionalism with administrative self-government" .38 Hodfa was trying to find a bridge between two ever diverging assessments (one Czech and the other Slovak) of the satisfaction level with the existing political system. The escalating criticism by Slovaks of their position in the First Republic is evident from the following editorial in Zem, the journal of the younger generation of Agrarians: The aversion of Czechs and Slovaks arises from economic and social problems . Czechs accept our arguments with a judicious attentiveness , while they continue to make their own national , cultural and linguistic politics .. . Currently a majority of the Slovaks want to acknowledge their own nation .... and the unfortunate tendencies (potmehudske narazky) seen 38Milan Hodfa, C/anky, reci, §tudie, Prague , Novina , 1934, Vol. 7, pp . xxxii-iii . �92 SLOVAKIA in various Czech newspapers, to suggest that Slovak efforts to achieve their rights somehow indicates political unreliabi lity, wi ll not deter the Slovaks. 39 If even Hodza's and the Agrarians' moderate call for regionalism was ignored , the possibility for substantive constitutional reform was all the more remote. The position of the HSPP, which consistently included Slovak autonomy as its basic program, is certainly a case in point. Representing a large portion of the Slovak people,40 they were systematically frustrated in their attempts to implement their programs. Ignored most of the time, only in times of crisis did the governing powers seek to integrate the HSPP into the process , such as the coalition crisis of the late 192O's or the presidential elections of 1935 ; once the crisis was resolved, any further negotiations were deemed unnecessary. A good illustration of this can be seen from the December 1935 talks between President Edvard Benes and Andrej Hlinka, leader of the HSPP. Hlinka asked for decentralization and legislative power for regional Slovak organs and for the post of Minister for Slovakia for the HSPP. Benes promised to give the Slovaks all that was possible without undermining the unity of the state. In February 1936 Benes noted that the entry of HSPP into the government was delayed due to unacceptable nature of the demands: the same demands which were made in negotiations in December. The governing coalition rejected the demands and the matter was closed.41 No matter what route the Slovaks followed in their efforts to modify the structure and political system, they had little success. Political parties in Slovakia were unable to compete nationally, for 39zem, IV , 4 , 20 . February , 1938, p. 39 . 40 one could argue that at times it did indeed represent a majority of the Slovaks, if one assumes that Czechs voting in Slovakia supported centrist parties and Magyars their own parties . 41 E.F. Firsov, "K problemu modifik,kif parlamentneho systemu CSR a narodnopolitickeho konsenzu Cechov a Slovakov na prelome 20. a 30 . rokov" in Slo vensk o v politickom systeme Ceskos/ovenska, p. 104. �SLOVAKIA 93 the state was in the hands of the centrist parties and thus no shadow coalition or cabinet could form. Slovaks were united in their efforts to gain control of the bureaucratic apparatus in Slovakia, as a means of indirect access to the power center. This too was frustrated by the bureaucratic structure of centralism. It took the crisis of 1938 to bring about some readjustment in the state relations between Czechs and Slovaks, a settlement subsequently repudiated as being forcibly imposed. 42 By that time however a more aggressive and assertive stance had been taken by the HSPP; 20 years of waiting for the system to change from above had led to the radicalization of the efforts to change it. It is often argued that in time of crisis the Slovaks abandoned the Czechs, generating the notion of ungrateful Slovaks. One could likewise argue that only in times of crisis did the Czechs remember the Slovaks .. . one can go to the well only so many times. There is no question that fascist elements had entered into the Slovak political arena, fueled in part by economic grievances and political frustration . The fact that fascism was a force sweeping across the disaffected sectors of Europe does not absolve the Slovaks of responsibility for those fascist features; nor does however the argument that Czechoslovakia, while it had its faults, was still the only functioning democracy in Eastern Europe and better than the surrounding systems excuse those faults and deny their consequences. For both, historical relativism is a tempting but ultimately unsatisfying position. 43 42 An interesting side point here is Hodza's argument that the political cabinet's acceptance of Slovak self-administration, as negotiated in the summer of 1938 was in fact valid , against Bene§' subsequent argument , after W .W .II broke out , that Parliament had not approved it and it was therefore invalid. Hodza was correct in his perception that the political cabinet was the crucial decision making body . That was why Slovak political efforts were in fact so often frustrated, because Parliament tended only to reflect the decisions of the political cabinet. 43 As a prominent Czech historian has observed: "The ideal of democracy became a self-indulgent compliment, nurturing the need of the Czechs for universal recognition and admiration. Czech nationalism greeted the foundation of the republic not only as an occasion to score points in the nationalistic struggle with imperialistic �94 SLOVAKIA The analogy of a marriage is perhaps an appropriate metaphor for the course of Czech and Slovaks relations . In May of 1918, as the Austro-Hungarian Empire was moving inexorably toward its demise, Hlinka declared: "It is absolutely necessary for us to decide if we will continue with the Magyars, or go with the Czechs. Let us not evade the question, let us say openly that we are for the CzechoSlovak orientation. The thousand year marriage with the Magyars has not worked. A divorce is necessary." 44 The marriage of the Czechs and Slovaks in 1918 was a classic war-time marriage: undertaken in haste, without adequate courtship, with both partners moving immediately from divorce (Austrian and Hungarian partners respectively) into this new relationship. There was no time to discuss the terms and conditions of the marriage, the expectations about what each sought and would bring to the marriage. What little was prepared was done largely by marriage brokers (Toma~ G. Masaryk on one side and the American Slovaks on the other, resulting in the Pittsburgh Agreement of 1918) . The first months of the marriage were very difficult, as the residual effects of the Great War needed to be addressed . It became apparent fairly soon, however, that the two partners in the marriage had very different expectations and notions. The Czech partner clearly saw himself as the preponderant factor, functioning as provider and decision maker in a traditional marriage . This was a natural expectation, given the Czech numerical and material dominance. Thus the Czechs had a clear notion of the nature of the relationship: a unitary state of the Czechoslovak nation. The Slovak partner was much less clear about her role in the marriage. Given her relative lack of wealth and experience, there was a tendency on the part of some to accept a dependent relationship and a subservient role in the marriage. Thus generally more than a third of the Slovaks Germany, but also as a justification of its own colonial ambitions toward Slovakia." Zden~k Pinc, "The Idea of the Czechoslovak State: History, Theory and Political Reality", Czechoslovak and Central European Journal, 10, no. I , 1991, p. 38 . 44 Karol Medvecky, Slovenskf prevrat, Tmava, Spolok Sv. Vojtecha, 1930-31 , Vol. Ill , p. 347 . �SLOVAKIA 95 accepted the Czechoslovak unitary state, though only a tiny minority believed in the notion of the Czechoslovak people and virtually no one subscribed to a Czechoslovak language. There also existed a different notion of the marriage, namely the desire for an equal partnership between two equals. This was manifested in the desire for some form of Slovak autonomy as exemplified by the hyphenated Czecho-Slovakia, a position which generally a majority of the Slovaks supported. As the marriage progressed during the 1920's and 1930's, both internal and external factors escalated Slovak discontent. The Slovaks came to resent their status in the Czechoslovak Republic because they felt increasingly frustrated , both economically and politically and because they perceived a paternalistic indifference to Slovak grievances. Increasingly, this frustration led to a sense of alienation from the marriage and a greater responsiveness to ideological concepts which addressed both the reality and the theory of the inadequacy of an unequal marriage; in this marriage it was the call of nationalism which led the "weaker" partner to re-evaluate her place within the Czech-defined relationship. As storm clouds gathered over Europe, as tension and fear escalated, the Slovaks sought to re-define the marriage precisely at the moment that the Czechs, feeling far more threatened by the forces gathering over Europe, resisted any tampering with what to them was a satisfactory marriage. They in fact did not even comprehend the alienation and sense of frustration prevalent among the Slovaks . Thus the events of Munich and after led to deep bitterness, for the Czechs believed the Slovaks had stabbed them in the back, and the Slovaks felt that, having been denied the opportunity to improve their relationship with the Czechs, they had no obligations to travel the bitter path with a partner who had never listened to them and had never been prepared to engage in a genuine dialogue with a view toward developing a marriage of true partners. During the period of the war, the Czechs and some Slovaks denied that the marriage had broken up; some Czechs even denied that any adjustments were necessary for the marriage to resume. Virtually no Slovak could subscribe to that position; for the Slovaks, at the very minimum, a co-equal marriage was imperative. �96 SLOVAKIA The fall of communism enabled old and new grievances to surface, on both sides, and to be finally openly confronted. The result was a divorce. The seeds of that divorce, not necessarily inevitable , had been planted by failures common to so many marriages: lack of communications and the inability to listen as Czechs and Slovaks talked from different historical perspectives, in different languages and with different objectives , resulting in misunderstandings, undervaluing of roles , responsibilities and contributions, and above all , the lack of commitment to a marriage of diversity and genuine equality. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1991-92, Vol. 35 Description An account of the resource Vol. 35 (No. 64-65), 1991-92. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Slovak League of America Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available 1991-92 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document 78 SLOVAKIA Relations Between Slovaks and Czechs in the First CSR SUSAN MIKULA At this particular point in the history of the Czechs and Slovaks, the question of the nature of the relationship between these two nations has assumed a renewed significance and interest. The disintegration of the common state which had existed for 74 years is often presented in the popular press as the result of Slovak backwardness, provincialism, undemocratic tendencies, vestiges of communist influence; in short as anything but the consequence of a long historical process. There has in fact been a persistent tendency throughout much of the 20th century, whether by popular writers or even some professional scholars, to view Slovak demands for structural changes in their relationship with the Czechs along much the same lines, that is as reflective of fascist or communist extremists, of political, economic or cultural immaturity, or of a destructive opportunism. The prime reason for such tendencies may be that the prism through which the "Slovak problem" has often been viewed is the Czech or Czechoslovak. In other words, there are certain a priori assumptions being made about the nature of the problem which affect the analysis of the problem. One such tendency is to see it as just that, a Slovak problem, that is, as a problem between two competing Slovak factions, rather than as a problem between Czechs and Slovaks. The consequence of that has been the tendency to dismiss the problem and then be repeatedly surprised and dismayed when the central nature of the issues resurfaced and influenced the SLOVAKIA 79 entire state and people. Another tendency is to identify the Slovak nationalist aspirations in the First Czechoslovak Republic (CSR) with the extreme nationalist movements of the inter-war era, that is with fascism. The problem thus becomes reduced to the analysis of Andrej Hlinka and the Slovak People's Party, which is designated as a clerical-fascist movement. The problem is then still a Slovak problem - the authoritarian tendencies of a huge segment of the Slovak population - and also an external one - the broad movement of European fascism. The difficulty comes with trying to account for the persistence of the Slovak national aspirations, long after the dismantling and systematic discrediting of the Slovak Republic. Here the notion of backwardness (economic and political) and immaturity (political and cultural) assumes a satisfactory explanatory character. What has been common in the great majority of these analyses, written mostly from the Czechoslovak perspective, is this notion that it is the Slovak's problem . On the other hand, the few works written from the Slovak perspective , at least until very recently , have tended to veer in the opposite direction, to view it as strictly a Czech problem, that is as the result of a systematic and deliberate policy of Czechoslovakization (analogous to Magyarization). This tendency has likewise but limited value. The Czech/Slovak problem has, rather, been a structural, historical problem, especially in the First Republic. With the creation of that state an attempt was made to apply an undifferentiated model of the nation-state to a society in which a number of nations were undergoing the process of national self-actualization accelerated beyond previous historical experience. The attempt to establish a unitary nation-state comprised of a hastily constructed nation (Czechoslovak) was thus flying in the face of the very process which had led to the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian empire and which had precisely allowed for the possibility of self-determination for the various nations of the empire. From this perspective, the problem ceases to be a Czech or Slovak problem and becomes a problem of 80 SLOVAKIA the very idea of the Czechoslovak state as it emerged by 1920.19 The unitary, power-based political structure (mocensko-politicky system)20 of the First Republic could not satisfy the needs of the Slovaks without significant revision. However the very real successes and achievements of that state, especially for the Czechs, meant that the need for revision met with incomprehension and therefore indifference and then resistance. An examination of some critical economic and political issues affecting the Slovaks illustrates the fundamental nature of the problem for the Czechoslovak republic. To do so, certain inescapable realities must be recognized. The first is that the economic conditions of the Czech and Slovak lands were vastly different at the very onset of the Republic. A further inescapable reality is that that differences persisted throughout the First Republic and in fact deepened. A third inescapable reality is that l 9 A recent example in Western scholarship which looks at how the structure of the state related to the national struggle of the Slovaks is Carol Skalnik Leff's book , National Conflict in Czechoslovakia, Princeton University Press, I 988 . The Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Science (Historicky ustav SA V) has just published the papers from the symposium held November, 1991 entitled Slovensko v politickom systeme Ceskoslovenska, Bratislava, Historicky ustav , 1992. Here both Czech and Slovak scholars examined the political and structural aspects of the Slovak position in the First Republic; most of them have taken a hard look at the system itself. In that vein, some of the recent writings by Czech scholars, such as Vojtech Mencl a kollectiv, Krizovatky 20. stoleti, Prague, Na~e Vojsko, 1990; Petr Pithart Dejiny a politika , Prague, Prostor , 1990; and Zdenek Pinc "The Idea of the Czechoslovak State: History, Theory and Political Reality" in Czechoslovak and Central European Journal, Vol. 10, no . I, 1991, pp. 36-45 have also taken a more critical approach to the analysis of the political system of the First Republic . There are a variety of viewpoints here and not all agree with the notion that the very structure of the First Republic, namely that of a unitary nation-state, almost certainly precluded a satisfactory resolution of conflicting national aspirations, but all recognize that at issue was much more than competing Slovak factions or Slovak immaturity. On a related subject, the theoretical and methodological approach used by Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1984, is very useful. 20 Josef Harna uses that term to characterize the operational structure of the First Republic . See Politickf system a statni politika v prvnfch Jetech existence Ceskoslo venske republiky (1918-1923), Praha, Historicky ustav, 1990. SLOVAKIA 81 these circumstances were at the root of Slovak grievances and frustrations, which came to be shared by nearly all Slovaks, irrespective of their political beliefs. The initial differences between the two arose from their historical conditions, and are well known. While due to some degree to natural environmental factors (resources, terrain, geophysical placement) they are also the result of differing economic and political policies and interests on the part of the Austrians and the Magyars. While the Czechs had become the industrial nucleus of the Habsburg Empire and were well advanced in industrialization and urbanization by the latter decades of the 19th century, Slovak industrialization was at that time at its beginning stages. The Slovaks did have an analogous position within the Hungarian kingdom, designated to become industrially active for that sector of the Empire, but this was in its infancy stage when compared to the Czechs. Thus the creation of Czecho-Slovakia in 1918 joined together two very different economic regions. The effects of that union were also very different. While the Czech Lands continued to develop, after some initial adjustments, at least until the Great Depression, Slovakia stagnated throughout the entire period in almost every category of economic activity. 21 In attempting to explain this fact, one has to recognize that there was little if any economic planning prior to the establishment of the First Republic. In the immediate postwar period, Slovaks recognized the need for economic development and submitted plans and requests to Prague. However, their weak political representation in the crucial first years, the liquidation of the Slovak National Council, which left a leadership vacuum in Slovakia, and the small number of economic leaders in Slovakia all meant that these early efforts were without success. Equally powerless in the realm of economics were the Ministry of Unification of Laws and the Minister Plenipotentiary for Slovakia. The structure of the system did not allow for conside21 For an analysis of the Slovak economic situation in the First Republic , see the works of Miroslav Fabricius, Hospodarsky vjvoj Slovenska do konca predmnfchovskej republiky, 1987, no. 75 and Vjvoj nazorov na postavenie ekonomiky Sloven ska v prednmfchovskej republike, Bratislava, Eckonomicky ustav SAV , I 990, no. 79. 82 SLOVAKIA ration of Slovakia's economic development; it was rather submerged into the whole. In fact, the strongest protests over the restructuring of the historic counties came from those county boards most concerned with economic issues. Economic policy in the new republic was highly centralized, as was the political system. Prague was the political and economic center where all the offices and organs were located. Slovakia was not viewed as one of the two integrating units, but rather as a region to be appended to the Historic Lands.22 If there was any recognition of Slovakia's role in the economy as a distinct sector, it was to serve as the agricultural sector, to insure the agrarian self-sufficiency of the state. This theory of an "agrarian Slovakia" was the cornerstone of economic policy in the 1920's, in particular within the Agrarian Party, where political considerations played a part. Slovak Agrarian politicians also supported this notion, although by the end of the 1920's even Milan Hodfa recognized the need to bring industry to Slovakia.23 It was difficult to overcome this notion that the agrarian character of Slovakia was both natural and desirable, even while it was recognized that industrialization was essential to economic development in other areas of East Europe and also that there were actually less than optimal conditions for agriculture in Slovakia. This was especially unfortunate because there was plenty of available evidence which pointed to the social and economic inequality of the two halves of the state and their undesirable social and political consequences. The chief reason for failing to address this problem was the commitment to a laissez-faire policy of economic development. It was argued that to target Slovakia for special investment and\or development would create a dualistic policy while there existed a unitary society. In fact, 22 Vlastislav Lacina, "Uloha hospodai'ske politiky pri vytvlii'enf nove ceskoslovenske ekonomiky 1918-1923" in Politicky system a statni politika v prvnich Jetech existence Ceskoslovenske republiky, p. 86. 23 A summary of this debate about agrarian versus industrial Slovakia is to be found in Fabricius, Vyvoj nazorov na posta venie ekonomiky Slovenska v predmnfchovskej republike . SLOVAKIA 83 economic dualism already existed and persisted and the failure to deal with it had enormous consequences for both people. Nor did Czechoslovakia actually pursue a laissez-faire economic policy, especially in the first years of the Republic. Rather what occurred was a failure to recognize the special Slovak economic needs, within the context of Slovakia rather than the context of the whole state. As a result the Slovak economy stagnated, with social, economic and political consequences. Evidence of this economic dualism can be found in both the agricultural and industrial sectors. In agriculture, between 19191927, for instance, 87,263 hectares of land in the Czech region underwent improvement while in Slovakia it amounted to 9,323 hectares or 9.6% of the total land improved . The division of investment costs for rural modernization were 95 .1 % to the Czech lands and 4.3% to Slovakia.2 4 Another indicator of the disparity was the rate of rural electrification; in 1933 , for example 125 villages were joined to the electrical network in the Czech lands, 112 in Moravia and Silesia and only 9 in Slovakia. Altogether only 1.9% of agricultural enterprises were electrified in Slovakia compared to 31.7% in Czech lands and 25.2% in Moravia.25 As a consequence, throughout the 1920 1s, Slovak agriculture remained essentially stagnant and less productive and in the 19301s the world agricultural crisis had a greater adverse effect on the Slovaks. In the industrial sector there was a whole battery of problems, so much so that it was referred to as the 11 complex of Slovak industrial woes (komplex bolesti slovenskeho priemyslu)" _26 The restructuring of Slovak industry during the period 19191921 led to an emphasis on the production of consumable (primary) goods, so that the percentage of activity devoted to producing export oriented goods declined. In spite of the fact that Slovakia needed greater modernization and improvement in its economic situation, the 24 Fabricius, Hospodarsky vyvoj S/ovenska do konca predmnichovskej republiky, p. 47 . 25 Jbid. , p. 64. 26 Ibid., p. 52. 84 SLOVAKIA pace of improvement here too was slower than in the Czech Lands. In fact, when in 1921-23 industrial output fell by 30%, some even began to talk about a policy of de-industrialization (odburavanie priemyslu). This was not quite the case but it did ring true for heavy industry; between 1918 and 1932, 260 enterprises were dismantled; by 1937 this had reached another 680 _2 7 Another severe problem was the lack of capital investment; the Czech bourgeoisie invested in existing Slovak firms, not in new ones and those listed in statistics as new were in fact results of transfer of capital and ownership. This process (nostrifikacia) was the road by which Czech capital was able to entrench itself in key positions , especially in banking, industry and marketing. 28 By 1930, after a 10 year period of the integration process, Slovakia was more clearly agrarian in character than before. The Slovak industrial labor share was at 19 .4% while Czech industrial labor rate reached 42.1 % . In the mid-1930's there was a brief spurt of "re-industrialization" in Slovakia, largely in defenserelated industries (perhaps to move them eastward, away from the German border), but even with this , at the end of the First Republic there was still a relative 6% decrease of industrial employment in Slovakia. The percentage of Slovaks in the total industrial employment in Czechoslovakia did not rise above 8% during the entire period. 29 Over the twenty year existence of the First Republic, Slovak economic development consistently lagged behind that of the Czechs, producing a highly developed sense of economic grievance among Slovaks of all political persuasions, including the centrists. On the issue of the economy there existed near unanimity of opinion among the Slovaks. The inability of the Slovaks, however, to effect significant changes in the economic policies and expenditures of the 27 Mencl , p. 143. 28 see Fabricius, Hospodarsky vyvoj S/ovenska do konca predmnfchovskej repub liky, pp . 40-56 and Lacina, pp . 87 and passim for a discusstion of Czech fin ancial investment policies in Slovakia. 29 Radoslav Selucky, "The Economic Equalization of Slovakia with the Czech Lands ", East European Economics, 4/1965, pp . 42-59. SLOVAKIA 85 central government served to make manifest the structural impediments to full Slovak self-fulfillment within the framework of the unitary Czechoslovak republic. The result was frustration and alienation, both in the economic and the political sphere. In the political sphere, one could almost say that the very decision to create an unitary state of the "Czechoslovak" nation created an untenable situation. Even the most cursory examination of the process by which the unitary state was formed and the structure through which it functioned reveals that the system itself contributed to the erosion of the viability of the unitary Czechoslovak state. The prevailing opinions have generally been that this decision was necessary and beneficial: necessary because of the international situation, the Wilsonian commitment to national self-determination and above all by the fact that the Germans constituted the second largest national group in the new state. And it was beneficial because by that process the Slovaks became a state people rather than a national minority. The assumption therefore is that an unitary state structure was in response to these factors, and not a political decision by the Czech leadership, less a political opportunity but rather an historical necessity. What is generally glossed over is that until almost the very end of the peace process, the dualistic principle was a very real option, that is Czecho-Slovakia, as indicated by the use of the hyphen until 1920 _30 What decided the issue was not Wilsonian expectations but the military turmoil in Slovakia, necessitating occupation and creating fears for the safety of the whole republic . The structure of the state was influenced as much by some short-term problems which could have been resolved in several ways as by broad historical forces . Nor was the decision made because Slovaks were unprepared or disinterested in the structure of the new state. From the time that the Slovak League of America was empowered to negotiate for the Slovaks (Martin Memorandum, 1906) to the Pittsburgh Agreement to the various plans and statements made by Slovak leaders 30 see Joseph Kalvoda, The Genesis of Czechoslo vakia , Boulder, East European Monographs , 1986. 86 SLOVAKIA throughout 1918, it was clear the Slovaks were formulating concepts about their relationship with the Czechs. Examination of the meetings, speeches, correspondence of Slovak leaders, especially in 1918 reveals wide-ranging discussions about the anticipated relationship; autonomy was perhaps the most consistent expectation. For example, Matus Dula wrote on November 23, 1918: "when I discussed our autonomy with responsible [rozhodnymi] Czech leaders, they attested that Slovaks would get full autonomy autonomous rights would fall under the competency of the regional diet." 31 It is clear that in 1918 Slovaks were willing to join their sovereignty with that of the Czechs as partners in a new state, because that afforded them the best opportunity for political emancipation; what they were not expecting to do was to blend and blur their hardfought national identity. The decision to postulate a "Czechoslovak nation" was not made by Slovak political representatives, and these did exist, as did political parties, nor by any electoral process, but rather by a very small group of appointed politicians not very representative of the political, economic, social and cultural spectrum of Slovakia.32 There is no question that conditions were such that it did not appear that reasoned debates and consensus building were luxuries which could be afforded. What needs to be understood however is that decisions were made due to very specific historical events which led to the choice of certain options, which were not necessarily the optimal or sole options and which therefore could 31 Milan Krajcovic, "Slovensko v zahranicnopolitickych suvislostiach 1918-1922", in Slovensko v politickom systeme Ceskoslovenska, p. 148 . See also the article by Vladimir Zuberec, "Vyznamny dokument o postaveni Slovenska za burfoaznej CSR v zbierkach Slovenskeho Narodneho Muzea" in Zbornik Slovenskeho Narodneho Muzea, LXXXIII , 1989, pp. 201-207 . 32 r:ubomir Liptak points out that there were 10,000 people with, if not political experience, certainly with experience in a variety of organizations and public life. And while the number of Slovak schools had dramatically declined , the number of Slovak students had gone up; these could all be acclimated quickly to the new Slovak reality . See "Pripravenosi Slovenska na demokraciu" in Slovensko v politickom systeme Ceskoslovenska, pp. 7-12. SLOVAKIA 87 have been readdressed as the situation changed. An underlying element in the creation of the new state was the notion that the year 1918 was the year zero - a new beginning with a clean slate. The failure to recognize and internalize the fundamentally different historical experiences and character of the two people, to recognize that in fact two separate nations existed, not branches of one nation, and that these two had differing notions about both the nature of their new relationship and its state structure influenced the subsequent development of the state as well as the two peoples. As Josef Hama points out "On the Czech side there was not the willingness to understand the differences; on the Slovak side there was impatience and anxiety arising from the feeling of powerlessness to achieve their objectives. Czechoslovakia was formed from the prevailing weight of the Czechs as a unitary state with significant characteristics of centralism." _33 The construct of the unitary state, and the method of ratification of the constitution, meant that there was no national debate and therefore no national consensus on the very definition of the nation state . In the formative period, the hyphenated form, suggesting a state of the Czechs and Slovaks, often was used interchangeably with the Czechoslovak. The definitive proclamation in the Constitution that the "Czechoslovak nation" was the creator of the state and "Czechoslovak" the language of the state created the situation in which those large numbers of Slovaks who resisted the label Czechoslovak were forced into opposition not just against the policies of the state, a normal aspect of parliamentary systems, but against the very nature of the state itself, a position the Slovaks initially had no desire to take and in fact until the very end of the republic sought to avoid. As a consequence the fiction of the single Czechoslovak nation was assumed to be the selfevident principle on which relations between Czechs and Slovaks were based. From the viewpoint of the overwhelming majority of Czech politicians, therefore, neither Slovak autonomy nor the federalization of the state on the basis of the national principle was deemed to be at all 33 Harna, p. 14. 88 SLOVAKIA necessary. This attitude prevailed even as the very construct "two branches of the Czechoslovak nation" would seem to demand the necessity of constitutional elaboration and resolution of the individuality contained within the notion of two branches _34 Once the decision was made to create a unitary state, the opportunities for initiating and implementing Slovak policies and political objectives were circumscribed at best, both by the structure of the state system, the political party structure and to an extent the Slovak political forms. The peculiar structure of the party system meant that opposition parties had no realistic chance of modifying the system. The frustration that results from the perceived inability to influence the system in any way often leads to radicalism and this was certainly the case in Czechoslovakia. The power politics party system in the interwar republic proved to be remarkably stable, even though it was a multi-party system in which significant groups were polarized. Stability was achieved at a price, namely the diminution of the role of Parliament and the enhancement of the power of the President and of the government forming coalition parties. A further price was the perception that these centrist parties (generally known as the Petka) had to achieve a consensus and cohesiveness in the face of the fundamental divergence of views from the outsider parties. Hence opposition becomes not something to be tolerated and contested, but something threatening and destabilizing. In effect, the coalition parties could not afford the luxury of opposition; aware of the differences in the state, they felt compelled to focus on retaining and centralizing power. The political cabinet of party leaders essentially overshadowed the ministerial cabinet and tended to make of Parliament a virtual rubber stamp, at least for deputies from the governing parties. What that meant in practice was that the system was impervious to any fundamental change through the normal parliamentary 34M. Matula, "Nektere problemy souvisejfci s institucionalnfm aspektem narodnfc h vztahu CSR v letech 1918-1938" in Slovensko v politickom syst6me Ceskoslovenska, p. 91 . SLOVAKIA 89 process. What ensued then was the belief that the structure itself had to be modified if any real political power was to develop among the Slovaks. As one historian writes: The issue was not really whether or not the Slovaks achieved immediate autonomy but the Jack of understanding and the unwillingness of the Czech parties even to recognize the problem. Thus the spokesmen for the Slovak position were pushed into opposition and progressively forced into a negative stance relative to the existing regime.3 5 Illustrative of the unwillingness even to address the question of constitutional organization was the fate of administrative reconstruction. The County Law of 1920 was designed to integrate Slovakia into the new state by creating a new county structure to replace the old. What especially generated protests by Slovak administrators was that financial control at the county level was taken over by the central Ministries oflnterior and Finance. During 1921-22, several proposals were made in Parliament to address these Slovak concerns. The Hlinka Slovak People's Party (HSPP) called for selfadministration in Slovak affairs, a provincial Diet and a provincial government named by the President. There were also other variants, some more radical, of Slovak autonomy. Hodza, who at this time was still looking for a means of unifying Slovak political power, suggested a County Union with competencies in health, welfare, economic and cultural spheres precisely to shift administrative power in Slovakia out of Prague's bureaucratic hands and into Slovak political hands. The debate on these issues in the ministerial circles in Prague revealed a reluctance to delegate any real powers, even to a body like the County Union. The only concessions to be made were delegating powers addressing the needs of the feeble-minded, blind, deaf, epileptic, supervising forced labor and the poorhouses .36 35 Hama, p. 19. 36 For an analysis of the debate over the administration of Slovakia, see Natalia Krajcovicovli , "Politicke strany na Slovensku a usilie o samosprlivu v dvadsiatich rokoch" in Slovensko v politickom systeme Ceskoslovenska, pp . 47-55 . See also Ladislav Lipscher, K vyvinu politickej spravy na Slovensku v rokoch 1918-1938, Bratislava, SA V, 1966. 90 SLOVAKIA The political concerns behind such positions were evident, as expressed in the magazine Tribuna: "It is certain that a County Union in Slovakia would be a constant threat to the unity of the state. Who can guarantee that it would not give birth to some kind of autonomous Diet for Slovakia?"3 7 The result was that the administrative structure for Slovakia was extraordinarily limited, always under the strict supervision of Prague. Slovaks lost even a modicum of local autonomy, under a system which was not implemented in the rest of the country precisely because the example of centralized power as manifested in Slovakia aroused local opposition in Bohemia and Moravia. The anomaly could not be sustained and in 1927 the Provincial Law replaced the county system with the four historic provinces. While this acknowledged the territorial existence of Slovakia as an entity, little was done to give that entity any real administrative powers. The failure of these administrative efforts indicated that no serious attempt would be made to bring about a measure of decentralization of government. Problems of special significance to the Slovaks, such as the economic imbalance, the lower standard of living, the dearth of jobs for the growing numbers of university trained younger leaders, the preservation of religious and cultural values were thus not addressed regionally, but left to the central government in Prague, where Slovak power was minimal at best. It could be argued, and often has been, that the lack of Slovak power was more the result of the divisions among the Slovaks themselves than of the unitary and centralized nature of the system. The inability of the Slovaks to form a cohesive bloc was a factor, but not a decisive factor, for as long as even one Slovak was found who would enter the government in the name of the Slovaks (and in fact three, namely Vavro Srobar, Ivan Derer, Hod:fa, were all that were basically necessary during the First Republic) and while coalition parties could attract a Slovak following, (and two did), the power of the coalition bloc would outweigh any Slovak bloc. The ambiguity about the nature of the Czech-Slovak problem would however have 37Krajfovicovii, p. 51. SLOVAKIA 91 been clarified had the Slovaks achieved a Slovak party. Hod:fa and others recognized this and an attempt was made to form a National Bloc or even a Political Committee (which Hod:fa tried) which would have functioned in a manner analogous to the Petka. This failed because of the inability to achieve a uniform stand on the question of the Slovak position in the state and also to a diversity of views on some specific issues, a problem partially attributable to confessional differences. There did exist a basic consensus on general principles; only a few Slovaks were convinced Czechoslovaks. Unfortunately it was precisely these few who were able to join the government in Prague and were thus considered to represent the Slovaks. There was in fact a fundamental unity among the Slovak populace: a rejection of ethnic and linguistic Czechoslovakism, a commitment to the Czechoslovak state, albeit a reformed one, and a recognition of the pluralistic nature of the state and society. If there was division among the Slovaks, it came on the question of how, not whether, to reform the state: regionalism or autonomy. The Slovak Agrarians, under Hod:fa's leadership, were centrist in that they worked within the system to bring about a modification of some of the system, but especially in the 1930's were also advocates of regionalism. Hodfa came to advocate an intermediary notion, looking at it from a pragmatic perspective, which "means neither centralism nor autonomy, but state-political unity and regionalism with administrative self-government" .38 Hodfa was trying to find a bridge between two ever diverging assessments (one Czech and the other Slovak) of the satisfaction level with the existing political system. The escalating criticism by Slovaks of their position in the First Republic is evident from the following editorial in Zem, the journal of the younger generation of Agrarians: The aversion of Czechs and Slovaks arises from economic and social problems . Czechs accept our arguments with a judicious attentiveness , while they continue to make their own national , cultural and linguistic politics .. . Currently a majority of the Slovaks want to acknowledge their own nation .... and the unfortunate tendencies (potmehudske narazky) seen 38Milan Hodfa, C/anky, reci, §tudie, Prague , Novina , 1934, Vol. 7, pp . xxxii-iii . 92 SLOVAKIA in various Czech newspapers, to suggest that Slovak efforts to achieve their rights somehow indicates political unreliabi lity, wi ll not deter the Slovaks. 39 If even Hodza's and the Agrarians' moderate call for regionalism was ignored , the possibility for substantive constitutional reform was all the more remote. The position of the HSPP, which consistently included Slovak autonomy as its basic program, is certainly a case in point. Representing a large portion of the Slovak people,40 they were systematically frustrated in their attempts to implement their programs. Ignored most of the time, only in times of crisis did the governing powers seek to integrate the HSPP into the process , such as the coalition crisis of the late 192O's or the presidential elections of 1935 ; once the crisis was resolved, any further negotiations were deemed unnecessary. A good illustration of this can be seen from the December 1935 talks between President Edvard Benes and Andrej Hlinka, leader of the HSPP. Hlinka asked for decentralization and legislative power for regional Slovak organs and for the post of Minister for Slovakia for the HSPP. Benes promised to give the Slovaks all that was possible without undermining the unity of the state. In February 1936 Benes noted that the entry of HSPP into the government was delayed due to unacceptable nature of the demands: the same demands which were made in negotiations in December. The governing coalition rejected the demands and the matter was closed.41 No matter what route the Slovaks followed in their efforts to modify the structure and political system, they had little success. Political parties in Slovakia were unable to compete nationally, for 39zem, IV , 4 , 20 . February , 1938, p. 39 . 40 one could argue that at times it did indeed represent a majority of the Slovaks, if one assumes that Czechs voting in Slovakia supported centrist parties and Magyars their own parties . 41 E.F. Firsov, "K problemu modifik,kif parlamentneho systemu CSR a narodnopolitickeho konsenzu Cechov a Slovakov na prelome 20. a 30 . rokov" in Slo vensk o v politickom systeme Ceskos/ovenska, p. 104. SLOVAKIA 93 the state was in the hands of the centrist parties and thus no shadow coalition or cabinet could form. Slovaks were united in their efforts to gain control of the bureaucratic apparatus in Slovakia, as a means of indirect access to the power center. This too was frustrated by the bureaucratic structure of centralism. It took the crisis of 1938 to bring about some readjustment in the state relations between Czechs and Slovaks, a settlement subsequently repudiated as being forcibly imposed. 42 By that time however a more aggressive and assertive stance had been taken by the HSPP; 20 years of waiting for the system to change from above had led to the radicalization of the efforts to change it. It is often argued that in time of crisis the Slovaks abandoned the Czechs, generating the notion of ungrateful Slovaks. One could likewise argue that only in times of crisis did the Czechs remember the Slovaks .. . one can go to the well only so many times. There is no question that fascist elements had entered into the Slovak political arena, fueled in part by economic grievances and political frustration . The fact that fascism was a force sweeping across the disaffected sectors of Europe does not absolve the Slovaks of responsibility for those fascist features; nor does however the argument that Czechoslovakia, while it had its faults, was still the only functioning democracy in Eastern Europe and better than the surrounding systems excuse those faults and deny their consequences. For both, historical relativism is a tempting but ultimately unsatisfying position. 43 42 An interesting side point here is Hodza's argument that the political cabinet's acceptance of Slovak self-administration, as negotiated in the summer of 1938 was in fact valid , against Bene§' subsequent argument , after W .W .II broke out , that Parliament had not approved it and it was therefore invalid. Hodza was correct in his perception that the political cabinet was the crucial decision making body . That was why Slovak political efforts were in fact so often frustrated, because Parliament tended only to reflect the decisions of the political cabinet. 43 As a prominent Czech historian has observed: "The ideal of democracy became a self-indulgent compliment, nurturing the need of the Czechs for universal recognition and admiration. Czech nationalism greeted the foundation of the republic not only as an occasion to score points in the nationalistic struggle with imperialistic 94 SLOVAKIA The analogy of a marriage is perhaps an appropriate metaphor for the course of Czech and Slovaks relations . In May of 1918, as the Austro-Hungarian Empire was moving inexorably toward its demise, Hlinka declared: "It is absolutely necessary for us to decide if we will continue with the Magyars, or go with the Czechs. Let us not evade the question, let us say openly that we are for the CzechoSlovak orientation. The thousand year marriage with the Magyars has not worked. A divorce is necessary." 44 The marriage of the Czechs and Slovaks in 1918 was a classic war-time marriage: undertaken in haste, without adequate courtship, with both partners moving immediately from divorce (Austrian and Hungarian partners respectively) into this new relationship. There was no time to discuss the terms and conditions of the marriage, the expectations about what each sought and would bring to the marriage. What little was prepared was done largely by marriage brokers (Toma~ G. Masaryk on one side and the American Slovaks on the other, resulting in the Pittsburgh Agreement of 1918) . The first months of the marriage were very difficult, as the residual effects of the Great War needed to be addressed . It became apparent fairly soon, however, that the two partners in the marriage had very different expectations and notions. The Czech partner clearly saw himself as the preponderant factor, functioning as provider and decision maker in a traditional marriage . This was a natural expectation, given the Czech numerical and material dominance. Thus the Czechs had a clear notion of the nature of the relationship: a unitary state of the Czechoslovak nation. The Slovak partner was much less clear about her role in the marriage. Given her relative lack of wealth and experience, there was a tendency on the part of some to accept a dependent relationship and a subservient role in the marriage. Thus generally more than a third of the Slovaks Germany, but also as a justification of its own colonial ambitions toward Slovakia." Zden~k Pinc, "The Idea of the Czechoslovak State: History, Theory and Political Reality", Czechoslovak and Central European Journal, 10, no. I , 1991, p. 38 . 44 Karol Medvecky, Slovenskf prevrat, Tmava, Spolok Sv. Vojtecha, 1930-31 , Vol. Ill , p. 347 . SLOVAKIA 95 accepted the Czechoslovak unitary state, though only a tiny minority believed in the notion of the Czechoslovak people and virtually no one subscribed to a Czechoslovak language. There also existed a different notion of the marriage, namely the desire for an equal partnership between two equals. This was manifested in the desire for some form of Slovak autonomy as exemplified by the hyphenated Czecho-Slovakia, a position which generally a majority of the Slovaks supported. As the marriage progressed during the 1920's and 1930's, both internal and external factors escalated Slovak discontent. The Slovaks came to resent their status in the Czechoslovak Republic because they felt increasingly frustrated , both economically and politically and because they perceived a paternalistic indifference to Slovak grievances. Increasingly, this frustration led to a sense of alienation from the marriage and a greater responsiveness to ideological concepts which addressed both the reality and the theory of the inadequacy of an unequal marriage; in this marriage it was the call of nationalism which led the "weaker" partner to re-evaluate her place within the Czech-defined relationship. As storm clouds gathered over Europe, as tension and fear escalated, the Slovaks sought to re-define the marriage precisely at the moment that the Czechs, feeling far more threatened by the forces gathering over Europe, resisted any tampering with what to them was a satisfactory marriage. They in fact did not even comprehend the alienation and sense of frustration prevalent among the Slovaks . Thus the events of Munich and after led to deep bitterness, for the Czechs believed the Slovaks had stabbed them in the back, and the Slovaks felt that, having been denied the opportunity to improve their relationship with the Czechs, they had no obligations to travel the bitter path with a partner who had never listened to them and had never been prepared to engage in a genuine dialogue with a view toward developing a marriage of true partners. During the period of the war, the Czechs and some Slovaks denied that the marriage had broken up; some Czechs even denied that any adjustments were necessary for the marriage to resume. Virtually no Slovak could subscribe to that position; for the Slovaks, at the very minimum, a co-equal marriage was imperative. 96 SLOVAKIA The fall of communism enabled old and new grievances to surface, on both sides, and to be finally openly confronted. The result was a divorce. The seeds of that divorce, not necessarily inevitable , had been planted by failures common to so many marriages: lack of communications and the inability to listen as Czechs and Slovaks talked from different historical perspectives, in different languages and with different objectives , resulting in misunderstandings, undervaluing of roles , responsibilities and contributions, and above all , the lack of commitment to a marriage of diversity and genuine equality.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Relations Between Slovaks and Czechs in the First CSR Description An account of the resource Susan Mikula Slovakia, Vol. 35 (No. 64-65), 1991-92 pp. 78-96 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mikula, Suzanna Maria, 1943- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-92 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/9506db18b11df4019d53bd51040d4297.pdf a2e6c1a3765de41d4c8d4aa33812bc58 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 11 REMAR~S OF HON. ALVIN M. BENTLEY {iBefore the Thirty-Fourth Congress of the Slovak Lea gue of America in Washington, May 23, 1955) I am, of course, happy to be here with Mrs. Bentley thts evening with so many of our good Slovak friends from Michigan and elsewhere throughout the country. I remember two years ago when I had inserted in the Congressional Record an article from the Council of Free Czechoslovakia and how many letters of protest I received from your members throughout the country. I was, frankly, at that time quite amazed to learn how widespread was your organization. For many reasons, of course, I am happy that my subsequent actions have only evoked commendation from you. In my talks with your members, both in Michigan and here in Washington, I have come to realize that one of your greatest difficulties lies with the Free Europe Committee and, specifically with Radio Free Europe and its apparent tendency to swbordinate Slovak matters to Cze<:h or, rather, to "Czecho~lovak" matters. Now I have had occasion in the past to deal with Radio Free Europe and with its director, Mr. Whitney Shepardson. I have broadcast over their facilities, both here in the United States and in Germany. Concerning the work they are doing in their broadcasts to Poland, Hungary and many of the other satellites, I think there can be little or no criticism. From my own experiences behind the Iron Curtain and from my contacts since I left there, I should say that Radio Free Europe has as great, if not greater, audience than any other media of propaganda used by the free world. So, on the whole, we must admit the RFE is performing a useful and valuable task. Only in this matter of Czech and Slovak programs have we run into a problem. About two months ago, I wrote Mr. Shepardson, expressing my concern in this matter and asking him for a public statement of policy in this respect. I have here the text of his reply, dated April 19, and I think it is important enough to read to you at this time: �12 SLOVAKIA Dear Congressman Bentley: You ask in your letter of March 25 for a public statement of this Committee's policy with respect to the Slovruk question. I am glad to note that what you have in mind, specifically, is that we arrive at as nearly an equal balance as possible of Czech and Slovak persons on our staff - and I presume, of air time on Radio Free Europe. I say this because at bottom the Slovak question concerns the future political status of the people of Slovakia. This is, of course, something which lies wholly outside the competence of the Free Europe Committee. We are not a foreign office, we are a political warfare organization. We try to follow United States policy, we do not U111dertake to make it. United States policy, we are informed, favors the eventual restoration of a truly democratic Republic of Czechoslovak ia ; it does not favor the establishment of a Republic of Slovakia. (As I will point out later, I think Mr. Shepardson is mistaken in this belief). Radio Free Europe is not obliged to reiterate this fact in its broadcasts to Czechs and Slovaks, and indeed it does not do so : It refrains from discussing it. This means also that it refrains and indeed it should refrain, in view of U. S. policy - from promoting Slovak separatism over its facilities. As to Czech and Slovak personnel and air time, by equal I take it you mean equitable, since, according to statistics as of February 1955 published by the Prague regime, the proportion of Slovaks to Czechs in Czechoslovakia was 34 percent. 2,990,000 Slovaks and 8,870,000 Czechs. As to Radio Free Europe air time. the Slovak proportion is 67 percent of the Czech ( 40 percent of the total of 113½ hours a week). Here is a breakdown of our employment records: Ratio of Czech RFE New York 1. Employees full time 18 Slovak 6 Slovaks To Czech s 33 % �13 SLOVAKIA 2. Freelance employed in 1954 Total RFffi Munich l.Employees at radio desk Employees Production Dept. 51 31 60 % 69 37 44 % 72 30 26 13 36 1/c 40 % 39 % 39 102 Broadcasting total 26 % 26 98 1954 in employed 2. Freelance % 16 6 36 Munich, non-broadcasting The total broadcasting staff includes 120 Czechs and 45 Slovaks, the latter in the ratio of 38 percent. The freelance record for 1954 is 149 Czechs and 57 Slovaks, the Slovak ratio being again 38 percent. In non~broadcasting (common labor, etc.) the Slovak proportion is 16 percent and is probably a fair reflection of the escapee situation in Germany. Statistics by themselves never tell the whole story, and something must be added to these figures: The function of the Free Europe Committee is not to concern itself with future political and territorial arrangements in Europe. Its function is to carry on the present fight against Communism, especially behind the Iron Curtain. To carry on that fight successfully, it must have the good will of the peoples it addresses: Therefore, it seeks to win the approval of the people of Slovakia. To this end, it invites into the service Slovak escapees of talent who, speaking in their own name (not in the name of the U. S. Government or of the American people), inform their captive fellow-countrymen of what is going on in the free world, report evidences of American (particularly SlovakAmericrun) concern for their fate, support them in their struggle against the Communist oppressors, instill in them the hope of eventually regaining their freedom, and sustain their deep spirit of non-cooperation with the Communist regime. How do our Slovak co-workers contribute to our common purposes? They listen to the Comunist radio day and night. They read the Communist press. They interview Slovaik escapees. They watch events in Soviet Russia and neighboring countries and estimate the impact of those �14 SLOV.MGA. events upon Slovakia. They seek to learn and respond to what is in the mind of the Slovak listeners this very day . They ask themselves: What is the particular form of oppression the Slovaks are at this moment undergoing? What is their present hope or fear? What is happening to the wife and children, the church, the living standard, the spiritual and cultural life of the Slovak peasant and worker? How weak or strong are the regime and the party at this time? For these reasons, our Slovak staff must be chosen for its intimate knowledge of present-day Slovakia and for its professional competence, not its party allegiance. It must be made u:e, so far as possible, of recent or fairly recent escapees, men and women, who haVe had experience with life under Communism in Slovakia; but they must at the same time be editors, writers, actors, radio producers and other professionals experienced in our work. Our staff possesses this competence and this experience. And they are patriots, not partisans. The cause of the people, not the cause of this or that faction is what they work for. You are aware that they have been both criticized and defended right inside Slov3Jk separatist circles. Some are Protestant, some are Catholic. Some are Czechoslovruk federalists, some even sepaTatists. We hono.r them all for their belief that they must get on with the fight against Communism and wait to cross the separatist bridge, or federalist bridge, until they come to it, which is to say, until the time when the Slavak people will be free to speak for themselves. I am sure that we have your sympathetic understanding. I am happy to think that you will interpret our position to the American Slovak League as you have interpreted theirs to us, and I send our respectful regrurds to you. Yours sincerely, (s) WHITNEY S. SHEPARDSON. There you have the official statement of policy of the Free Europe Committee on the whole Slovak question. �SLOVAKIA 15 Now I know that many, if not all of you, would have much fault to find with this letter. Only ten days ago I received a ten-page letter from Phil Hrobak after I had sent him a copy of the Shepardson letter. But let me go back and refer to the one great mistake which I think Mr. Shepardson maikes when he speaks of the policy of our government regarding the Slovak question and when he says: "United States policy, we are informed, favors the eventual restoration of a truly democratic Republic of Czechoslovakia; it does not favor the establishment of a Republic of Slovakia." On April 25, I wrote the Secretary of State and directed his attention to that sentence. I went on to say: "Although I am aware that thi,s government never entered into diplomatic relations with the war-time government of the Republic of Slovakia but, on the contrary, has maintained such recognition with the Republic of Czechoslovakia ever since its inception, I nevertheless presume to request a statement of the Department's thinking in regard to tlhis i mp or t a n t matter. I have always been under the firm impression that this government properly considered the political status of the enslaved countries, following their liberation, to be one for the peo•ples of those countries to determine for themselves That is to say, that such status would be resolved by means o.f independent self-determination consistent with a proper regard for the rights and privileges of their neighbors and founded upon the ideas of justice and freedom for all. "I, therefore, hesitate to believe that this government has committed itself to a continuation of the Republic of Czecho,s lovakia at such a time as the liberation of that country may truke place. I would rather believe that the Department has not committed itself in the future to either the idea of Czechoslovakia or of independent Slovakia but that it would make its own decision and base its own support on whatever form of government or governments the people of that area should freely choose at the time they may be aible to enjoy such freedom of choice." �16 SLOVAKIA The reply from the Department of State dated May 2 sets forth the official position of our government in this respect and I presume you will be interested in hearing this also: "In dealing with Central and IDastern European states, their territorial organization, and their national composition, the policy of the department has been predicated on the belief that support for the principle of self-determination makes it incumbent on us to await a conclusive manifestation of the will of the people of those states under free conditions, and to consider fully the consequences of any action in favor o.f a new state from the standpoint of the stability, security and economic viability of Central and Eastern Europe generally. The focus of this policy is on the creation of conditions under which the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe will be able freely to determine their own governmental and economic institutions, as well as their relationships with each other and with the other peoples of Europe. "With respect to the question of the future territorial organization of Czechoslova;kia, it is the view of the department that the Czech and Slovak peoples should themselves determine under free conditions whether they will continue to live together in a common Czechoslovak State. "The Czechs and Slovaks have been united in one state since 1918, except for the period of World War II when the Czechoslovak Republic was dismembered through Nazi aggression. Advocates of a separate Slovak State seek to have this government take action which may be construed 8/S an indication that the United States Government has changed its attitude toward the territorial State of Czechoslovakia, apart from its attitude toward the present Communist regime, and has come to favor the break-up of that state and the creation of a separate Slovak State. "'Dhe department believes, however, that a departure along this line from continuing to deal with the historical concept of a united Czechoslovakia until the Czechs and Slovaks themselves may otherwise determine o.f their own �SLOVAKIA 17 free choice would have fateful consequences in Eastern Europe, consequences which would exist long after that area wins independence of Soviet domination. These consequences would involve such matters as the eventual political organization of all of Eastern Europe, the status of each of the many ethnic groups in that area, the relations of each such group to the United States and to Germany, Russia and other European powers, and safeguards against the territorial, political and economic fragmentation of Eastern Europe and even of Slovakia itself, since it includes national minorities." So there you have the official views of the Free :mu. rope Committee and of the Department of State as regards the Slovaik question. It may seem to some of you that all I have been doing this evening has been to read letters instead of giving a speech, but I believed that it was more important for you to know these official viewpoints than to hear anythtng which I might have to say. You, of course, have noticed the outstanding discrepancy between these two viewpoints a discrepancy which I intend to see is reconciled at the earliest possible moment. Mr. Shepardson declared that our governmental policy favors the restoration of the Republic of Czechoslova:lda and not an independent Republic of Slovakia. However, the State Department, on the other hand, ta;kes what appears to me to be the correct position and that is that this is a matter for the Czech and Slovak peoples themsel'Ves to determine following the li'beration of their homeland. I think that is a noteworthy admission on the part of the State Department and I think it is something we all should bear in mind. I know how all of you long for the day when Slovakia will again be free and independent and I sympathize with your viewpoint in that respect. But there is one all-important task before us at the moment and that is to work together in e<Very possible way for the lrberation of the enslaved peoples from the grip of Communist tyranny. No purpose, no aim, however important, should be allowed to take precedence over this task. So I say to you that you do well indeed to keep up the fight for �18 SLOVAKIA an independent Slovakia but do not forget that Slovakia must be free before she can be independent. The achie,vement of freedom from the Communists is something to which we must devote our all. Developments are taking place today in Europe which are most important in the matter of considering liberation. For the first time since the war, the Iron Curtain is being pushed eastwards with the signing of the Austrian peace treaty and the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Eastern Austria. According to the terms of the treaty, they are supposed to withdraw from Hungary and Rumania. Now not only Hungary but also Slovakia will have a common border with freedom. Now your fellow-countrymen in Bratislava can look across the Danube into free Austria. Think what a tremendous attraction that will be for them and think how it will add to the difficulties of the Czech Communist regime in trying to retain its totalitarian control. I do believe the li,b eration of Eastern Austria will have far~reaching consequences for many other enslaved peoples in that part of Europe . And I do believe that this happy development has come about because of the internal difficulties faced by the Soviet Union as well as a result of the external pressures engendered upon her by the free world of which this country is the leader. I trust that these pressures will now be intensified on the Soviet Union and I certainly intend to do my small part in seeing that the heat remains on. Take the work of the Select Committee on Communist Aggression, the former Kersten Committee, on which I had the honor to serve during the 83rd Congress, and which did so much to reveal to the free world the story of Communist enslavement and brutality, in Slovakia and elsewhere behind the Iron Curtain. This committee may or may not be reactivated - I do not know. But every former member of the committee who is still in Congress four Democrats and two Republicans - has introduced an identical resolution which would call on the Secretary of State to have introduced in the United Nations a resolution declaring the Soviet Union to he an international aggressbr because of her takeover and occupation of Slova- �SLOVAKIA 19 kia, the Baltic States and others of the satellites. Two weeks ago, this resolution was overwhelmingly adopted and approved by the House Foreign Affairs Oommittee, of which I am also a member, and we hope soon to have a rule to bring it to the floor of the House for consideration and action. This is the type of pressure used against the Soviet Union in the past and which is now paying dividends - this is the type of pressure which I want to see continued in the future. Some people, I know, have expressed misgivings regarding the forthcoming meeting "at the summit" between the leaders of the Big Four. With the unhappy memories of Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam in mind, there are those who have wondered if this would be another such meeting whereby the United States might agree to further concessions which would further abandon the enslaved people to their fate. I personally think there will be little, if any, value to a Big Four meeting and that is why I have consistently opposed it. But, if it does take place, I give you the pledge of this government, of this administration, that there will be no sell-out of the captive peoples such as took place at similar meetings in the past. Listen to this letter which I received from the State Department last December: 'During the past two years this goveTnment has issued, or subscribed to, a number of public statements indicating that it is not reconciled to the present fate of the captive peoples of Eastern Europe; that it will not be a party to any arrangement or treaty confirming or prolonging their subjection to Soviet despotism; and that it seeks by peaceful means conditions permitting these enslaved national groups to recover genuine freedom and independence. "Recently in a speech reviewing United States foreign policy before the Thirty-Third Annual 4-H Club Congress in Chicago, the Secretary spoke of our efforts in the realistic pursuit of peace and at the same time of our action in many ways to sustain the hope of freedom among the captive peoples. As of particular relevance in this connection, he stated that 'The scope of conferences with the �20 Soviet government is necessarily limited by our attitude toward the captive peoples, for the Soviets know that we will not make ~y deal which would condone and perpetuate the captivity of men and nations.' The principles enunciated in this speech show that our objective remains unchanged, namely to work in all peaceful ways for the creation of a Europe in which the captive peoples will again enjoy governments as well as social and economic institutions of their own free choice." In regard to the Slovak League of America itself and the value of the work you are doing, I can do no better than to let you know what the Communists think about you. We on the Kersten Committee found that the louder the Commun~sts screamed about us the more effective was our work, the more we were hurting them. Now last April 19 the Czech Communist foreign office in Prague delivered a note to our embassy there, a note of protest regarding many things. I inserted the text of this note in the Congressional Record on May 10 and I want to read you a few paragraphs from this Communist document to close my remarks this evening: "The report of the Kersten Committee extols the socalled Slovak State, covers up the crimes of the occupants and their henchmen and stresses their merits in their fight against the Soviet Union and Communism. The anti-fascist resistance of the Czechoslovak people is disparaged in the repo.r t, the Slovak national uprising is described as an improvised relbellion of suJbversive elements, and the liberation of Czechoslovakia by the heroic Soviet army is described with bitter sorrow at the defeat of Hitlerite occupants. "The Kersten Committee reports are a gross provocation not only against all Czech and Slovak patriots, but also against all honest and democratic Americans who, together with the peoples of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and other Democratic countries, sacrificed their lirves in the fight against their common fascist enemy. "At the present time, reports, both in the American and the world press, daily give the reader a picture of how American justice and various congressional investigating �SLOVAKIA 21 committees fabricate anti-Communist testimony. As to the investigation of the so-called Kersten Committee and its report on Czechoslovakia, however, it is worthy of note that the principal witnesses and experts named and quoted by the reiport are iprimarilly notorious fascists and coNaJborators from the time of World War II. "Thus, for instance, the section dealing with the antifascist struggle of the Slovak people is based on the testimony of the former Charge D' Affaires of the so-called Slovak State in Madrid, Jozef Mikus, to whom the report gives his full title, obvio1.l1Sily in order to eliminaite any doUJbts as to his qualifications or loyalty. The official circles of the United States of America base their hostile activities against Czechoslovakia on the most reactionary fascist emigre groups. "'Dhe present Government of the United States quite openly gives support to and encourages those elements, who, as early as the period before World War II, sided with Hitler in the breaking up of the unity and territorial integrity of the Czechoslovak Republic, who gave convincing proof of their political convictions by their servility to the fascist occupants and who, speculating on a new World War and a new occupation of Czechoslovakia, have now placed themselves fully at the disposal of aggressive groups in the United Sates of America. "Similarly, the United States occupation -:mbhorities in Western Germany, in the organization of plots against Ozec'hoslovakia, cooperate closely with the traitors of the people, with convicted war criminals. Thus, under the protection of the United States occupation authorities, the former minister of the so-called Slovak State in Berlin, Matus Cernak, together with a number of other traitors who escaped from Czechoslovakia and other Eastern European States, continue in their treacherous activities under a new master but along the same fascist line." So there you have it. You can readily perceive that the work of our own Kersten Committee, the work done by your own organization and its leaders, must be effective, must be hurting the communists to judge by their pained outcries. You know, for a great many years we were the �22 SLOVAKIA ones who were writing all the notes and doing all the pro·testing and that's as far as it ever got. Our notes were snubbed and our protests were ignored. That passive attitude on the part of our government at that time was one reason I resigned from the State Department in' disgust five years ago. But how times have changed since then! Isn't it with a feeling of pleasure and relief that we witness the other side writing notes and protests for a change? Isn't it great to know that the initiative in this cold war is really passing into our hands? It is always a pleasure to meet with members of your organization and it has been a great privilege for ·_ Mrs. Bentley and me to be here this evening. Keep u,p the good work. Thank you very much . • • • MEMORANDUM To the President and the Congress of the United States, Adopted by the Delegates to the Thirty-Fourth Congress of the Slovak League of America, May 23-24, 1955, Washington, D. C. We, the delegates to the Thirty-Fourth Congress of the Slovak League of America, assembled in Washington, D. C., May 23-24, 1955 - send most cordial greetings to President Dwight D. Eisenho-w er and the members of the Congress of the United States of America, and do solemnly and unanimously resolve that: 1. We rededicate ourselves to the preservation of the principles upon which our Country was founded under God, the American Way of Life, which has made our America the envy of the world, and declare that the welfare and the security of the United States of America shall continue to be our primary interest. 2. We subsor1be wihole'heartedly to the expressed printhe. fundamental principle ciple of self-determination of American policy in Europe since the administration of President Woodrow Wilson, which declares that all nations have the . right to determine for themselves the state � SLOVAKIA 11 REMAR~S OF HON. ALVIN M. BENTLEY {iBefore the Thirty-Fourth Congress of the Slovak Lea gue of America in Washington, May 23, 1955) I am, of course, happy to be here with Mrs. Bentley thts evening with so many of our good Slovak friends from Michigan and elsewhere throughout the country. I remember two years ago when I had inserted in the Congressional Record an article from the Council of Free Czechoslovakia and how many letters of protest I received from your members throughout the country. I was, frankly, at that time quite amazed to learn how widespread was your organization. For many reasons, of course, I am happy that my subsequent actions have only evoked commendation from you. In my talks with your members, both in Michigan and here in Washington, I have come to realize that one of your greatest difficulties lies with the Free Europe Committee and, specifically with Radio Free Europe and its apparent tendency to swbordinate Slovak matters to Cze<:h or, rather, to "Czecho~lovak" matters. Now I have had occasion in the past to deal with Radio Free Europe and with its director, Mr. Whitney Shepardson. I have broadcast over their facilities, both here in the United States and in Germany. Concerning the work they are doing in their broadcasts to Poland, Hungary and many of the other satellites, I think there can be little or no criticism. From my own experiences behind the Iron Curtain and from my contacts since I left there, I should say that Radio Free Europe has as great, if not greater, audience than any other media of propaganda used by the free world. So, on the whole, we must admit the RFE is performing a useful and valuable task. Only in this matter of Czech and Slovak programs have we run into a problem. About two months ago, I wrote Mr. Shepardson, expressing my concern in this matter and asking him for a public statement of policy in this respect. I have here the text of his reply, dated April 19, and I think it is important enough to read to you at this time: �12 SLOVAKIA Dear Congressman Bentley: You ask in your letter of March 25 for a public statement of this Committee's policy with respect to the Slovruk question. I am glad to note that what you have in mind, specifically, is that we arrive at as nearly an equal balance as possible of Czech and Slovak persons on our staff - and I presume, of air time on Radio Free Europe. I say this because at bottom the Slovak question concerns the future political status of the people of Slovakia. This is, of course, something which lies wholly outside the competence of the Free Europe Committee. We are not a foreign office, we are a political warfare organization. We try to follow United States policy, we do not U111dertake to make it. United States policy, we are informed, favors the eventual restoration of a truly democratic Republic of Czechoslovak ia ; it does not favor the establishment of a Republic of Slovakia. (As I will point out later, I think Mr. Shepardson is mistaken in this belief). Radio Free Europe is not obliged to reiterate this fact in its broadcasts to Czechs and Slovaks, and indeed it does not do so : It refrains from discussing it. This means also that it refrains and indeed it should refrain, in view of U. S. policy - from promoting Slovak separatism over its facilities. As to Czech and Slovak personnel and air time, by equal I take it you mean equitable, since, according to statistics as of February 1955 published by the Prague regime, the proportion of Slovaks to Czechs in Czechoslovakia was 34 percent. 2,990,000 Slovaks and 8,870,000 Czechs. As to Radio Free Europe air time. the Slovak proportion is 67 percent of the Czech ( 40 percent of the total of 113½ hours a week). Here is a breakdown of our employment records: Ratio of Czech RFE New York 1. Employees full time 18 Slovak 6 Slovaks To Czech s 33 % �13 SLOVAKIA 2. Freelance employed in 1954 Total RFffi Munich l.Employees at radio desk Employees Production Dept. 51 31 60 % 69 37 44 % 72 30 26 13 36 1/c 40 % 39 % 39 102 Broadcasting total 26 % 26 98 1954 in employed 2. Freelance % 16 6 36 Munich, non-broadcasting The total broadcasting staff includes 120 Czechs and 45 Slovaks, the latter in the ratio of 38 percent. The freelance record for 1954 is 149 Czechs and 57 Slovaks, the Slovak ratio being again 38 percent. In non~broadcasting (common labor, etc.) the Slovak proportion is 16 percent and is probably a fair reflection of the escapee situation in Germany. Statistics by themselves never tell the whole story, and something must be added to these figures: The function of the Free Europe Committee is not to concern itself with future political and territorial arrangements in Europe. Its function is to carry on the present fight against Communism, especially behind the Iron Curtain. To carry on that fight successfully, it must have the good will of the peoples it addresses: Therefore, it seeks to win the approval of the people of Slovakia. To this end, it invites into the service Slovak escapees of talent who, speaking in their own name (not in the name of the U. S. Government or of the American people), inform their captive fellow-countrymen of what is going on in the free world, report evidences of American (particularly SlovakAmericrun) concern for their fate, support them in their struggle against the Communist oppressors, instill in them the hope of eventually regaining their freedom, and sustain their deep spirit of non-cooperation with the Communist regime. How do our Slovak co-workers contribute to our common purposes? They listen to the Comunist radio day and night. They read the Communist press. They interview Slovaik escapees. They watch events in Soviet Russia and neighboring countries and estimate the impact of those �14 SLOV.MGA. events upon Slovakia. They seek to learn and respond to what is in the mind of the Slovak listeners this very day . They ask themselves: What is the particular form of oppression the Slovaks are at this moment undergoing? What is their present hope or fear? What is happening to the wife and children, the church, the living standard, the spiritual and cultural life of the Slovak peasant and worker? How weak or strong are the regime and the party at this time? For these reasons, our Slovak staff must be chosen for its intimate knowledge of present-day Slovakia and for its professional competence, not its party allegiance. It must be made u:e, so far as possible, of recent or fairly recent escapees, men and women, who haVe had experience with life under Communism in Slovakia; but they must at the same time be editors, writers, actors, radio producers and other professionals experienced in our work. Our staff possesses this competence and this experience. And they are patriots, not partisans. The cause of the people, not the cause of this or that faction is what they work for. You are aware that they have been both criticized and defended right inside Slov3Jk separatist circles. Some are Protestant, some are Catholic. Some are Czechoslovruk federalists, some even sepaTatists. We hono.r them all for their belief that they must get on with the fight against Communism and wait to cross the separatist bridge, or federalist bridge, until they come to it, which is to say, until the time when the Slavak people will be free to speak for themselves. I am sure that we have your sympathetic understanding. I am happy to think that you will interpret our position to the American Slovak League as you have interpreted theirs to us, and I send our respectful regrurds to you. Yours sincerely, (s) WHITNEY S. SHEPARDSON. There you have the official statement of policy of the Free Europe Committee on the whole Slovak question. �SLOVAKIA 15 Now I know that many, if not all of you, would have much fault to find with this letter. Only ten days ago I received a ten-page letter from Phil Hrobak after I had sent him a copy of the Shepardson letter. But let me go back and refer to the one great mistake which I think Mr. Shepardson maikes when he speaks of the policy of our government regarding the Slovak question and when he says: "United States policy, we are informed, favors the eventual restoration of a truly democratic Republic of Czechoslovakia; it does not favor the establishment of a Republic of Slovakia." On April 25, I wrote the Secretary of State and directed his attention to that sentence. I went on to say: "Although I am aware that thi,s government never entered into diplomatic relations with the war-time government of the Republic of Slovakia but, on the contrary, has maintained such recognition with the Republic of Czechoslovakia ever since its inception, I nevertheless presume to request a statement of the Department's thinking in regard to tlhis i mp or t a n t matter. I have always been under the firm impression that this government properly considered the political status of the enslaved countries, following their liberation, to be one for the peo•ples of those countries to determine for themselves That is to say, that such status would be resolved by means o.f independent self-determination consistent with a proper regard for the rights and privileges of their neighbors and founded upon the ideas of justice and freedom for all. "I, therefore, hesitate to believe that this government has committed itself to a continuation of the Republic of Czecho,s lovakia at such a time as the liberation of that country may truke place. I would rather believe that the Department has not committed itself in the future to either the idea of Czechoslovakia or of independent Slovakia but that it would make its own decision and base its own support on whatever form of government or governments the people of that area should freely choose at the time they may be aible to enjoy such freedom of choice." �16 SLOVAKIA The reply from the Department of State dated May 2 sets forth the official position of our government in this respect and I presume you will be interested in hearing this also: "In dealing with Central and IDastern European states, their territorial organization, and their national composition, the policy of the department has been predicated on the belief that support for the principle of self-determination makes it incumbent on us to await a conclusive manifestation of the will of the people of those states under free conditions, and to consider fully the consequences of any action in favor o.f a new state from the standpoint of the stability, security and economic viability of Central and Eastern Europe generally. The focus of this policy is on the creation of conditions under which the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe will be able freely to determine their own governmental and economic institutions, as well as their relationships with each other and with the other peoples of Europe. "With respect to the question of the future territorial organization of Czechoslova;kia, it is the view of the department that the Czech and Slovak peoples should themselves determine under free conditions whether they will continue to live together in a common Czechoslovak State. "The Czechs and Slovaks have been united in one state since 1918, except for the period of World War II when the Czechoslovak Republic was dismembered through Nazi aggression. Advocates of a separate Slovak State seek to have this government take action which may be construed 8/S an indication that the United States Government has changed its attitude toward the territorial State of Czechoslovakia, apart from its attitude toward the present Communist regime, and has come to favor the break-up of that state and the creation of a separate Slovak State. "'Dhe department believes, however, that a departure along this line from continuing to deal with the historical concept of a united Czechoslovakia until the Czechs and Slovaks themselves may otherwise determine o.f their own �SLOVAKIA 17 free choice would have fateful consequences in Eastern Europe, consequences which would exist long after that area wins independence of Soviet domination. These consequences would involve such matters as the eventual political organization of all of Eastern Europe, the status of each of the many ethnic groups in that area, the relations of each such group to the United States and to Germany, Russia and other European powers, and safeguards against the territorial, political and economic fragmentation of Eastern Europe and even of Slovakia itself, since it includes national minorities." So there you have the official views of the Free :mu. rope Committee and of the Department of State as regards the Slovaik question. It may seem to some of you that all I have been doing this evening has been to read letters instead of giving a speech, but I believed that it was more important for you to know these official viewpoints than to hear anythtng which I might have to say. You, of course, have noticed the outstanding discrepancy between these two viewpoints a discrepancy which I intend to see is reconciled at the earliest possible moment. Mr. Shepardson declared that our governmental policy favors the restoration of the Republic of Czechoslova:lda and not an independent Republic of Slovakia. However, the State Department, on the other hand, ta;kes what appears to me to be the correct position and that is that this is a matter for the Czech and Slovak peoples themsel'Ves to determine following the li'beration of their homeland. I think that is a noteworthy admission on the part of the State Department and I think it is something we all should bear in mind. I know how all of you long for the day when Slovakia will again be free and independent and I sympathize with your viewpoint in that respect. But there is one all-important task before us at the moment and that is to work together in e<Very possible way for the lrberation of the enslaved peoples from the grip of Communist tyranny. No purpose, no aim, however important, should be allowed to take precedence over this task. So I say to you that you do well indeed to keep up the fight for �18 SLOVAKIA an independent Slovakia but do not forget that Slovakia must be free before she can be independent. The achie,vement of freedom from the Communists is something to which we must devote our all. Developments are taking place today in Europe which are most important in the matter of considering liberation. For the first time since the war, the Iron Curtain is being pushed eastwards with the signing of the Austrian peace treaty and the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Eastern Austria. According to the terms of the treaty, they are supposed to withdraw from Hungary and Rumania. Now not only Hungary but also Slovakia will have a common border with freedom. Now your fellow-countrymen in Bratislava can look across the Danube into free Austria. Think what a tremendous attraction that will be for them and think how it will add to the difficulties of the Czech Communist regime in trying to retain its totalitarian control. I do believe the li,b eration of Eastern Austria will have far~reaching consequences for many other enslaved peoples in that part of Europe . And I do believe that this happy development has come about because of the internal difficulties faced by the Soviet Union as well as a result of the external pressures engendered upon her by the free world of which this country is the leader. I trust that these pressures will now be intensified on the Soviet Union and I certainly intend to do my small part in seeing that the heat remains on. Take the work of the Select Committee on Communist Aggression, the former Kersten Committee, on which I had the honor to serve during the 83rd Congress, and which did so much to reveal to the free world the story of Communist enslavement and brutality, in Slovakia and elsewhere behind the Iron Curtain. This committee may or may not be reactivated - I do not know. But every former member of the committee who is still in Congress four Democrats and two Republicans - has introduced an identical resolution which would call on the Secretary of State to have introduced in the United Nations a resolution declaring the Soviet Union to he an international aggressbr because of her takeover and occupation of Slova- �SLOVAKIA 19 kia, the Baltic States and others of the satellites. Two weeks ago, this resolution was overwhelmingly adopted and approved by the House Foreign Affairs Oommittee, of which I am also a member, and we hope soon to have a rule to bring it to the floor of the House for consideration and action. This is the type of pressure used against the Soviet Union in the past and which is now paying dividends - this is the type of pressure which I want to see continued in the future. Some people, I know, have expressed misgivings regarding the forthcoming meeting "at the summit" between the leaders of the Big Four. With the unhappy memories of Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam in mind, there are those who have wondered if this would be another such meeting whereby the United States might agree to further concessions which would further abandon the enslaved people to their fate. I personally think there will be little, if any, value to a Big Four meeting and that is why I have consistently opposed it. But, if it does take place, I give you the pledge of this government, of this administration, that there will be no sell-out of the captive peoples such as took place at similar meetings in the past. Listen to this letter which I received from the State Department last December: 'During the past two years this goveTnment has issued, or subscribed to, a number of public statements indicating that it is not reconciled to the present fate of the captive peoples of Eastern Europe; that it will not be a party to any arrangement or treaty confirming or prolonging their subjection to Soviet despotism; and that it seeks by peaceful means conditions permitting these enslaved national groups to recover genuine freedom and independence. "Recently in a speech reviewing United States foreign policy before the Thirty-Third Annual 4-H Club Congress in Chicago, the Secretary spoke of our efforts in the realistic pursuit of peace and at the same time of our action in many ways to sustain the hope of freedom among the captive peoples. As of particular relevance in this connection, he stated that 'The scope of conferences with the �20 Soviet government is necessarily limited by our attitude toward the captive peoples, for the Soviets know that we will not make ~y deal which would condone and perpetuate the captivity of men and nations.' The principles enunciated in this speech show that our objective remains unchanged, namely to work in all peaceful ways for the creation of a Europe in which the captive peoples will again enjoy governments as well as social and economic institutions of their own free choice." In regard to the Slovak League of America itself and the value of the work you are doing, I can do no better than to let you know what the Communists think about you. We on the Kersten Committee found that the louder the Commun~sts screamed about us the more effective was our work, the more we were hurting them. Now last April 19 the Czech Communist foreign office in Prague delivered a note to our embassy there, a note of protest regarding many things. I inserted the text of this note in the Congressional Record on May 10 and I want to read you a few paragraphs from this Communist document to close my remarks this evening: "The report of the Kersten Committee extols the socalled Slovak State, covers up the crimes of the occupants and their henchmen and stresses their merits in their fight against the Soviet Union and Communism. The anti-fascist resistance of the Czechoslovak people is disparaged in the repo.r t, the Slovak national uprising is described as an improvised relbellion of suJbversive elements, and the liberation of Czechoslovakia by the heroic Soviet army is described with bitter sorrow at the defeat of Hitlerite occupants. "The Kersten Committee reports are a gross provocation not only against all Czech and Slovak patriots, but also against all honest and democratic Americans who, together with the peoples of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and other Democratic countries, sacrificed their lirves in the fight against their common fascist enemy. "At the present time, reports, both in the American and the world press, daily give the reader a picture of how American justice and various congressional investigating �SLOVAKIA 21 committees fabricate anti-Communist testimony. As to the investigation of the so-called Kersten Committee and its report on Czechoslovakia, however, it is worthy of note that the principal witnesses and experts named and quoted by the reiport are iprimarilly notorious fascists and coNaJborators from the time of World War II. "Thus, for instance, the section dealing with the antifascist struggle of the Slovak people is based on the testimony of the former Charge D' Affaires of the so-called Slovak State in Madrid, Jozef Mikus, to whom the report gives his full title, obvio1.l1Sily in order to eliminaite any doUJbts as to his qualifications or loyalty. The official circles of the United States of America base their hostile activities against Czechoslovakia on the most reactionary fascist emigre groups. "'Dhe present Government of the United States quite openly gives support to and encourages those elements, who, as early as the period before World War II, sided with Hitler in the breaking up of the unity and territorial integrity of the Czechoslovak Republic, who gave convincing proof of their political convictions by their servility to the fascist occupants and who, speculating on a new World War and a new occupation of Czechoslovakia, have now placed themselves fully at the disposal of aggressive groups in the United Sates of America. "Similarly, the United States occupation -:mbhorities in Western Germany, in the organization of plots against Ozec'hoslovakia, cooperate closely with the traitors of the people, with convicted war criminals. Thus, under the protection of the United States occupation authorities, the former minister of the so-called Slovak State in Berlin, Matus Cernak, together with a number of other traitors who escaped from Czechoslovakia and other Eastern European States, continue in their treacherous activities under a new master but along the same fascist line." So there you have it. You can readily perceive that the work of our own Kersten Committee, the work done by your own organization and its leaders, must be effective, must be hurting the communists to judge by their pained outcries. You know, for a great many years we were the �22 SLOVAKIA ones who were writing all the notes and doing all the pro·testing and that's as far as it ever got. Our notes were snubbed and our protests were ignored. That passive attitude on the part of our government at that time was one reason I resigned from the State Department in' disgust five years ago. But how times have changed since then! Isn't it with a feeling of pleasure and relief that we witness the other side writing notes and protests for a change? Isn't it great to know that the initiative in this cold war is really passing into our hands? It is always a pleasure to meet with members of your organization and it has been a great privilege for ·_ Mrs. Bentley and me to be here this evening. Keep u,p the good work. Thank you very much . • • • MEMORANDUM To the President and the Congress of the United States, Adopted by the Delegates to the Thirty-Fourth Congress of the Slovak League of America, May 23-24, 1955, Washington, D. C. We, the delegates to the Thirty-Fourth Congress of the Slovak League of America, assembled in Washington, D. C., May 23-24, 1955 - send most cordial greetings to President Dwight D. Eisenho-w er and the members of the Congress of the United States of America, and do solemnly and unanimously resolve that: 1. We rededicate ourselves to the preservation of the principles upon which our Country was founded under God, the American Way of Life, which has made our America the envy of the world, and declare that the welfare and the security of the United States of America shall continue to be our primary interest. 2. We subsor1be wihole'heartedly to the expressed printhe. fundamental principle ciple of self-determination of American policy in Europe since the administration of President Woodrow Wilson, which declares that all nations have the . right to determine for themselves the state � 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 1955, Vol. 5 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 1 (No. 14), March 1955.</li> <li>Issue 2-3 (No. 15-16), June-September 1955.</li> <li>Issue 4 (No. 17), December 1955.</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 1955 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 REMAR~S OF HON. ALVIN M. BENTLEY {iBefore the Thirty-Fourth Congress of the Slovak Lea gue of America in Washington, May 23, 1955) I am, of course, happy to be here with Mrs. Bentley thts evening with so many of our good Slovak friends from Michigan and elsewhere throughout the country. I remember two years ago when I had inserted in the Congressional Record an article from the Council of Free Czechoslovakia and how many letters of protest I received from your members throughout the country. I was, frankly, at that time quite amazed to learn how widespread was your organization. For many reasons, of course, I am happy that my subsequent actions have only evoked commendation from you. In my talks with your members, both in Michigan and here in Washington, I have come to realize that one of your greatest difficulties lies with the Free Europe Committee and, specifically with Radio Free Europe and its apparent tendency to swbordinate Slovak matters to Cze<:h or, rather, to "Czecho~lovak" matters. Now I have had occasion in the past to deal with Radio Free Europe and with its director, Mr. Whitney Shepardson. I have broadcast over their facilities, both here in the United States and in Germany. Concerning the work they are doing in their broadcasts to Poland, Hungary and many of the other satellites, I think there can be little or no criticism. From my own experiences behind the Iron Curtain and from my contacts since I left there, I should say that Radio Free Europe has as great, if not greater, audience than any other media of propaganda used by the free world. So, on the whole, we must admit the RFE is performing a useful and valuable task. Only in this matter of Czech and Slovak programs have we run into a problem. About two months ago, I wrote Mr. Shepardson, expressing my concern in this matter and asking him for a public statement of policy in this respect. I have here the text of his reply, dated April 19, and I think it is important enough to read to you at this time: 12 SLOVAKIA Dear Congressman Bentley: You ask in your letter of March 25 for a public statement of this Committee's policy with respect to the Slovruk question. I am glad to note that what you have in mind, specifically, is that we arrive at as nearly an equal balance as possible of Czech and Slovak persons on our staff - and I presume, of air time on Radio Free Europe. I say this because at bottom the Slovak question concerns the future political status of the people of Slovakia. This is, of course, something which lies wholly outside the competence of the Free Europe Committee. We are not a foreign office, we are a political warfare organization. We try to follow United States policy, we do not U111dertake to make it. United States policy, we are informed, favors the eventual restoration of a truly democratic Republic of Czechoslovak ia ; it does not favor the establishment of a Republic of Slovakia. (As I will point out later, I think Mr. Shepardson is mistaken in this belief). Radio Free Europe is not obliged to reiterate this fact in its broadcasts to Czechs and Slovaks, and indeed it does not do so : It refrains from discussing it. This means also that it refrains and indeed it should refrain, in view of U. S. policy - from promoting Slovak separatism over its facilities. As to Czech and Slovak personnel and air time, by equal I take it you mean equitable, since, according to statistics as of February 1955 published by the Prague regime, the proportion of Slovaks to Czechs in Czechoslovakia was 34 percent. 2,990,000 Slovaks and 8,870,000 Czechs. As to Radio Free Europe air time. the Slovak proportion is 67 percent of the Czech ( 40 percent of the total of 113½ hours a week). Here is a breakdown of our employment records: Ratio of Czech RFE New York 1. Employees full time 18 Slovak 6 Slovaks To Czech s 33 % 13 SLOVAKIA 2. Freelance employed in 1954 Total RFffi Munich l.Employees at radio desk Employees Production Dept. 51 31 60 % 69 37 44 % 72 30 26 13 36 1/c 40 % 39 % 39 102 Broadcasting total 26 % 26 98 1954 in employed 2. Freelance % 16 6 36 Munich, non-broadcasting The total broadcasting staff includes 120 Czechs and 45 Slovaks, the latter in the ratio of 38 percent. The freelance record for 1954 is 149 Czechs and 57 Slovaks, the Slovak ratio being again 38 percent. In non~broadcasting (common labor, etc.) the Slovak proportion is 16 percent and is probably a fair reflection of the escapee situation in Germany. Statistics by themselves never tell the whole story, and something must be added to these figures: The function of the Free Europe Committee is not to concern itself with future political and territorial arrangements in Europe. Its function is to carry on the present fight against Communism, especially behind the Iron Curtain. To carry on that fight successfully, it must have the good will of the peoples it addresses: Therefore, it seeks to win the approval of the people of Slovakia. To this end, it invites into the service Slovak escapees of talent who, speaking in their own name (not in the name of the U. S. Government or of the American people), inform their captive fellow-countrymen of what is going on in the free world, report evidences of American (particularly SlovakAmericrun) concern for their fate, support them in their struggle against the Communist oppressors, instill in them the hope of eventually regaining their freedom, and sustain their deep spirit of non-cooperation with the Communist regime. How do our Slovak co-workers contribute to our common purposes? They listen to the Comunist radio day and night. They read the Communist press. They interview Slovaik escapees. They watch events in Soviet Russia and neighboring countries and estimate the impact of those 14 SLOV.MGA. events upon Slovakia. They seek to learn and respond to what is in the mind of the Slovak listeners this very day . They ask themselves: What is the particular form of oppression the Slovaks are at this moment undergoing? What is their present hope or fear? What is happening to the wife and children, the church, the living standard, the spiritual and cultural life of the Slovak peasant and worker? How weak or strong are the regime and the party at this time? For these reasons, our Slovak staff must be chosen for its intimate knowledge of present-day Slovakia and for its professional competence, not its party allegiance. It must be made u:e, so far as possible, of recent or fairly recent escapees, men and women, who haVe had experience with life under Communism in Slovakia; but they must at the same time be editors, writers, actors, radio producers and other professionals experienced in our work. Our staff possesses this competence and this experience. And they are patriots, not partisans. The cause of the people, not the cause of this or that faction is what they work for. You are aware that they have been both criticized and defended right inside Slov3Jk separatist circles. Some are Protestant, some are Catholic. Some are Czechoslovruk federalists, some even sepaTatists. We hono.r them all for their belief that they must get on with the fight against Communism and wait to cross the separatist bridge, or federalist bridge, until they come to it, which is to say, until the time when the Slavak people will be free to speak for themselves. I am sure that we have your sympathetic understanding. I am happy to think that you will interpret our position to the American Slovak League as you have interpreted theirs to us, and I send our respectful regrurds to you. Yours sincerely, (s) WHITNEY S. SHEPARDSON. There you have the official statement of policy of the Free Europe Committee on the whole Slovak question. SLOVAKIA 15 Now I know that many, if not all of you, would have much fault to find with this letter. Only ten days ago I received a ten-page letter from Phil Hrobak after I had sent him a copy of the Shepardson letter. But let me go back and refer to the one great mistake which I think Mr. Shepardson maikes when he speaks of the policy of our government regarding the Slovak question and when he says: "United States policy, we are informed, favors the eventual restoration of a truly democratic Republic of Czechoslovakia; it does not favor the establishment of a Republic of Slovakia." On April 25, I wrote the Secretary of State and directed his attention to that sentence. I went on to say: "Although I am aware that thi,s government never entered into diplomatic relations with the war-time government of the Republic of Slovakia but, on the contrary, has maintained such recognition with the Republic of Czechoslovakia ever since its inception, I nevertheless presume to request a statement of the Department's thinking in regard to tlhis i mp or t a n t matter. I have always been under the firm impression that this government properly considered the political status of the enslaved countries, following their liberation, to be one for the peo•ples of those countries to determine for themselves That is to say, that such status would be resolved by means o.f independent self-determination consistent with a proper regard for the rights and privileges of their neighbors and founded upon the ideas of justice and freedom for all. "I, therefore, hesitate to believe that this government has committed itself to a continuation of the Republic of Czecho,s lovakia at such a time as the liberation of that country may truke place. I would rather believe that the Department has not committed itself in the future to either the idea of Czechoslovakia or of independent Slovakia but that it would make its own decision and base its own support on whatever form of government or governments the people of that area should freely choose at the time they may be aible to enjoy such freedom of choice." 16 SLOVAKIA The reply from the Department of State dated May 2 sets forth the official position of our government in this respect and I presume you will be interested in hearing this also: "In dealing with Central and IDastern European states, their territorial organization, and their national composition, the policy of the department has been predicated on the belief that support for the principle of self-determination makes it incumbent on us to await a conclusive manifestation of the will of the people of those states under free conditions, and to consider fully the consequences of any action in favor o.f a new state from the standpoint of the stability, security and economic viability of Central and Eastern Europe generally. The focus of this policy is on the creation of conditions under which the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe will be able freely to determine their own governmental and economic institutions, as well as their relationships with each other and with the other peoples of Europe. "With respect to the question of the future territorial organization of Czechoslova;kia, it is the view of the department that the Czech and Slovak peoples should themselves determine under free conditions whether they will continue to live together in a common Czechoslovak State. "The Czechs and Slovaks have been united in one state since 1918, except for the period of World War II when the Czechoslovak Republic was dismembered through Nazi aggression. Advocates of a separate Slovak State seek to have this government take action which may be construed 8/S an indication that the United States Government has changed its attitude toward the territorial State of Czechoslovakia, apart from its attitude toward the present Communist regime, and has come to favor the break-up of that state and the creation of a separate Slovak State. "'Dhe department believes, however, that a departure along this line from continuing to deal with the historical concept of a united Czechoslovakia until the Czechs and Slovaks themselves may otherwise determine o.f their own SLOVAKIA 17 free choice would have fateful consequences in Eastern Europe, consequences which would exist long after that area wins independence of Soviet domination. These consequences would involve such matters as the eventual political organization of all of Eastern Europe, the status of each of the many ethnic groups in that area, the relations of each such group to the United States and to Germany, Russia and other European powers, and safeguards against the territorial, political and economic fragmentation of Eastern Europe and even of Slovakia itself, since it includes national minorities." So there you have the official views of the Free :mu. rope Committee and of the Department of State as regards the Slovaik question. It may seem to some of you that all I have been doing this evening has been to read letters instead of giving a speech, but I believed that it was more important for you to know these official viewpoints than to hear anythtng which I might have to say. You, of course, have noticed the outstanding discrepancy between these two viewpoints a discrepancy which I intend to see is reconciled at the earliest possible moment. Mr. Shepardson declared that our governmental policy favors the restoration of the Republic of Czechoslova:lda and not an independent Republic of Slovakia. However, the State Department, on the other hand, ta;kes what appears to me to be the correct position and that is that this is a matter for the Czech and Slovak peoples themsel'Ves to determine following the li'beration of their homeland. I think that is a noteworthy admission on the part of the State Department and I think it is something we all should bear in mind. I know how all of you long for the day when Slovakia will again be free and independent and I sympathize with your viewpoint in that respect. But there is one all-important task before us at the moment and that is to work together in e<Very possible way for the lrberation of the enslaved peoples from the grip of Communist tyranny. No purpose, no aim, however important, should be allowed to take precedence over this task. So I say to you that you do well indeed to keep up the fight for 18 SLOVAKIA an independent Slovakia but do not forget that Slovakia must be free before she can be independent. The achie,vement of freedom from the Communists is something to which we must devote our all. Developments are taking place today in Europe which are most important in the matter of considering liberation. For the first time since the war, the Iron Curtain is being pushed eastwards with the signing of the Austrian peace treaty and the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Eastern Austria. According to the terms of the treaty, they are supposed to withdraw from Hungary and Rumania. Now not only Hungary but also Slovakia will have a common border with freedom. Now your fellow-countrymen in Bratislava can look across the Danube into free Austria. Think what a tremendous attraction that will be for them and think how it will add to the difficulties of the Czech Communist regime in trying to retain its totalitarian control. I do believe the li,b eration of Eastern Austria will have far~reaching consequences for many other enslaved peoples in that part of Europe . And I do believe that this happy development has come about because of the internal difficulties faced by the Soviet Union as well as a result of the external pressures engendered upon her by the free world of which this country is the leader. I trust that these pressures will now be intensified on the Soviet Union and I certainly intend to do my small part in seeing that the heat remains on. Take the work of the Select Committee on Communist Aggression, the former Kersten Committee, on which I had the honor to serve during the 83rd Congress, and which did so much to reveal to the free world the story of Communist enslavement and brutality, in Slovakia and elsewhere behind the Iron Curtain. This committee may or may not be reactivated - I do not know. But every former member of the committee who is still in Congress four Democrats and two Republicans - has introduced an identical resolution which would call on the Secretary of State to have introduced in the United Nations a resolution declaring the Soviet Union to he an international aggressbr because of her takeover and occupation of Slova- SLOVAKIA 19 kia, the Baltic States and others of the satellites. Two weeks ago, this resolution was overwhelmingly adopted and approved by the House Foreign Affairs Oommittee, of which I am also a member, and we hope soon to have a rule to bring it to the floor of the House for consideration and action. This is the type of pressure used against the Soviet Union in the past and which is now paying dividends - this is the type of pressure which I want to see continued in the future. Some people, I know, have expressed misgivings regarding the forthcoming meeting "at the summit" between the leaders of the Big Four. With the unhappy memories of Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam in mind, there are those who have wondered if this would be another such meeting whereby the United States might agree to further concessions which would further abandon the enslaved people to their fate. I personally think there will be little, if any, value to a Big Four meeting and that is why I have consistently opposed it. But, if it does take place, I give you the pledge of this government, of this administration, that there will be no sell-out of the captive peoples such as took place at similar meetings in the past. Listen to this letter which I received from the State Department last December: 'During the past two years this goveTnment has issued, or subscribed to, a number of public statements indicating that it is not reconciled to the present fate of the captive peoples of Eastern Europe; that it will not be a party to any arrangement or treaty confirming or prolonging their subjection to Soviet despotism; and that it seeks by peaceful means conditions permitting these enslaved national groups to recover genuine freedom and independence. "Recently in a speech reviewing United States foreign policy before the Thirty-Third Annual 4-H Club Congress in Chicago, the Secretary spoke of our efforts in the realistic pursuit of peace and at the same time of our action in many ways to sustain the hope of freedom among the captive peoples. As of particular relevance in this connection, he stated that 'The scope of conferences with the 20 Soviet government is necessarily limited by our attitude toward the captive peoples, for the Soviets know that we will not make ~y deal which would condone and perpetuate the captivity of men and nations.' The principles enunciated in this speech show that our objective remains unchanged, namely to work in all peaceful ways for the creation of a Europe in which the captive peoples will again enjoy governments as well as social and economic institutions of their own free choice." In regard to the Slovak League of America itself and the value of the work you are doing, I can do no better than to let you know what the Communists think about you. We on the Kersten Committee found that the louder the Commun~sts screamed about us the more effective was our work, the more we were hurting them. Now last April 19 the Czech Communist foreign office in Prague delivered a note to our embassy there, a note of protest regarding many things. I inserted the text of this note in the Congressional Record on May 10 and I want to read you a few paragraphs from this Communist document to close my remarks this evening: "The report of the Kersten Committee extols the socalled Slovak State, covers up the crimes of the occupants and their henchmen and stresses their merits in their fight against the Soviet Union and Communism. The anti-fascist resistance of the Czechoslovak people is disparaged in the repo.r t, the Slovak national uprising is described as an improvised relbellion of suJbversive elements, and the liberation of Czechoslovakia by the heroic Soviet army is described with bitter sorrow at the defeat of Hitlerite occupants. "The Kersten Committee reports are a gross provocation not only against all Czech and Slovak patriots, but also against all honest and democratic Americans who, together with the peoples of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and other Democratic countries, sacrificed their lirves in the fight against their common fascist enemy. "At the present time, reports, both in the American and the world press, daily give the reader a picture of how American justice and various congressional investigating SLOVAKIA 21 committees fabricate anti-Communist testimony. As to the investigation of the so-called Kersten Committee and its report on Czechoslovakia, however, it is worthy of note that the principal witnesses and experts named and quoted by the reiport are iprimarilly notorious fascists and coNaJborators from the time of World War II. "Thus, for instance, the section dealing with the antifascist struggle of the Slovak people is based on the testimony of the former Charge D' Affaires of the so-called Slovak State in Madrid, Jozef Mikus, to whom the report gives his full title, obvio1.l1Sily in order to eliminaite any doUJbts as to his qualifications or loyalty. The official circles of the United States of America base their hostile activities against Czechoslovakia on the most reactionary fascist emigre groups. "'Dhe present Government of the United States quite openly gives support to and encourages those elements, who, as early as the period before World War II, sided with Hitler in the breaking up of the unity and territorial integrity of the Czechoslovak Republic, who gave convincing proof of their political convictions by their servility to the fascist occupants and who, speculating on a new World War and a new occupation of Czechoslovakia, have now placed themselves fully at the disposal of aggressive groups in the United Sates of America. "Similarly, the United States occupation -:mbhorities in Western Germany, in the organization of plots against Ozec'hoslovakia, cooperate closely with the traitors of the people, with convicted war criminals. Thus, under the protection of the United States occupation authorities, the former minister of the so-called Slovak State in Berlin, Matus Cernak, together with a number of other traitors who escaped from Czechoslovakia and other Eastern European States, continue in their treacherous activities under a new master but along the same fascist line." So there you have it. You can readily perceive that the work of our own Kersten Committee, the work done by your own organization and its leaders, must be effective, must be hurting the communists to judge by their pained outcries. You know, for a great many years we were the 22 SLOVAKIA ones who were writing all the notes and doing all the pro·testing and that's as far as it ever got. Our notes were snubbed and our protests were ignored. That passive attitude on the part of our government at that time was one reason I resigned from the State Department in' disgust five years ago. But how times have changed since then! Isn't it with a feeling of pleasure and relief that we witness the other side writing notes and protests for a change? Isn't it great to know that the initiative in this cold war is really passing into our hands? It is always a pleasure to meet with members of your organization and it has been a great privilege for ·_ Mrs. Bentley and me to be here this evening. Keep u,p the good work. Thank you very much . • • • MEMORANDUM To the President and the Congress of the United States, Adopted by the Delegates to the Thirty-Fourth Congress of the Slovak League of America, May 23-24, 1955, Washington, D. C. We, the delegates to the Thirty-Fourth Congress of the Slovak League of America, assembled in Washington, D. C., May 23-24, 1955 - send most cordial greetings to President Dwight D. Eisenho-w er and the members of the Congress of the United States of America, and do solemnly and unanimously resolve that: 1. We rededicate ourselves to the preservation of the principles upon which our Country was founded under God, the American Way of Life, which has made our America the envy of the world, and declare that the welfare and the security of the United States of America shall continue to be our primary interest. 2. We subsor1be wihole'heartedly to the expressed printhe. fundamental principle ciple of self-determination of American policy in Europe since the administration of President Woodrow Wilson, which declares that all nations have the . right to determine for themselves the state  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 Remarks of the Hon. Alvin M. Bentley Description An account of the resource Before the Thirty-Fourth Congress of the Slovak League of America in Washington, May 23, 1955) Slovakia, Vol. 5, No. 2-3 (15-16), June-September 1955 pp. 11-22 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource June-September 1955 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/8551ab5435f9dd199dfbb961c9ab1d10.pdf 6d13c72011732b268a7d45c0a7db8ecc PDF Text Text FICTION ��SLOVAKIA 93 Reminiscences of a Slovak Miner GEORGE P. RESICK What has been and what is now the environment of the rough , tough , and hard-working ' 'man of the earth' '? How did he live in the 1800s and early 1900s, lifting himself by his very bootstraps by means of his miner's union in his earnest desire to make his life better and to become accepted at least as a middle-class American? He came from nearly every ethnic group possible - the Welsh, Irish , Slovaks , Scots , Poles , Hungarians , Italians, Blacks and others. He was often referred to as a dumb "Hunky," Dago , Griener, Johnny Bull and other names which caused many verbal and physical battles . Although the modern Black man rightly feels the injustice of discrimination , a member of these other ethnic groups , too, had to come through many a heartbreak as to " what side of town " he could live in, what games he could participate in, and in what section of the school room he could be seated. Even when he came to the mines his ethnic background determined the section of the mine he was to be assigned to and the classification of the work within this area. This period of discrimination was shortened by inter-marriages between ethnic groups and the desire by individuals in all ethnic groups to achieve success in their work. Athletics served as a social elevator for many , since work and athletics were the center of community activities. Before too long, it was discovered that the word " dumb, " as related to the miner and his family , was in essence a lack of education rather than intelligence . The processes of increased educational opportunities and greater social acceptance were extremely slow. Few sons or daughters of miners finished high school prior to 1930. Education ended for them the day they obtained their ' 'working papers. ' ' The sons went to the mines and the daughters to factories, stores or to domestic service. In the entire community of three thousand in which the author was born and reared there were probably less than six miners ' children who went to college prior to 1932. Only one teacher in this same community was college-educated. In retrospect, it is heart-rending to recall how few of the ethnicgroup parents could either read or write in any language, let alone English. Many could not even sign for their pay checks but simply marked an X for their signatures . Because of this, they were open game �94 SLOVAKIA for the "con" artist who took advantage of the uneducated. Letters were written for them and read to them until their own children obtained the minimal education to perform this function. These brave, strong people migrated to this country for the expressed purpose of ''the right to work as a free individual'' and to have the right to worship God in the way they choose. Although history records great people and movements, it must be pointed out that a vital part of the growth of this nation was due to groups such as miners , farmers, etc. who became the backbone of the industrial complex. The brave miner has played his part in bringing this nation to its leadership position in the world today. The road to recognition was not a rosy one for the miner and his family when one recalls his early environment: the rows of company houses or the so-called "patch," some of which still exist; the traditional little outhouse (two-seater) in the backyard; the two chimneys for the cooking and heating stoves; the place behind one of these stoves for the Saturday night bath in a galvanized tub; the two or three beds where a family of five to ten was "accommodated" - three to a bed; the backyard garden of nearly every family which became a necessity for summer existence and for preserving some food stuff for winter or when ''work was slow''; the coal shed and chicken coop or pig sty in the backyard; the many ingenious ideas for survival, such as picking berries, wild-roots, chestnuts and other free foods. The " company house " was part of the vicious circle by which the coal company completely controlled the life of the miner. These houses were unpainted clapboard of the cheapest construction, all identical. It wasn 't unusual for a drunken miner to enter the wrong house since the only difference was his house's position in the row . The more fortunate had water in the kitchen but practically none of them had sanitary facilities. The company rarely repaired the houses and, since the miner didn 't own them, maintenance was always minimal. These homes were often inhabited by rats, mice, roaches, ants and flies , which destroyed some of the food badly needed by the family. These facts were brought out clearly in recent years when the coal companies sold these houses to the miners. A dramatic change took ~lace and the houses immediately improved immeasurably . _ A picture of the miner's environment wouldn 't be complete without comment on the special row of company houses for the mine administrators , which included the superintendent (super), the pit boss and the fire boss. These men were the "elite" of the mining camps , and their houses the envy of . the miners since they included indoor toilets, indoor baths and a central furnace (they usually were furnished �SLOVAKIA 95 free coal). The residents of these homes dressed well and didn't have to resort to placing cardboard in the soles of their shoes to protect their feet. Even a more integral part of the vicious circle was the company store. Its only parallel in modem society is the loan shark business. If ever a story were written by a company store manager it would be as startling as any in the country's history. The coal company store surely must be given recognition as one of the initiators of the credit card system. To this day many ~odem coal miners absolutely forbid their wives to have credit cards or establish credit at legitimate stores because of their memories of the company store. There were numerous families who lived in virtual slavery due to the fact that they lived in the company house, shopped at the company store and worked in the company mine. If the coal company had a store, the miner was forced to shop at the store or seek employment elsewhere . The coal company used "scrip," a written order for the amount of the miner's earnings for the day. The man's wife could then go to the store to purchase the bare necessities to keep the family alive. The prices at the company store were always much higher than the independent stores in the area. The company store stocked every item possible to keep the miner from finding an excuse to visit any other local merchant, except the town saloon. This latter precaution was unnecessary since the miner rarely got any of his salary in cash, except for a required monetary remuneration which usually amounted to one dollar. The company store never needed to advertise or have "sales." It had a ' 'captive'' clientele which allowed the store manager to raise prices beyond normal to show management an increased profit. As the miner's union became stronger in the early 1930s, it slowly brought the demise of one of the most vicious of the '' free enterprise ' ' systems in the history of this nation. Even then it was a slow death, as mine officials would remind the miner that he must buy something at the company store. The miner usually agreed to purchase some furniture or appliance from the company store and to have a minimum of $10 taken from his earnings each payday. Slowly, however, the company store died out since it could not compete with the open market. What a vicious circle had been the lot of the entrapped miner: no job unless he bought at the store; usually no cash left on payday which meant he couldn't move; the mine operator making the profits on his productive work, his store purchases and the rental of his home. The miner was virtually a captive in a free society. If the "Union " never accomplished another thing, it certainly lifted the "yoke of indebtedness" from the shoulders of the miner by �96 SLOVAKIA combatting the effects of the company store on his life. These disgraceful conditions still exist in some small mining communities where the coal company owns all the property, including the stores and gas stations. They literally "own the town." However, in most mining communities now, many stores are operated by individuals in open competition with company stores. Try to imagine, if you can, the plight of a coal miner's family of four to fourteen children, all of them dependent upon the wages of the father-miner. Imagine the impossibility of providing a proper diet on the father's wages of from $1.50 to $3.50 per day. To do this he even went into the mines on days that the mine was not in operation. He would stock (store) coal and take up the bottom or top rock to permit him to lay his new track. He performed all this so that he might be ready to load coal on work days and keep up with the alloted number of mine cars assigned to him. He would walk into the mines several hours before starting time (7 a.m.) on workdays to hand pump (or remove with a bucket) the water that had accumulated in his place of work. He did this without pay. How did the miner and his family manage? Without a doubt, it wasn 't easy, and in some cases he didn 't manage. Many of the miners' families died before they reached the age of ·50, although life expectancy was much higher in this country. The only way they survived even to that age was that the typical mother would make certain, by one means or another, that a bag of flour, a bag of potatoes, some cabbage, beans, cornmeal and a few other staples were on hand. These mothers were masters of ingenuity on how to make cabbage, beans and flour into mouth-watering delicacies for their children . But they had to serve the same foods so often that, in later years, the children detested the very sight of these foods. In these present times one reads of poverty, relief, food stamps, etc. but in all the years since the author 's boyhood there has been no poverty that could in any way compare to that of the early days in the mining community. How did these people survive? Those that did had outside food sources such as a few chickens , a pig or cow. On the days the mines were idle, the miner became a gardener ~d raised fresh vegetables. He spent many hours planting, weeding, reII].oving ii?-sects (insecticides were not in use then). Some of those garde_n s would have compared favorably with the experimental gardens run by the Department of Agriculture . The miner also became a hunter and a fisherman, not for the sport itself, but for the food it provided for his family. This did not reduce in way the pleasures of the activity. In some critical periods the father-miner and his sons became thieves, visiting local farms at night �SLOVAKIA 97 and stealing chickens, com and fruit in order to survive. Some of them were caught, beaten or jailed, and then their families were in deep difficulty since they (those caught) could not earn the pittance available to them. What type of man is this who lived through the conditions described above, and still today goes deep into the bowels of the earth to earn his living? The aver~ge coal miner was and is hardworking, tough talking, sometimes hard drinking, and many times a deliberate braggard . He can load a tremendous tonnage of coal and later stand at his favorite bar with his mining buddies. In fact, sometimes it seemed as though the coal dust was ankle-deep near the bar. In the '' cross-cut dinner hole ' ' of the mines, he brags about his tremendous conquests of women. This is depicted in his graffiti drawn with white chalk upon the black coal or rock walls or roof. He is direct rather than devious and obscure. This point is well illustrated by the comment of a young miner, who, when discussing his relationship with women, said that upon meeting a woman in whom he was interested he immediately asked her if she " screwed." When asked if he didn't get his face slapped, he replied "often, but on the other hand you'd be surprised how often I got a positive answer ." He may better be described by the poem entitled ' 'Lust.' ' He grabbed me round my slender neck I could not call or scream. He dragged me to this dingy room Where we would not be seen. He tore away my flimsy wrap and looked upon my form. I was so cold and damp and scared, While he was hot and warm. He drained me of my very self, I could not make him stop . His feverish lips he pressed to mine; I gave him every drop . He made me what I am today, That's why you find me here , A broken bottle thrown away That was once full of beer. Anon. This author has been employed as a coal miner, mine official, mine inspector and coal operator for more than 44 years and cannot help but �98 SLOVAKIA feel that the American public has had a mistaken image of the coal miner. This may be due to reports and articles written by writers who lack insight and experience in the mining industry. A true story may illustrate this point. A coal miner's son met and became interested in a New York banker's daughter while attending the same college. Eventually the banker invited the family to visit them in New York. Upon seeing the coal miner, one of the banker's first remarks was ''You aren't at all what I expected!" What had he expected? Did he expect a dirty, uncouth and stupid individual often portrayed in the media? In reality the average miner is a hard worker; he is honest with a sharp and inventive mind; he is cooperative and, in most instances, religious. He is probably cleaner than many white or blue collar workers since he is forced to bathe everyday. Unfortunately his lack of opportunity for education has been confused with the lack of motivation for an education. This is now changed and the educational level among the miners has risen drastically in the last score of years. His higher salary scale now enables him to live at the middle-class level of society . In the early days of mining, in order to eke out a living, many a miner did not hesitate to get up as early as 3 a.m., walk into the mine with only water in his dinner pail, and begin his preliminary work. He, at times, shifted as many as ten loaded coal cars in order to get the one empty car left from the previous day's work. If there were no empty cars available for loading, he performed many time-consuming tasks known as "dead work" since it was done without pay. These tasks included taking up the bottom rock for additional height, laying the track, setting the safety timbers, removing water from the work area, cleaning slate and impurities from the coal to be loaded, and even piling coal in areas to permit more rapid loading, since the only thing that counted, and for which he was paid, was the actual coal he loaded into the cars . All this preliminary work w~s done so that he would "have the jump on his fellow miners" when the day's work actually started . When one considers all this so-called "dead work ," isn't it natural that the miner demanded more, or at least some pay , for his "dead work"? This is one of the underlying reasons that the miner formed and supported his union . Many of these early miners did more free (dead work) before the starting time of 7 a.m. than do many of the modern miners at their hourly rate of six and seven dollars per hour. At times an unexpected rockfall would consume most of his working day and this had an immediate effect on his family since it was directly connected with the food purchases for that day. �SLOVAKIA 99 The wife and mother, .too, got up at this time (or earlier) to see that her husband had his break{ast if food was available , and to pack the lunch pail when food was plentiful. After her husband left for work, she began a back-breaking day of kneading and baking bread, washing clothes and wringing them out by hand to be hung out to dry. After an hour or two she would awaken the children and supervise their preparation for school which included the everlasting job of mending to hold the threads of their garments together. Her work continued until she was ready for her trip to the weigh-scales to obtain a slip for the coal her husband loaded that day. This slip would determine how much food would be available for the family that night and the next day. On the days the rock fell to interfere with the loading of coal, the soup was thinner and the dish of beans and meat was mostly beans. The best time of her day was when the children came from school and the closing whistle sounded from the mines. The worst times in her life were when the mine whistle blew before the regular quitting time. This meant that there was trouble in the mines , and a shiver went down the collective spines of all the wives in the community. It usually meant an injury, with a loss of earning power, or that at least one or more of the women would be widows with a family to rear. One of the saddest sights in the world is a gatheimg of the babushka-headed wives in their vigil during the period that their husbands are entombed by an explosion or cavein. An ode of songs was written about Floyd Collins, a cave explorer, who was caught in a cave fall-in, but no such ode or song was ever written about the Joe Slowboski's who, while pinned under a rock fall, have their still live flesh eaten by the rats which inhabit the mines. A description of the early coal miner's apparel seems to be in order here . His wearing apparel has and will continue to change almost as frequently as the equipment and machinery with which he labors. The well-dressed miner wore the very conventional bib-overalls (now in style with the teenagers) , a cloth or canvas cap with a leather frontal attachment for his carbide lamp, soft-toed miner's boots, a pair of gauntlet gloves , and a denim jacket with at least four pockets so he could carry his carbide-cader (container), blasting caps, blasting powder, squibs (a predecessor of the blasting cap), lamp cleaning tools, and his ever-present " railroad type" watch attached to a chain and placed carefully in the left breast pocket. However, the poor miner was not dressed in this fashion . He wore a pair of his old suit pants , patched or re-patched many times. His shirt was probably one of his discarded hunting shirts, and his shoes were discarded dress shoes repaired by tacking pieces of leather or rubber on the soles and heels . He didn 't wear gloves , but had, instead, a pair of well-calloused hands complete �100 SLOVAKIA with bruised knuckles and fingers . He couldn't afford a watch and he carried all the equipment described above in a 25 pound sugar sack. A new miner (a "greenie" ) was rapidly spotted by his unmarked apparel and the appearance of his hands . The dress of the modern miner is quite different. If the weather is cold he will be wearing insulated underwear, a matched shirt and trouser outfit , hard-toed shoes or boots (with steel plates for safety) a pair of denim cover-alls, wrist-cuff gloves , special leg bands to keep the trouser legs from contacting moving chains or ropes, a special strong plastic hard-hat with an attachment clip for his battery-powered headlamp, a wide leather belt with attachments for his lamp batter, self rescue kit and a few tools. For a time-piece he wears a shock-proof wrist watch. He is provided with a dust respirator that aids in keeping him from getting his lungs loaded with fine dust particles. In certain periods he must wear a dust counter to show the fine <lush count surrounding his work area. When fully dressed with all this special equipment, he is carrying an additional weight of about fifteen pounds. The mine official or mine inspector will be carrying, in addition , a flame safety , a methane detector, an anenometer, a roof testing stick. This additional equipment weighs about twenty-five pounds above that of the clothing. An eight-hour shift with that equipment is fatiguing without any actual work . The early miner was a pick and shovel miner and the "low coal" miner will be depicted here since the author's early experiences were in the low coal field. The mine can best be described as an underground city with the main mine entries as the city's boulevards. The mine's butt, or cross entries, are compared with a city's side streets and the mine ' s crosscuts as the city's narrow streets or alley ways. Along the main entries , side entries and cross cuts are located the pump stations, sub-stations , supply houses , dispatcher 's room and foreman's office. These stimulate the stores and business houses on the surface. As in the city , transportation is an important part of life in the mines . The mine tracks, locomotives , strings of coal cars, powered trolley feeder lines , telephone lines, walkie-talkie equi}iment all play a vital role in this function. Even the rush of the currents 'Of air passing continuously along the entries reminds one of standing on a comer in Pittsburgh , Columbus or Chicago on a breezy March morning. When one adds the waterlines, airlines, rock-dust boreholes and other accommodations , one has the complete " Bowel City, U.S.A. " However, in order to understand fully the miner 's environment one must concentrate on the underground streets , side streets and alleys. These were usually 12 to 18 feet wide and ranged from 28 inches to 10 feet in height. It is within �SLOVAKIA 101 this locale that the miner must perform his assigned duties. In the low coal seruns (under 50 inches) the miner spent most of his workshift of eight hours on his knees or in a crouched position. He could only stretch out by lying down or going out to the main heading (entry) where additional height permitted standing room for at least the shorter miners. Miners in the high-seruned coal mines could work in the standing position. In all coal mines, the miner worked under an immediate cover of various types of slate, shale, sand rock or other rock formations such as one might observe in a "rock cut" along a modern highway. The lowcoal miner, working within a height of less than 50 inches, did most of his work with a dual-pointed pick and a broad, flat shovel. He had the srune feel for his own pick and shovel as does the concert violinist for his own bow. He made his work area safer by placing props (sawed-off trees) between the floor and roof. These were made tight by a wooden wedge driven along the roof which served as a cap on the prop. These roof supports were placed at distances determined by safety laws and the wishes of the mine officials. Although the purpose of these props was to keep the roof from caving in and falling upon him, many miners did not put up these supports if they interfered with their loading operation. The pick-miner would dig down all the loose coal from the front and side walls of the coal seam. He would then lie on the mine floor, many times in small pools of water, to undermine the "face of the coal seam'' to a depth of three, four or five feet. This undercut near the face was about twelve to fifteen inches in height to permit the head, arms and shoulders to intrude underneath the undercut coal. This undercut extended the entire width of the entry, room or corridor which, as explained earlier, was from ten to eighteen feet. The miner then drilled holes to the depth of the undercut with a long drill called an auger. It resembles a cork screw and crune in lengths from five to eight feet. These holes were packed with black powder or dynamite and ignited with either a lighted squab (a fireworks type of lighter) or a blasting cap ignited by an electric charge. When the coal was blasted loose, the miner would break up the larger lumps (if any remained) and then shovel the coal into a mine car that he had pushed into his place (room) by hand . On occasion the car was pulled into his area by mules or horses. The above method of work continued every day. The miner spent most of his time in the crouched position or on his knees. He was the recipient of many bruises, cuts, scars, swellings and soreness. If the average citizen went through one such week , he would appreciate the �102 SLOVAKIA position of the miner when he fought for a union, and then utilized the union by means of strikes and walk-outs to achieve his goal of a decent wage for his efforts . Even into the 1930s coal miners went into the mines before daybreak and returned after dark. In a six-day week the only time the miner saw daylight was on Sunday. He had to work these long hours to provide food and clothing for his family. For these efforts he received 25 cents per hour and less than 25 cents per ton of loaded coal. Few miners made the sum of $5.00 per day. In those days, a father, uncle or brother took on the task of "breaking in " a new miner. If a boy entered the mine for training under a stranger, he got his identification check number on a "boycar '' basis which was generally every third mine car loaded. There also was an established custom whereby a companydesignated "weigh boss" (who was generally a " master " at "shortweighing" or "losing" car checks for the convenience of mine management) was employed as an official. He had the added crude duty of giving a miner a " dirty coal" slip. This indicated a loaded minecar of coal would be deducted, lost, or the workman would be given a day off for "loading dirty coal," or possibly discharged from his employment. One can readily see how easily it could become convenient to lay off or discharge a miner who was pro-union or an "agitator" at any given time. In a number of cases, the mine worker made a side agreement with the officials whereby he would be given some preferences as to the number of mine cars allotted to him or the ''privilege'' to work on days the mine was not scheduled for work. The mine foreman or his assistant thus became involved in many situations not of their own choosing. Is it any wonder that in a mine foreman examination, as recently as 1971, the question was asked as to what qualifications, other than those required by mining laws, a mine foreman should possess? One applicant, apparently of the old school, actually wrote, "He has to be a liar and a thief." (This was not the proper answer for the examination.) The physical conditions under which .t he pre-1920 coal miner had to perform his assigned duties were nothing short of atrocious. There was a poor, or the absolute minimum, supply of available timber to support the mine roof, and mine ventilation ·and direction of air to the working places of the miner was far below the minimum legally required standards of even that time . There were days on which a mine ventilating fan was in operation only part of the day when miners were �SLOVAKIA 103 actually in the mine. There were stoppings (walls) in crosscuts built to force air to work areas made of bone coal (impure) . These stoppages leaked like sieves which defeated the purpose of the stopping. There were areas where wprkmen had to fan the explosive smoke with their coats or coal shovels so tha\ they could see well enough to load their mine cars. There were situations where men used open-type carbide lamps that could ignite explosive gas . There were other situations where unsafe and open-type mining machinery was used, and where requirements for clearances along locomotives, mine cars and mine entries were abused or ignored. In other situations workmen were permitted to use black blasting powder for blasting coal and rock. The blasting shots fired in the work area resembled a " Fourth of July" celebration . There were cases where mine officials visited the mine workmen only once a week , once a year or when the mine inspector was in the area. Other times they visited the work areas only after an emergency or accident . The miners thought of as dumb "Hunkies," " Dagos ," or "Polacks " we re treated as an expendable commodity. When expended , it was only necessary to send to the old country for another boat-load of greenhorns. In those early days of mining when one walked down the main entry and heard the voices of the workers, one could envision the Tower of Babel or a gathering at the United Nations. From room to room the language shifted from Polish to Slovak, from German to Welsh , from Serbian to German, from Croatian to Italian, and sometimes to English, but usually a broken variety. One could spend a month in the mines without hearing one proper English sentence. Mining terminology took on ethnic overtones such as " hunky wedge," "scotch block ," "dago dolly," and "hunky pump ." In addition to this, coal mining terms, or language , varied (still does) from one mining area to another. For instance , the low-coal men in Pennsylvania call a temporary roof support a "prop" while the high-coal miners in the same state call it a ' 'post,' ' though their meaning and purpose are synonymous. This type of terminology was accepted by members of all ethnic groups in that locale . These expressions in the mines sound like another language , and any man from the street or from the news media would be fortunate to recognize ten percent of them . There are several terms which denote the quality of the atmosphere in the mines. Few people outside the mines could interpret the expression, " we need air," for the request to improve the ventilation of the work area by extending the line brattice (temporary wall) or canvas check curtain to force air into a required area . Similarly the �104 SLOVAKIA term "I found gas" in a miner's language means that he noted some evidence of methane on his flame safety lamp or on the methane detector. A third term, ' ' black damp,'' denotes a high content of carbon dioxide or a deficiency of oxygen (usually less than 15 percent). The term "hunky wedge" was derived from a patient workman who tapered a short piece of wood to fit over a mine post (prop) to make it secure and aid in controlling the mine roof. At a later date these wooden wedges were known as cap pieces, and were prepared by the sawmill and brought to the worker ready for use. The pressure of the earth and rock above the coal seam squeezes this coal seam until it breaks up and crumbles, especially when there are large spaces of unsupported roof. As the different rooms ran their ultimate distance as determined by good mining practices or limits of (mineral) rights, the "ribs" of coal left between the rooms were finally removed. The removal of these ribs or stumps was an art with the early pick-coal men. They brought the roof pressure to bear upon a block of coal which eliminated the hard pick work. The expressions for this operation were "easy coal" or "push coal." The miners who performed this operation were called "stump men." Althouh the work was easier in this area and the pay better, it was also more dangerous since there was the constant danger of being trapped or crushed by the falling rocks from the roof. A good "stump man" controlled the caving for his own safety. The term "dago-dolly" was used to describe a device which was invented to move the heavy steel rails into their positions in the mine track. Initially, the miner pulled the rail with his hands or his pick. Some miner developed a two-wheeled conveyance with attached handle and grip on the rail. This reduced the back-breaking work of pulling rails into place. The "hunky pump " was a horizontal-stoked pump that had to be operated manually to remove the water from the working place so that the miner could lay on the mine floor to dig the undercut in his coal. In many cases, the miner would go into the mines by 5 a.m. and begin pumping the water out of his place so that he could begin mining coal at 7 a.m. with the other miners . Again, this work of pumping was done without pay. \ There are many " holes " in mining terniinology_and they caused confusion to those outside the mining community. " Dog hole " was a mine operated into the hillside. It had poor ventilation ; was poorly maintained and usually employed those workers nobody else would hire . They were run on a shoe-string and usually produced coal for home use . " Man hole " is synonymous with a shelter hole or a hole in �105 SLOVAKIA the rib of coal. Aftimes, tbe miner, walking along the entry way, was faced with on-coming (or koing) traffic or locomotive and coal cars , either empty or loaded. Since these entry ways were narrow and the cars rolled, a hole was cut into the entry wall or rib to accommodate from one to three miners . Since these were spaced at specified distances, at the sound of the trip (string) of cars , the miner would seek out the nearest man hole. Incidently, the word locomotive was rarely used . The machine used to pull cars was simply referred to as •'the motor." The "dinner-hole" was generally a main side track off the main entry or so-called cross-cut. At this area men gathered to eat their lunches and there they hung their favorite pin-ups (obtained from calendars) or drew their own nudes with white chalk on the coal surface. This art resembles that found in public toilets today. The name •'tickle-back'' was given to those low-seamed coal mines that were less than 36 inches in height. Some were. as low as 28 to 29 inches . It wasn 't any wonder than the miner had numerous sores covering his back where he hit the uneven places on the mine roof. The unusual expression "to set a crib" has nothing to do with preparing a bed for the baby. It was one of most effective means of supporting the roof by erecting a framework of 5" x5"x30" wooden blocks at strategic places in a grill-work fashion. The term was also used when the individual miner filled in one side of his emptied work place with rock, slate and dirty coal and cribbed the ends to build up a wall like appearance. This was also called the • gob '' pile . The miner's light in the evaluation of mining has had a number of terms . The pit lamp, bug lamp , carbide lamp and cap lamp are examples of these. The pit and carbide lamps are practically extinct and will shortly be found only in the museums of mining. The battery powered light has completely taken over. The term "shooting off the solid" was an illegal and unsafe practice employed by some miners who wished to avoid the timeconsuming and back-breaking work of under-cutting the coal in preparation for blasting. The process was simply that of drilling holes in the solid coal near the roof or floor and blasting it loose with explosives. The danger in this process was that since the coal had no place to move, at times the pressure of the concussion broke the slate or rock of the roof and made it unsafe for the miner. The term hand me the persuader'' was not referring to a whip for animals or humans but a sledge hammer used by the so-called mechanics who were in a hurry. They used them to drive shafts , gears , etc. into their proper alignment. Such a sight would have caused the 1 11 �106 SLOVAKIA inventor of that machine to tum over in his grave. The sledge was the answer to all difficult problems. The term "yellow boy" was and is used in conjunction with iron pyrites found in the mine water. It clogs the pipe lines and sump areas and is a nemesis to the present environmentalist. The '' go devil'' is the apparatus which is used to ream this material out of the pipes. It may be a simple rod, wire or spring or it may be attached to a motor which turns it in a boring fashion . The term "black damp" was explained earlier. The term was taken from the ancient term " damp of darkness " and means a condition where there is less than 15 percent oxygen or where carbon dioxide exists in heavy concentrations in the mine atmosphere. It probably got its name by ''putting someone's lights out.'' In contrast to this, the term "white damp" was a name for carbon monoxide and "stink damp " was the presence of hydrogen sulphide. As any high school chemistry student knows, this latter material had the odor of rotten eggs. " Bug dust" has nothing to do with insecticides. This dust is the result of machine mining and the breaking up of the coal seam into fine particles. After machine mining this fine dust must be removed from the undercut of coal. This permits the explosive to work more effectively by blasting the coal away from the mine roof. Some of the terms heard about the mine had meanings related to mining but not to the actual work of the mines. One such term was the " hoot-owl" shift from 11 p .m. to 7 a.m., or midnight to 8 a.m. Miners usually rotated shifts and this was the one disliked by most since it was impossible to become acclimated to a change in sleeping hours every three weeks. The expression, " today the eagle shifts, " was a wellknown expression for payday in the mines. Also , on his way home he might "stop at the grab, " which meant to stop at the company store. The name was derived from the fact that the company store grabbed all they earned. While at the store they bought "dog meat" for the lunch pails . This was the cheapest form of ground meat, a form of bologna. In addition to the terms above the miners had some descriptive nicknames for each other. It was not unusu~l to meet "Cadillac Joe ," " Quick-Steps, " "Moose, " or " Shorty, " as ope walked along a " mantrip" which was ready to enter the mines. Only the cowboys of the old West had such descriptive names for each other. Thus, it is evident that the coal miners actually do have a language which only other miners understand. I believe it would be appropriate for the media to become conversant with the language of the mines , especially when describing a mine disaster. � FICTION ��SLOVAKIA 93 Reminiscences of a Slovak Miner GEORGE P. RESICK What has been and what is now the environment of the rough , tough , and hard-working ' 'man of the earth' '? How did he live in the 1800s and early 1900s, lifting himself by his very bootstraps by means of his miner's union in his earnest desire to make his life better and to become accepted at least as a middle-class American? He came from nearly every ethnic group possible - the Welsh, Irish , Slovaks , Scots , Poles , Hungarians , Italians, Blacks and others. He was often referred to as a dumb "Hunky," Dago , Griener, Johnny Bull and other names which caused many verbal and physical battles . Although the modern Black man rightly feels the injustice of discrimination , a member of these other ethnic groups , too, had to come through many a heartbreak as to " what side of town " he could live in, what games he could participate in, and in what section of the school room he could be seated. Even when he came to the mines his ethnic background determined the section of the mine he was to be assigned to and the classification of the work within this area. This period of discrimination was shortened by inter-marriages between ethnic groups and the desire by individuals in all ethnic groups to achieve success in their work. Athletics served as a social elevator for many , since work and athletics were the center of community activities. Before too long, it was discovered that the word " dumb, " as related to the miner and his family , was in essence a lack of education rather than intelligence . The processes of increased educational opportunities and greater social acceptance were extremely slow. Few sons or daughters of miners finished high school prior to 1930. Education ended for them the day they obtained their ' 'working papers. ' ' The sons went to the mines and the daughters to factories, stores or to domestic service. In the entire community of three thousand in which the author was born and reared there were probably less than six miners ' children who went to college prior to 1932. Only one teacher in this same community was college-educated. In retrospect, it is heart-rending to recall how few of the ethnicgroup parents could either read or write in any language, let alone English. Many could not even sign for their pay checks but simply marked an X for their signatures . Because of this, they were open game �94 SLOVAKIA for the "con" artist who took advantage of the uneducated. Letters were written for them and read to them until their own children obtained the minimal education to perform this function. These brave, strong people migrated to this country for the expressed purpose of ''the right to work as a free individual'' and to have the right to worship God in the way they choose. Although history records great people and movements, it must be pointed out that a vital part of the growth of this nation was due to groups such as miners , farmers, etc. who became the backbone of the industrial complex. The brave miner has played his part in bringing this nation to its leadership position in the world today. The road to recognition was not a rosy one for the miner and his family when one recalls his early environment: the rows of company houses or the so-called "patch," some of which still exist; the traditional little outhouse (two-seater) in the backyard; the two chimneys for the cooking and heating stoves; the place behind one of these stoves for the Saturday night bath in a galvanized tub; the two or three beds where a family of five to ten was "accommodated" - three to a bed; the backyard garden of nearly every family which became a necessity for summer existence and for preserving some food stuff for winter or when ''work was slow''; the coal shed and chicken coop or pig sty in the backyard; the many ingenious ideas for survival, such as picking berries, wild-roots, chestnuts and other free foods. The " company house " was part of the vicious circle by which the coal company completely controlled the life of the miner. These houses were unpainted clapboard of the cheapest construction, all identical. It wasn 't unusual for a drunken miner to enter the wrong house since the only difference was his house's position in the row . The more fortunate had water in the kitchen but practically none of them had sanitary facilities. The company rarely repaired the houses and, since the miner didn 't own them, maintenance was always minimal. These homes were often inhabited by rats, mice, roaches, ants and flies , which destroyed some of the food badly needed by the family. These facts were brought out clearly in recent years when the coal companies sold these houses to the miners. A dramatic change took ~lace and the houses immediately improved immeasurably . _ A picture of the miner's environment wouldn 't be complete without comment on the special row of company houses for the mine administrators , which included the superintendent (super), the pit boss and the fire boss. These men were the "elite" of the mining camps , and their houses the envy of . the miners since they included indoor toilets, indoor baths and a central furnace (they usually were furnished �SLOVAKIA 95 free coal). The residents of these homes dressed well and didn't have to resort to placing cardboard in the soles of their shoes to protect their feet. Even a more integral part of the vicious circle was the company store. Its only parallel in modem society is the loan shark business. If ever a story were written by a company store manager it would be as startling as any in the country's history. The coal company store surely must be given recognition as one of the initiators of the credit card system. To this day many ~odem coal miners absolutely forbid their wives to have credit cards or establish credit at legitimate stores because of their memories of the company store. There were numerous families who lived in virtual slavery due to the fact that they lived in the company house, shopped at the company store and worked in the company mine. If the coal company had a store, the miner was forced to shop at the store or seek employment elsewhere . The coal company used "scrip," a written order for the amount of the miner's earnings for the day. The man's wife could then go to the store to purchase the bare necessities to keep the family alive. The prices at the company store were always much higher than the independent stores in the area. The company store stocked every item possible to keep the miner from finding an excuse to visit any other local merchant, except the town saloon. This latter precaution was unnecessary since the miner rarely got any of his salary in cash, except for a required monetary remuneration which usually amounted to one dollar. The company store never needed to advertise or have "sales." It had a ' 'captive'' clientele which allowed the store manager to raise prices beyond normal to show management an increased profit. As the miner's union became stronger in the early 1930s, it slowly brought the demise of one of the most vicious of the '' free enterprise ' ' systems in the history of this nation. Even then it was a slow death, as mine officials would remind the miner that he must buy something at the company store. The miner usually agreed to purchase some furniture or appliance from the company store and to have a minimum of $10 taken from his earnings each payday. Slowly, however, the company store died out since it could not compete with the open market. What a vicious circle had been the lot of the entrapped miner: no job unless he bought at the store; usually no cash left on payday which meant he couldn't move; the mine operator making the profits on his productive work, his store purchases and the rental of his home. The miner was virtually a captive in a free society. If the "Union " never accomplished another thing, it certainly lifted the "yoke of indebtedness" from the shoulders of the miner by �96 SLOVAKIA combatting the effects of the company store on his life. These disgraceful conditions still exist in some small mining communities where the coal company owns all the property, including the stores and gas stations. They literally "own the town." However, in most mining communities now, many stores are operated by individuals in open competition with company stores. Try to imagine, if you can, the plight of a coal miner's family of four to fourteen children, all of them dependent upon the wages of the father-miner. Imagine the impossibility of providing a proper diet on the father's wages of from $1.50 to $3.50 per day. To do this he even went into the mines on days that the mine was not in operation. He would stock (store) coal and take up the bottom or top rock to permit him to lay his new track. He performed all this so that he might be ready to load coal on work days and keep up with the alloted number of mine cars assigned to him. He would walk into the mines several hours before starting time (7 a.m.) on workdays to hand pump (or remove with a bucket) the water that had accumulated in his place of work. He did this without pay. How did the miner and his family manage? Without a doubt, it wasn 't easy, and in some cases he didn 't manage. Many of the miners' families died before they reached the age of ·50, although life expectancy was much higher in this country. The only way they survived even to that age was that the typical mother would make certain, by one means or another, that a bag of flour, a bag of potatoes, some cabbage, beans, cornmeal and a few other staples were on hand. These mothers were masters of ingenuity on how to make cabbage, beans and flour into mouth-watering delicacies for their children . But they had to serve the same foods so often that, in later years, the children detested the very sight of these foods. In these present times one reads of poverty, relief, food stamps, etc. but in all the years since the author 's boyhood there has been no poverty that could in any way compare to that of the early days in the mining community. How did these people survive? Those that did had outside food sources such as a few chickens , a pig or cow. On the days the mines were idle, the miner became a gardener ~d raised fresh vegetables. He spent many hours planting, weeding, reII].oving ii?-sects (insecticides were not in use then). Some of those garde_n s would have compared favorably with the experimental gardens run by the Department of Agriculture . The miner also became a hunter and a fisherman, not for the sport itself, but for the food it provided for his family. This did not reduce in way the pleasures of the activity. In some critical periods the father-miner and his sons became thieves, visiting local farms at night �SLOVAKIA 97 and stealing chickens, com and fruit in order to survive. Some of them were caught, beaten or jailed, and then their families were in deep difficulty since they (those caught) could not earn the pittance available to them. What type of man is this who lived through the conditions described above, and still today goes deep into the bowels of the earth to earn his living? The aver~ge coal miner was and is hardworking, tough talking, sometimes hard drinking, and many times a deliberate braggard . He can load a tremendous tonnage of coal and later stand at his favorite bar with his mining buddies. In fact, sometimes it seemed as though the coal dust was ankle-deep near the bar. In the '' cross-cut dinner hole ' ' of the mines, he brags about his tremendous conquests of women. This is depicted in his graffiti drawn with white chalk upon the black coal or rock walls or roof. He is direct rather than devious and obscure. This point is well illustrated by the comment of a young miner, who, when discussing his relationship with women, said that upon meeting a woman in whom he was interested he immediately asked her if she " screwed." When asked if he didn't get his face slapped, he replied "often, but on the other hand you'd be surprised how often I got a positive answer ." He may better be described by the poem entitled ' 'Lust.' ' He grabbed me round my slender neck I could not call or scream. He dragged me to this dingy room Where we would not be seen. He tore away my flimsy wrap and looked upon my form. I was so cold and damp and scared, While he was hot and warm. He drained me of my very self, I could not make him stop . His feverish lips he pressed to mine; I gave him every drop . He made me what I am today, That's why you find me here , A broken bottle thrown away That was once full of beer. Anon. This author has been employed as a coal miner, mine official, mine inspector and coal operator for more than 44 years and cannot help but �98 SLOVAKIA feel that the American public has had a mistaken image of the coal miner. This may be due to reports and articles written by writers who lack insight and experience in the mining industry. A true story may illustrate this point. A coal miner's son met and became interested in a New York banker's daughter while attending the same college. Eventually the banker invited the family to visit them in New York. Upon seeing the coal miner, one of the banker's first remarks was ''You aren't at all what I expected!" What had he expected? Did he expect a dirty, uncouth and stupid individual often portrayed in the media? In reality the average miner is a hard worker; he is honest with a sharp and inventive mind; he is cooperative and, in most instances, religious. He is probably cleaner than many white or blue collar workers since he is forced to bathe everyday. Unfortunately his lack of opportunity for education has been confused with the lack of motivation for an education. This is now changed and the educational level among the miners has risen drastically in the last score of years. His higher salary scale now enables him to live at the middle-class level of society . In the early days of mining, in order to eke out a living, many a miner did not hesitate to get up as early as 3 a.m., walk into the mine with only water in his dinner pail, and begin his preliminary work. He, at times, shifted as many as ten loaded coal cars in order to get the one empty car left from the previous day's work. If there were no empty cars available for loading, he performed many time-consuming tasks known as "dead work" since it was done without pay. These tasks included taking up the bottom rock for additional height, laying the track, setting the safety timbers, removing water from the work area, cleaning slate and impurities from the coal to be loaded, and even piling coal in areas to permit more rapid loading, since the only thing that counted, and for which he was paid, was the actual coal he loaded into the cars . All this preliminary work w~s done so that he would "have the jump on his fellow miners" when the day's work actually started . When one considers all this so-called "dead work ," isn't it natural that the miner demanded more, or at least some pay , for his "dead work"? This is one of the underlying reasons that the miner formed and supported his union . Many of these early miners did more free (dead work) before the starting time of 7 a.m. than do many of the modern miners at their hourly rate of six and seven dollars per hour. At times an unexpected rockfall would consume most of his working day and this had an immediate effect on his family since it was directly connected with the food purchases for that day. �SLOVAKIA 99 The wife and mother, .too, got up at this time (or earlier) to see that her husband had his break{ast if food was available , and to pack the lunch pail when food was plentiful. After her husband left for work, she began a back-breaking day of kneading and baking bread, washing clothes and wringing them out by hand to be hung out to dry. After an hour or two she would awaken the children and supervise their preparation for school which included the everlasting job of mending to hold the threads of their garments together. Her work continued until she was ready for her trip to the weigh-scales to obtain a slip for the coal her husband loaded that day. This slip would determine how much food would be available for the family that night and the next day. On the days the rock fell to interfere with the loading of coal, the soup was thinner and the dish of beans and meat was mostly beans. The best time of her day was when the children came from school and the closing whistle sounded from the mines. The worst times in her life were when the mine whistle blew before the regular quitting time. This meant that there was trouble in the mines , and a shiver went down the collective spines of all the wives in the community. It usually meant an injury, with a loss of earning power, or that at least one or more of the women would be widows with a family to rear. One of the saddest sights in the world is a gatheimg of the babushka-headed wives in their vigil during the period that their husbands are entombed by an explosion or cavein. An ode of songs was written about Floyd Collins, a cave explorer, who was caught in a cave fall-in, but no such ode or song was ever written about the Joe Slowboski's who, while pinned under a rock fall, have their still live flesh eaten by the rats which inhabit the mines. A description of the early coal miner's apparel seems to be in order here . His wearing apparel has and will continue to change almost as frequently as the equipment and machinery with which he labors. The well-dressed miner wore the very conventional bib-overalls (now in style with the teenagers) , a cloth or canvas cap with a leather frontal attachment for his carbide lamp, soft-toed miner's boots, a pair of gauntlet gloves , and a denim jacket with at least four pockets so he could carry his carbide-cader (container), blasting caps, blasting powder, squibs (a predecessor of the blasting cap), lamp cleaning tools, and his ever-present " railroad type" watch attached to a chain and placed carefully in the left breast pocket. However, the poor miner was not dressed in this fashion . He wore a pair of his old suit pants , patched or re-patched many times. His shirt was probably one of his discarded hunting shirts, and his shoes were discarded dress shoes repaired by tacking pieces of leather or rubber on the soles and heels . He didn 't wear gloves , but had, instead, a pair of well-calloused hands complete �100 SLOVAKIA with bruised knuckles and fingers . He couldn't afford a watch and he carried all the equipment described above in a 25 pound sugar sack. A new miner (a "greenie" ) was rapidly spotted by his unmarked apparel and the appearance of his hands . The dress of the modern miner is quite different. If the weather is cold he will be wearing insulated underwear, a matched shirt and trouser outfit , hard-toed shoes or boots (with steel plates for safety) a pair of denim cover-alls, wrist-cuff gloves , special leg bands to keep the trouser legs from contacting moving chains or ropes, a special strong plastic hard-hat with an attachment clip for his battery-powered headlamp, a wide leather belt with attachments for his lamp batter, self rescue kit and a few tools. For a time-piece he wears a shock-proof wrist watch. He is provided with a dust respirator that aids in keeping him from getting his lungs loaded with fine dust particles. In certain periods he must wear a dust counter to show the fine <lush count surrounding his work area. When fully dressed with all this special equipment, he is carrying an additional weight of about fifteen pounds. The mine official or mine inspector will be carrying, in addition , a flame safety , a methane detector, an anenometer, a roof testing stick. This additional equipment weighs about twenty-five pounds above that of the clothing. An eight-hour shift with that equipment is fatiguing without any actual work . The early miner was a pick and shovel miner and the "low coal" miner will be depicted here since the author's early experiences were in the low coal field. The mine can best be described as an underground city with the main mine entries as the city's boulevards. The mine's butt, or cross entries, are compared with a city's side streets and the mine ' s crosscuts as the city's narrow streets or alley ways. Along the main entries , side entries and cross cuts are located the pump stations, sub-stations , supply houses , dispatcher 's room and foreman's office. These stimulate the stores and business houses on the surface. As in the city , transportation is an important part of life in the mines . The mine tracks, locomotives , strings of coal cars, powered trolley feeder lines , telephone lines, walkie-talkie equi}iment all play a vital role in this function. Even the rush of the currents 'Of air passing continuously along the entries reminds one of standing on a comer in Pittsburgh , Columbus or Chicago on a breezy March morning. When one adds the waterlines, airlines, rock-dust boreholes and other accommodations , one has the complete " Bowel City, U.S.A. " However, in order to understand fully the miner 's environment one must concentrate on the underground streets , side streets and alleys. These were usually 12 to 18 feet wide and ranged from 28 inches to 10 feet in height. It is within �SLOVAKIA 101 this locale that the miner must perform his assigned duties. In the low coal seruns (under 50 inches) the miner spent most of his workshift of eight hours on his knees or in a crouched position. He could only stretch out by lying down or going out to the main heading (entry) where additional height permitted standing room for at least the shorter miners. Miners in the high-seruned coal mines could work in the standing position. In all coal mines, the miner worked under an immediate cover of various types of slate, shale, sand rock or other rock formations such as one might observe in a "rock cut" along a modern highway. The lowcoal miner, working within a height of less than 50 inches, did most of his work with a dual-pointed pick and a broad, flat shovel. He had the srune feel for his own pick and shovel as does the concert violinist for his own bow. He made his work area safer by placing props (sawed-off trees) between the floor and roof. These were made tight by a wooden wedge driven along the roof which served as a cap on the prop. These roof supports were placed at distances determined by safety laws and the wishes of the mine officials. Although the purpose of these props was to keep the roof from caving in and falling upon him, many miners did not put up these supports if they interfered with their loading operation. The pick-miner would dig down all the loose coal from the front and side walls of the coal seam. He would then lie on the mine floor, many times in small pools of water, to undermine the "face of the coal seam'' to a depth of three, four or five feet. This undercut near the face was about twelve to fifteen inches in height to permit the head, arms and shoulders to intrude underneath the undercut coal. This undercut extended the entire width of the entry, room or corridor which, as explained earlier, was from ten to eighteen feet. The miner then drilled holes to the depth of the undercut with a long drill called an auger. It resembles a cork screw and crune in lengths from five to eight feet. These holes were packed with black powder or dynamite and ignited with either a lighted squab (a fireworks type of lighter) or a blasting cap ignited by an electric charge. When the coal was blasted loose, the miner would break up the larger lumps (if any remained) and then shovel the coal into a mine car that he had pushed into his place (room) by hand . On occasion the car was pulled into his area by mules or horses. The above method of work continued every day. The miner spent most of his time in the crouched position or on his knees. He was the recipient of many bruises, cuts, scars, swellings and soreness. If the average citizen went through one such week , he would appreciate the �102 SLOVAKIA position of the miner when he fought for a union, and then utilized the union by means of strikes and walk-outs to achieve his goal of a decent wage for his efforts . Even into the 1930s coal miners went into the mines before daybreak and returned after dark. In a six-day week the only time the miner saw daylight was on Sunday. He had to work these long hours to provide food and clothing for his family. For these efforts he received 25 cents per hour and less than 25 cents per ton of loaded coal. Few miners made the sum of $5.00 per day. In those days, a father, uncle or brother took on the task of "breaking in " a new miner. If a boy entered the mine for training under a stranger, he got his identification check number on a "boycar '' basis which was generally every third mine car loaded. There also was an established custom whereby a companydesignated "weigh boss" (who was generally a " master " at "shortweighing" or "losing" car checks for the convenience of mine management) was employed as an official. He had the added crude duty of giving a miner a " dirty coal" slip. This indicated a loaded minecar of coal would be deducted, lost, or the workman would be given a day off for "loading dirty coal," or possibly discharged from his employment. One can readily see how easily it could become convenient to lay off or discharge a miner who was pro-union or an "agitator" at any given time. In a number of cases, the mine worker made a side agreement with the officials whereby he would be given some preferences as to the number of mine cars allotted to him or the ''privilege'' to work on days the mine was not scheduled for work. The mine foreman or his assistant thus became involved in many situations not of their own choosing. Is it any wonder that in a mine foreman examination, as recently as 1971, the question was asked as to what qualifications, other than those required by mining laws, a mine foreman should possess? One applicant, apparently of the old school, actually wrote, "He has to be a liar and a thief." (This was not the proper answer for the examination.) The physical conditions under which .t he pre-1920 coal miner had to perform his assigned duties were nothing short of atrocious. There was a poor, or the absolute minimum, supply of available timber to support the mine roof, and mine ventilation ·and direction of air to the working places of the miner was far below the minimum legally required standards of even that time . There were days on which a mine ventilating fan was in operation only part of the day when miners were �SLOVAKIA 103 actually in the mine. There were stoppings (walls) in crosscuts built to force air to work areas made of bone coal (impure) . These stoppages leaked like sieves which defeated the purpose of the stopping. There were areas where wprkmen had to fan the explosive smoke with their coats or coal shovels so tha\ they could see well enough to load their mine cars. There were situations where men used open-type carbide lamps that could ignite explosive gas . There were other situations where unsafe and open-type mining machinery was used, and where requirements for clearances along locomotives, mine cars and mine entries were abused or ignored. In other situations workmen were permitted to use black blasting powder for blasting coal and rock. The blasting shots fired in the work area resembled a " Fourth of July" celebration . There were cases where mine officials visited the mine workmen only once a week , once a year or when the mine inspector was in the area. Other times they visited the work areas only after an emergency or accident . The miners thought of as dumb "Hunkies," " Dagos ," or "Polacks " we re treated as an expendable commodity. When expended , it was only necessary to send to the old country for another boat-load of greenhorns. In those early days of mining when one walked down the main entry and heard the voices of the workers, one could envision the Tower of Babel or a gathering at the United Nations. From room to room the language shifted from Polish to Slovak, from German to Welsh , from Serbian to German, from Croatian to Italian, and sometimes to English, but usually a broken variety. One could spend a month in the mines without hearing one proper English sentence. Mining terminology took on ethnic overtones such as " hunky wedge," "scotch block ," "dago dolly," and "hunky pump ." In addition to this, coal mining terms, or language , varied (still does) from one mining area to another. For instance , the low-coal men in Pennsylvania call a temporary roof support a "prop" while the high-coal miners in the same state call it a ' 'post,' ' though their meaning and purpose are synonymous. This type of terminology was accepted by members of all ethnic groups in that locale . These expressions in the mines sound like another language , and any man from the street or from the news media would be fortunate to recognize ten percent of them . There are several terms which denote the quality of the atmosphere in the mines. Few people outside the mines could interpret the expression, " we need air," for the request to improve the ventilation of the work area by extending the line brattice (temporary wall) or canvas check curtain to force air into a required area . Similarly the �104 SLOVAKIA term "I found gas" in a miner's language means that he noted some evidence of methane on his flame safety lamp or on the methane detector. A third term, ' ' black damp,'' denotes a high content of carbon dioxide or a deficiency of oxygen (usually less than 15 percent). The term "hunky wedge" was derived from a patient workman who tapered a short piece of wood to fit over a mine post (prop) to make it secure and aid in controlling the mine roof. At a later date these wooden wedges were known as cap pieces, and were prepared by the sawmill and brought to the worker ready for use. The pressure of the earth and rock above the coal seam squeezes this coal seam until it breaks up and crumbles, especially when there are large spaces of unsupported roof. As the different rooms ran their ultimate distance as determined by good mining practices or limits of (mineral) rights, the "ribs" of coal left between the rooms were finally removed. The removal of these ribs or stumps was an art with the early pick-coal men. They brought the roof pressure to bear upon a block of coal which eliminated the hard pick work. The expressions for this operation were "easy coal" or "push coal." The miners who performed this operation were called "stump men." Althouh the work was easier in this area and the pay better, it was also more dangerous since there was the constant danger of being trapped or crushed by the falling rocks from the roof. A good "stump man" controlled the caving for his own safety. The term "dago-dolly" was used to describe a device which was invented to move the heavy steel rails into their positions in the mine track. Initially, the miner pulled the rail with his hands or his pick. Some miner developed a two-wheeled conveyance with attached handle and grip on the rail. This reduced the back-breaking work of pulling rails into place. The "hunky pump " was a horizontal-stoked pump that had to be operated manually to remove the water from the working place so that the miner could lay on the mine floor to dig the undercut in his coal. In many cases, the miner would go into the mines by 5 a.m. and begin pumping the water out of his place so that he could begin mining coal at 7 a.m. with the other miners . Again, this work of pumping was done without pay. \ There are many " holes " in mining terniinology_and they caused confusion to those outside the mining community. " Dog hole " was a mine operated into the hillside. It had poor ventilation ; was poorly maintained and usually employed those workers nobody else would hire . They were run on a shoe-string and usually produced coal for home use . " Man hole " is synonymous with a shelter hole or a hole in �105 SLOVAKIA the rib of coal. Aftimes, tbe miner, walking along the entry way, was faced with on-coming (or koing) traffic or locomotive and coal cars , either empty or loaded. Since these entry ways were narrow and the cars rolled, a hole was cut into the entry wall or rib to accommodate from one to three miners . Since these were spaced at specified distances, at the sound of the trip (string) of cars , the miner would seek out the nearest man hole. Incidently, the word locomotive was rarely used . The machine used to pull cars was simply referred to as •'the motor." The "dinner-hole" was generally a main side track off the main entry or so-called cross-cut. At this area men gathered to eat their lunches and there they hung their favorite pin-ups (obtained from calendars) or drew their own nudes with white chalk on the coal surface. This art resembles that found in public toilets today. The name •'tickle-back'' was given to those low-seamed coal mines that were less than 36 inches in height. Some were. as low as 28 to 29 inches . It wasn 't any wonder than the miner had numerous sores covering his back where he hit the uneven places on the mine roof. The unusual expression "to set a crib" has nothing to do with preparing a bed for the baby. It was one of most effective means of supporting the roof by erecting a framework of 5" x5"x30" wooden blocks at strategic places in a grill-work fashion. The term was also used when the individual miner filled in one side of his emptied work place with rock, slate and dirty coal and cribbed the ends to build up a wall like appearance. This was also called the • gob '' pile . The miner's light in the evaluation of mining has had a number of terms . The pit lamp, bug lamp , carbide lamp and cap lamp are examples of these. The pit and carbide lamps are practically extinct and will shortly be found only in the museums of mining. The battery powered light has completely taken over. The term "shooting off the solid" was an illegal and unsafe practice employed by some miners who wished to avoid the timeconsuming and back-breaking work of under-cutting the coal in preparation for blasting. The process was simply that of drilling holes in the solid coal near the roof or floor and blasting it loose with explosives. The danger in this process was that since the coal had no place to move, at times the pressure of the concussion broke the slate or rock of the roof and made it unsafe for the miner. The term hand me the persuader'' was not referring to a whip for animals or humans but a sledge hammer used by the so-called mechanics who were in a hurry. They used them to drive shafts , gears , etc. into their proper alignment. Such a sight would have caused the 1 11 �106 SLOVAKIA inventor of that machine to tum over in his grave. The sledge was the answer to all difficult problems. The term "yellow boy" was and is used in conjunction with iron pyrites found in the mine water. It clogs the pipe lines and sump areas and is a nemesis to the present environmentalist. The '' go devil'' is the apparatus which is used to ream this material out of the pipes. It may be a simple rod, wire or spring or it may be attached to a motor which turns it in a boring fashion . The term "black damp" was explained earlier. The term was taken from the ancient term " damp of darkness " and means a condition where there is less than 15 percent oxygen or where carbon dioxide exists in heavy concentrations in the mine atmosphere. It probably got its name by ''putting someone's lights out.'' In contrast to this, the term "white damp" was a name for carbon monoxide and "stink damp " was the presence of hydrogen sulphide. As any high school chemistry student knows, this latter material had the odor of rotten eggs. " Bug dust" has nothing to do with insecticides. This dust is the result of machine mining and the breaking up of the coal seam into fine particles. After machine mining this fine dust must be removed from the undercut of coal. This permits the explosive to work more effectively by blasting the coal away from the mine roof. Some of the terms heard about the mine had meanings related to mining but not to the actual work of the mines. One such term was the " hoot-owl" shift from 11 p .m. to 7 a.m., or midnight to 8 a.m. Miners usually rotated shifts and this was the one disliked by most since it was impossible to become acclimated to a change in sleeping hours every three weeks. The expression, " today the eagle shifts, " was a wellknown expression for payday in the mines. Also , on his way home he might "stop at the grab, " which meant to stop at the company store. The name was derived from the fact that the company store grabbed all they earned. While at the store they bought "dog meat" for the lunch pails . This was the cheapest form of ground meat, a form of bologna. In addition to the terms above the miners had some descriptive nicknames for each other. It was not unusu~l to meet "Cadillac Joe ," " Quick-Steps, " "Moose, " or " Shorty, " as ope walked along a " mantrip" which was ready to enter the mines. Only the cowboys of the old West had such descriptive names for each other. Thus, it is evident that the coal miners actually do have a language which only other miners understand. I believe it would be appropriate for the media to become conversant with the language of the mines , especially when describing a mine disaster. � 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 FICTION SLOVAKIA 93 Reminiscences of a Slovak Miner GEORGE P. RESICK What has been and what is now the environment of the rough , tough , and hard-working ' 'man of the earth' '? How did he live in the 1800s and early 1900s, lifting himself by his very bootstraps by means of his miner's union in his earnest desire to make his life better and to become accepted at least as a middle-class American? He came from nearly every ethnic group possible - the Welsh, Irish , Slovaks , Scots , Poles , Hungarians , Italians, Blacks and others. He was often referred to as a dumb "Hunky," Dago , Griener, Johnny Bull and other names which caused many verbal and physical battles . Although the modern Black man rightly feels the injustice of discrimination , a member of these other ethnic groups , too, had to come through many a heartbreak as to " what side of town " he could live in, what games he could participate in, and in what section of the school room he could be seated. Even when he came to the mines his ethnic background determined the section of the mine he was to be assigned to and the classification of the work within this area. This period of discrimination was shortened by inter-marriages between ethnic groups and the desire by individuals in all ethnic groups to achieve success in their work. Athletics served as a social elevator for many , since work and athletics were the center of community activities. Before too long, it was discovered that the word " dumb, " as related to the miner and his family , was in essence a lack of education rather than intelligence . The processes of increased educational opportunities and greater social acceptance were extremely slow. Few sons or daughters of miners finished high school prior to 1930. Education ended for them the day they obtained their ' 'working papers. ' ' The sons went to the mines and the daughters to factories, stores or to domestic service. In the entire community of three thousand in which the author was born and reared there were probably less than six miners ' children who went to college prior to 1932. Only one teacher in this same community was college-educated. In retrospect, it is heart-rending to recall how few of the ethnicgroup parents could either read or write in any language, let alone English. Many could not even sign for their pay checks but simply marked an X for their signatures . Because of this, they were open game 94 SLOVAKIA for the "con" artist who took advantage of the uneducated. Letters were written for them and read to them until their own children obtained the minimal education to perform this function. These brave, strong people migrated to this country for the expressed purpose of ''the right to work as a free individual'' and to have the right to worship God in the way they choose. Although history records great people and movements, it must be pointed out that a vital part of the growth of this nation was due to groups such as miners , farmers, etc. who became the backbone of the industrial complex. The brave miner has played his part in bringing this nation to its leadership position in the world today. The road to recognition was not a rosy one for the miner and his family when one recalls his early environment: the rows of company houses or the so-called "patch," some of which still exist; the traditional little outhouse (two-seater) in the backyard; the two chimneys for the cooking and heating stoves; the place behind one of these stoves for the Saturday night bath in a galvanized tub; the two or three beds where a family of five to ten was "accommodated" - three to a bed; the backyard garden of nearly every family which became a necessity for summer existence and for preserving some food stuff for winter or when ''work was slow''; the coal shed and chicken coop or pig sty in the backyard; the many ingenious ideas for survival, such as picking berries, wild-roots, chestnuts and other free foods. The " company house " was part of the vicious circle by which the coal company completely controlled the life of the miner. These houses were unpainted clapboard of the cheapest construction, all identical. It wasn 't unusual for a drunken miner to enter the wrong house since the only difference was his house's position in the row . The more fortunate had water in the kitchen but practically none of them had sanitary facilities. The company rarely repaired the houses and, since the miner didn 't own them, maintenance was always minimal. These homes were often inhabited by rats, mice, roaches, ants and flies , which destroyed some of the food badly needed by the family. These facts were brought out clearly in recent years when the coal companies sold these houses to the miners. A dramatic change took ~lace and the houses immediately improved immeasurably . _ A picture of the miner's environment wouldn 't be complete without comment on the special row of company houses for the mine administrators , which included the superintendent (super), the pit boss and the fire boss. These men were the "elite" of the mining camps , and their houses the envy of . the miners since they included indoor toilets, indoor baths and a central furnace (they usually were furnished SLOVAKIA 95 free coal). The residents of these homes dressed well and didn't have to resort to placing cardboard in the soles of their shoes to protect their feet. Even a more integral part of the vicious circle was the company store. Its only parallel in modem society is the loan shark business. If ever a story were written by a company store manager it would be as startling as any in the country's history. The coal company store surely must be given recognition as one of the initiators of the credit card system. To this day many ~odem coal miners absolutely forbid their wives to have credit cards or establish credit at legitimate stores because of their memories of the company store. There were numerous families who lived in virtual slavery due to the fact that they lived in the company house, shopped at the company store and worked in the company mine. If the coal company had a store, the miner was forced to shop at the store or seek employment elsewhere . The coal company used "scrip," a written order for the amount of the miner's earnings for the day. The man's wife could then go to the store to purchase the bare necessities to keep the family alive. The prices at the company store were always much higher than the independent stores in the area. The company store stocked every item possible to keep the miner from finding an excuse to visit any other local merchant, except the town saloon. This latter precaution was unnecessary since the miner rarely got any of his salary in cash, except for a required monetary remuneration which usually amounted to one dollar. The company store never needed to advertise or have "sales." It had a ' 'captive'' clientele which allowed the store manager to raise prices beyond normal to show management an increased profit. As the miner's union became stronger in the early 1930s, it slowly brought the demise of one of the most vicious of the '' free enterprise ' ' systems in the history of this nation. Even then it was a slow death, as mine officials would remind the miner that he must buy something at the company store. The miner usually agreed to purchase some furniture or appliance from the company store and to have a minimum of $10 taken from his earnings each payday. Slowly, however, the company store died out since it could not compete with the open market. What a vicious circle had been the lot of the entrapped miner: no job unless he bought at the store; usually no cash left on payday which meant he couldn't move; the mine operator making the profits on his productive work, his store purchases and the rental of his home. The miner was virtually a captive in a free society. If the "Union " never accomplished another thing, it certainly lifted the "yoke of indebtedness" from the shoulders of the miner by 96 SLOVAKIA combatting the effects of the company store on his life. These disgraceful conditions still exist in some small mining communities where the coal company owns all the property, including the stores and gas stations. They literally "own the town." However, in most mining communities now, many stores are operated by individuals in open competition with company stores. Try to imagine, if you can, the plight of a coal miner's family of four to fourteen children, all of them dependent upon the wages of the father-miner. Imagine the impossibility of providing a proper diet on the father's wages of from $1.50 to $3.50 per day. To do this he even went into the mines on days that the mine was not in operation. He would stock (store) coal and take up the bottom or top rock to permit him to lay his new track. He performed all this so that he might be ready to load coal on work days and keep up with the alloted number of mine cars assigned to him. He would walk into the mines several hours before starting time (7 a.m.) on workdays to hand pump (or remove with a bucket) the water that had accumulated in his place of work. He did this without pay. How did the miner and his family manage? Without a doubt, it wasn 't easy, and in some cases he didn 't manage. Many of the miners' families died before they reached the age of ·50, although life expectancy was much higher in this country. The only way they survived even to that age was that the typical mother would make certain, by one means or another, that a bag of flour, a bag of potatoes, some cabbage, beans, cornmeal and a few other staples were on hand. These mothers were masters of ingenuity on how to make cabbage, beans and flour into mouth-watering delicacies for their children . But they had to serve the same foods so often that, in later years, the children detested the very sight of these foods. In these present times one reads of poverty, relief, food stamps, etc. but in all the years since the author 's boyhood there has been no poverty that could in any way compare to that of the early days in the mining community. How did these people survive? Those that did had outside food sources such as a few chickens , a pig or cow. On the days the mines were idle, the miner became a gardener ~d raised fresh vegetables. He spent many hours planting, weeding, reII].oving ii?-sects (insecticides were not in use then). Some of those garde_n s would have compared favorably with the experimental gardens run by the Department of Agriculture . The miner also became a hunter and a fisherman, not for the sport itself, but for the food it provided for his family. This did not reduce in way the pleasures of the activity. In some critical periods the father-miner and his sons became thieves, visiting local farms at night SLOVAKIA 97 and stealing chickens, com and fruit in order to survive. Some of them were caught, beaten or jailed, and then their families were in deep difficulty since they (those caught) could not earn the pittance available to them. What type of man is this who lived through the conditions described above, and still today goes deep into the bowels of the earth to earn his living? The aver~ge coal miner was and is hardworking, tough talking, sometimes hard drinking, and many times a deliberate braggard . He can load a tremendous tonnage of coal and later stand at his favorite bar with his mining buddies. In fact, sometimes it seemed as though the coal dust was ankle-deep near the bar. In the '' cross-cut dinner hole ' ' of the mines, he brags about his tremendous conquests of women. This is depicted in his graffiti drawn with white chalk upon the black coal or rock walls or roof. He is direct rather than devious and obscure. This point is well illustrated by the comment of a young miner, who, when discussing his relationship with women, said that upon meeting a woman in whom he was interested he immediately asked her if she " screwed." When asked if he didn't get his face slapped, he replied "often, but on the other hand you'd be surprised how often I got a positive answer ." He may better be described by the poem entitled ' 'Lust.' ' He grabbed me round my slender neck I could not call or scream. He dragged me to this dingy room Where we would not be seen. He tore away my flimsy wrap and looked upon my form. I was so cold and damp and scared, While he was hot and warm. He drained me of my very self, I could not make him stop . His feverish lips he pressed to mine; I gave him every drop . He made me what I am today, That's why you find me here , A broken bottle thrown away That was once full of beer. Anon. This author has been employed as a coal miner, mine official, mine inspector and coal operator for more than 44 years and cannot help but 98 SLOVAKIA feel that the American public has had a mistaken image of the coal miner. This may be due to reports and articles written by writers who lack insight and experience in the mining industry. A true story may illustrate this point. A coal miner's son met and became interested in a New York banker's daughter while attending the same college. Eventually the banker invited the family to visit them in New York. Upon seeing the coal miner, one of the banker's first remarks was ''You aren't at all what I expected!" What had he expected? Did he expect a dirty, uncouth and stupid individual often portrayed in the media? In reality the average miner is a hard worker; he is honest with a sharp and inventive mind; he is cooperative and, in most instances, religious. He is probably cleaner than many white or blue collar workers since he is forced to bathe everyday. Unfortunately his lack of opportunity for education has been confused with the lack of motivation for an education. This is now changed and the educational level among the miners has risen drastically in the last score of years. His higher salary scale now enables him to live at the middle-class level of society . In the early days of mining, in order to eke out a living, many a miner did not hesitate to get up as early as 3 a.m., walk into the mine with only water in his dinner pail, and begin his preliminary work. He, at times, shifted as many as ten loaded coal cars in order to get the one empty car left from the previous day's work. If there were no empty cars available for loading, he performed many time-consuming tasks known as "dead work" since it was done without pay. These tasks included taking up the bottom rock for additional height, laying the track, setting the safety timbers, removing water from the work area, cleaning slate and impurities from the coal to be loaded, and even piling coal in areas to permit more rapid loading, since the only thing that counted, and for which he was paid, was the actual coal he loaded into the cars . All this preliminary work w~s done so that he would "have the jump on his fellow miners" when the day's work actually started . When one considers all this so-called "dead work ," isn't it natural that the miner demanded more, or at least some pay , for his "dead work"? This is one of the underlying reasons that the miner formed and supported his union . Many of these early miners did more free (dead work) before the starting time of 7 a.m. than do many of the modern miners at their hourly rate of six and seven dollars per hour. At times an unexpected rockfall would consume most of his working day and this had an immediate effect on his family since it was directly connected with the food purchases for that day. SLOVAKIA 99 The wife and mother, .too, got up at this time (or earlier) to see that her husband had his break{ast if food was available , and to pack the lunch pail when food was plentiful. After her husband left for work, she began a back-breaking day of kneading and baking bread, washing clothes and wringing them out by hand to be hung out to dry. After an hour or two she would awaken the children and supervise their preparation for school which included the everlasting job of mending to hold the threads of their garments together. Her work continued until she was ready for her trip to the weigh-scales to obtain a slip for the coal her husband loaded that day. This slip would determine how much food would be available for the family that night and the next day. On the days the rock fell to interfere with the loading of coal, the soup was thinner and the dish of beans and meat was mostly beans. The best time of her day was when the children came from school and the closing whistle sounded from the mines. The worst times in her life were when the mine whistle blew before the regular quitting time. This meant that there was trouble in the mines , and a shiver went down the collective spines of all the wives in the community. It usually meant an injury, with a loss of earning power, or that at least one or more of the women would be widows with a family to rear. One of the saddest sights in the world is a gatheimg of the babushka-headed wives in their vigil during the period that their husbands are entombed by an explosion or cavein. An ode of songs was written about Floyd Collins, a cave explorer, who was caught in a cave fall-in, but no such ode or song was ever written about the Joe Slowboski's who, while pinned under a rock fall, have their still live flesh eaten by the rats which inhabit the mines. A description of the early coal miner's apparel seems to be in order here . His wearing apparel has and will continue to change almost as frequently as the equipment and machinery with which he labors. The well-dressed miner wore the very conventional bib-overalls (now in style with the teenagers) , a cloth or canvas cap with a leather frontal attachment for his carbide lamp, soft-toed miner's boots, a pair of gauntlet gloves , and a denim jacket with at least four pockets so he could carry his carbide-cader (container), blasting caps, blasting powder, squibs (a predecessor of the blasting cap), lamp cleaning tools, and his ever-present " railroad type" watch attached to a chain and placed carefully in the left breast pocket. However, the poor miner was not dressed in this fashion . He wore a pair of his old suit pants , patched or re-patched many times. His shirt was probably one of his discarded hunting shirts, and his shoes were discarded dress shoes repaired by tacking pieces of leather or rubber on the soles and heels . He didn 't wear gloves , but had, instead, a pair of well-calloused hands complete 100 SLOVAKIA with bruised knuckles and fingers . He couldn't afford a watch and he carried all the equipment described above in a 25 pound sugar sack. A new miner (a "greenie" ) was rapidly spotted by his unmarked apparel and the appearance of his hands . The dress of the modern miner is quite different. If the weather is cold he will be wearing insulated underwear, a matched shirt and trouser outfit , hard-toed shoes or boots (with steel plates for safety) a pair of denim cover-alls, wrist-cuff gloves , special leg bands to keep the trouser legs from contacting moving chains or ropes, a special strong plastic hard-hat with an attachment clip for his battery-powered headlamp, a wide leather belt with attachments for his lamp batter, self rescue kit and a few tools. For a time-piece he wears a shock-proof wrist watch. He is provided with a dust respirator that aids in keeping him from getting his lungs loaded with fine dust particles. In certain periods he must wear a dust counter to show the fine <lush count surrounding his work area. When fully dressed with all this special equipment, he is carrying an additional weight of about fifteen pounds. The mine official or mine inspector will be carrying, in addition , a flame safety , a methane detector, an anenometer, a roof testing stick. This additional equipment weighs about twenty-five pounds above that of the clothing. An eight-hour shift with that equipment is fatiguing without any actual work . The early miner was a pick and shovel miner and the "low coal" miner will be depicted here since the author's early experiences were in the low coal field. The mine can best be described as an underground city with the main mine entries as the city's boulevards. The mine's butt, or cross entries, are compared with a city's side streets and the mine ' s crosscuts as the city's narrow streets or alley ways. Along the main entries , side entries and cross cuts are located the pump stations, sub-stations , supply houses , dispatcher 's room and foreman's office. These stimulate the stores and business houses on the surface. As in the city , transportation is an important part of life in the mines . The mine tracks, locomotives , strings of coal cars, powered trolley feeder lines , telephone lines, walkie-talkie equi}iment all play a vital role in this function. Even the rush of the currents 'Of air passing continuously along the entries reminds one of standing on a comer in Pittsburgh , Columbus or Chicago on a breezy March morning. When one adds the waterlines, airlines, rock-dust boreholes and other accommodations , one has the complete " Bowel City, U.S.A. " However, in order to understand fully the miner 's environment one must concentrate on the underground streets , side streets and alleys. These were usually 12 to 18 feet wide and ranged from 28 inches to 10 feet in height. It is within SLOVAKIA 101 this locale that the miner must perform his assigned duties. In the low coal seruns (under 50 inches) the miner spent most of his workshift of eight hours on his knees or in a crouched position. He could only stretch out by lying down or going out to the main heading (entry) where additional height permitted standing room for at least the shorter miners. Miners in the high-seruned coal mines could work in the standing position. In all coal mines, the miner worked under an immediate cover of various types of slate, shale, sand rock or other rock formations such as one might observe in a "rock cut" along a modern highway. The lowcoal miner, working within a height of less than 50 inches, did most of his work with a dual-pointed pick and a broad, flat shovel. He had the srune feel for his own pick and shovel as does the concert violinist for his own bow. He made his work area safer by placing props (sawed-off trees) between the floor and roof. These were made tight by a wooden wedge driven along the roof which served as a cap on the prop. These roof supports were placed at distances determined by safety laws and the wishes of the mine officials. Although the purpose of these props was to keep the roof from caving in and falling upon him, many miners did not put up these supports if they interfered with their loading operation. The pick-miner would dig down all the loose coal from the front and side walls of the coal seam. He would then lie on the mine floor, many times in small pools of water, to undermine the "face of the coal seam'' to a depth of three, four or five feet. This undercut near the face was about twelve to fifteen inches in height to permit the head, arms and shoulders to intrude underneath the undercut coal. This undercut extended the entire width of the entry, room or corridor which, as explained earlier, was from ten to eighteen feet. The miner then drilled holes to the depth of the undercut with a long drill called an auger. It resembles a cork screw and crune in lengths from five to eight feet. These holes were packed with black powder or dynamite and ignited with either a lighted squab (a fireworks type of lighter) or a blasting cap ignited by an electric charge. When the coal was blasted loose, the miner would break up the larger lumps (if any remained) and then shovel the coal into a mine car that he had pushed into his place (room) by hand . On occasion the car was pulled into his area by mules or horses. The above method of work continued every day. The miner spent most of his time in the crouched position or on his knees. He was the recipient of many bruises, cuts, scars, swellings and soreness. If the average citizen went through one such week , he would appreciate the 102 SLOVAKIA position of the miner when he fought for a union, and then utilized the union by means of strikes and walk-outs to achieve his goal of a decent wage for his efforts . Even into the 1930s coal miners went into the mines before daybreak and returned after dark. In a six-day week the only time the miner saw daylight was on Sunday. He had to work these long hours to provide food and clothing for his family. For these efforts he received 25 cents per hour and less than 25 cents per ton of loaded coal. Few miners made the sum of $5.00 per day. In those days, a father, uncle or brother took on the task of "breaking in " a new miner. If a boy entered the mine for training under a stranger, he got his identification check number on a "boycar '' basis which was generally every third mine car loaded. There also was an established custom whereby a companydesignated "weigh boss" (who was generally a " master " at "shortweighing" or "losing" car checks for the convenience of mine management) was employed as an official. He had the added crude duty of giving a miner a " dirty coal" slip. This indicated a loaded minecar of coal would be deducted, lost, or the workman would be given a day off for "loading dirty coal," or possibly discharged from his employment. One can readily see how easily it could become convenient to lay off or discharge a miner who was pro-union or an "agitator" at any given time. In a number of cases, the mine worker made a side agreement with the officials whereby he would be given some preferences as to the number of mine cars allotted to him or the ''privilege'' to work on days the mine was not scheduled for work. The mine foreman or his assistant thus became involved in many situations not of their own choosing. Is it any wonder that in a mine foreman examination, as recently as 1971, the question was asked as to what qualifications, other than those required by mining laws, a mine foreman should possess? One applicant, apparently of the old school, actually wrote, "He has to be a liar and a thief." (This was not the proper answer for the examination.) The physical conditions under which .t he pre-1920 coal miner had to perform his assigned duties were nothing short of atrocious. There was a poor, or the absolute minimum, supply of available timber to support the mine roof, and mine ventilation ·and direction of air to the working places of the miner was far below the minimum legally required standards of even that time . There were days on which a mine ventilating fan was in operation only part of the day when miners were SLOVAKIA 103 actually in the mine. There were stoppings (walls) in crosscuts built to force air to work areas made of bone coal (impure) . These stoppages leaked like sieves which defeated the purpose of the stopping. There were areas where wprkmen had to fan the explosive smoke with their coats or coal shovels so tha\ they could see well enough to load their mine cars. There were situations where men used open-type carbide lamps that could ignite explosive gas . There were other situations where unsafe and open-type mining machinery was used, and where requirements for clearances along locomotives, mine cars and mine entries were abused or ignored. In other situations workmen were permitted to use black blasting powder for blasting coal and rock. The blasting shots fired in the work area resembled a " Fourth of July" celebration . There were cases where mine officials visited the mine workmen only once a week , once a year or when the mine inspector was in the area. Other times they visited the work areas only after an emergency or accident . The miners thought of as dumb "Hunkies," " Dagos ," or "Polacks " we re treated as an expendable commodity. When expended , it was only necessary to send to the old country for another boat-load of greenhorns. In those early days of mining when one walked down the main entry and heard the voices of the workers, one could envision the Tower of Babel or a gathering at the United Nations. From room to room the language shifted from Polish to Slovak, from German to Welsh , from Serbian to German, from Croatian to Italian, and sometimes to English, but usually a broken variety. One could spend a month in the mines without hearing one proper English sentence. Mining terminology took on ethnic overtones such as " hunky wedge," "scotch block ," "dago dolly," and "hunky pump ." In addition to this, coal mining terms, or language , varied (still does) from one mining area to another. For instance , the low-coal men in Pennsylvania call a temporary roof support a "prop" while the high-coal miners in the same state call it a ' 'post,' ' though their meaning and purpose are synonymous. This type of terminology was accepted by members of all ethnic groups in that locale . These expressions in the mines sound like another language , and any man from the street or from the news media would be fortunate to recognize ten percent of them . There are several terms which denote the quality of the atmosphere in the mines. Few people outside the mines could interpret the expression, " we need air," for the request to improve the ventilation of the work area by extending the line brattice (temporary wall) or canvas check curtain to force air into a required area . Similarly the 104 SLOVAKIA term "I found gas" in a miner's language means that he noted some evidence of methane on his flame safety lamp or on the methane detector. A third term, ' ' black damp,'' denotes a high content of carbon dioxide or a deficiency of oxygen (usually less than 15 percent). The term "hunky wedge" was derived from a patient workman who tapered a short piece of wood to fit over a mine post (prop) to make it secure and aid in controlling the mine roof. At a later date these wooden wedges were known as cap pieces, and were prepared by the sawmill and brought to the worker ready for use. The pressure of the earth and rock above the coal seam squeezes this coal seam until it breaks up and crumbles, especially when there are large spaces of unsupported roof. As the different rooms ran their ultimate distance as determined by good mining practices or limits of (mineral) rights, the "ribs" of coal left between the rooms were finally removed. The removal of these ribs or stumps was an art with the early pick-coal men. They brought the roof pressure to bear upon a block of coal which eliminated the hard pick work. The expressions for this operation were "easy coal" or "push coal." The miners who performed this operation were called "stump men." Althouh the work was easier in this area and the pay better, it was also more dangerous since there was the constant danger of being trapped or crushed by the falling rocks from the roof. A good "stump man" controlled the caving for his own safety. The term "dago-dolly" was used to describe a device which was invented to move the heavy steel rails into their positions in the mine track. Initially, the miner pulled the rail with his hands or his pick. Some miner developed a two-wheeled conveyance with attached handle and grip on the rail. This reduced the back-breaking work of pulling rails into place. The "hunky pump " was a horizontal-stoked pump that had to be operated manually to remove the water from the working place so that the miner could lay on the mine floor to dig the undercut in his coal. In many cases, the miner would go into the mines by 5 a.m. and begin pumping the water out of his place so that he could begin mining coal at 7 a.m. with the other miners . Again, this work of pumping was done without pay. \ There are many " holes " in mining terniinology_and they caused confusion to those outside the mining community. " Dog hole " was a mine operated into the hillside. It had poor ventilation ; was poorly maintained and usually employed those workers nobody else would hire . They were run on a shoe-string and usually produced coal for home use . " Man hole " is synonymous with a shelter hole or a hole in 105 SLOVAKIA the rib of coal. Aftimes, tbe miner, walking along the entry way, was faced with on-coming (or koing) traffic or locomotive and coal cars , either empty or loaded. Since these entry ways were narrow and the cars rolled, a hole was cut into the entry wall or rib to accommodate from one to three miners . Since these were spaced at specified distances, at the sound of the trip (string) of cars , the miner would seek out the nearest man hole. Incidently, the word locomotive was rarely used . The machine used to pull cars was simply referred to as •'the motor." The "dinner-hole" was generally a main side track off the main entry or so-called cross-cut. At this area men gathered to eat their lunches and there they hung their favorite pin-ups (obtained from calendars) or drew their own nudes with white chalk on the coal surface. This art resembles that found in public toilets today. The name •'tickle-back'' was given to those low-seamed coal mines that were less than 36 inches in height. Some were. as low as 28 to 29 inches . It wasn 't any wonder than the miner had numerous sores covering his back where he hit the uneven places on the mine roof. The unusual expression "to set a crib" has nothing to do with preparing a bed for the baby. It was one of most effective means of supporting the roof by erecting a framework of 5" x5"x30" wooden blocks at strategic places in a grill-work fashion. The term was also used when the individual miner filled in one side of his emptied work place with rock, slate and dirty coal and cribbed the ends to build up a wall like appearance. This was also called the • gob '' pile . The miner's light in the evaluation of mining has had a number of terms . The pit lamp, bug lamp , carbide lamp and cap lamp are examples of these. The pit and carbide lamps are practically extinct and will shortly be found only in the museums of mining. The battery powered light has completely taken over. The term "shooting off the solid" was an illegal and unsafe practice employed by some miners who wished to avoid the timeconsuming and back-breaking work of under-cutting the coal in preparation for blasting. The process was simply that of drilling holes in the solid coal near the roof or floor and blasting it loose with explosives. The danger in this process was that since the coal had no place to move, at times the pressure of the concussion broke the slate or rock of the roof and made it unsafe for the miner. The term hand me the persuader'' was not referring to a whip for animals or humans but a sledge hammer used by the so-called mechanics who were in a hurry. They used them to drive shafts , gears , etc. into their proper alignment. Such a sight would have caused the 1 11 106 SLOVAKIA inventor of that machine to tum over in his grave. The sledge was the answer to all difficult problems. The term "yellow boy" was and is used in conjunction with iron pyrites found in the mine water. It clogs the pipe lines and sump areas and is a nemesis to the present environmentalist. The '' go devil'' is the apparatus which is used to ream this material out of the pipes. It may be a simple rod, wire or spring or it may be attached to a motor which turns it in a boring fashion . The term "black damp" was explained earlier. The term was taken from the ancient term " damp of darkness " and means a condition where there is less than 15 percent oxygen or where carbon dioxide exists in heavy concentrations in the mine atmosphere. It probably got its name by ''putting someone's lights out.'' In contrast to this, the term "white damp" was a name for carbon monoxide and "stink damp " was the presence of hydrogen sulphide. As any high school chemistry student knows, this latter material had the odor of rotten eggs. " Bug dust" has nothing to do with insecticides. This dust is the result of machine mining and the breaking up of the coal seam into fine particles. After machine mining this fine dust must be removed from the undercut of coal. This permits the explosive to work more effectively by blasting the coal away from the mine roof. Some of the terms heard about the mine had meanings related to mining but not to the actual work of the mines. One such term was the " hoot-owl" shift from 11 p .m. to 7 a.m., or midnight to 8 a.m. Miners usually rotated shifts and this was the one disliked by most since it was impossible to become acclimated to a change in sleeping hours every three weeks. The expression, " today the eagle shifts, " was a wellknown expression for payday in the mines. Also , on his way home he might "stop at the grab, " which meant to stop at the company store. The name was derived from the fact that the company store grabbed all they earned. While at the store they bought "dog meat" for the lunch pails . This was the cheapest form of ground meat, a form of bologna. In addition to the terms above the miners had some descriptive nicknames for each other. It was not unusu~l to meet "Cadillac Joe ," " Quick-Steps, " "Moose, " or " Shorty, " as ope walked along a " mantrip" which was ready to enter the mines. Only the cowboys of the old West had such descriptive names for each other. Thus, it is evident that the coal miners actually do have a language which only other miners understand. I believe it would be appropriate for the media to become conversant with the language of the mines , especially when describing a mine disaster.  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 Reminiscences of a Slovak Miner Description An account of the resource George P. Resick Slovakia, Vol. 28 (No. 51-52), 1978-79 pp. 93-106 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Resick, George P. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1978-79 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/133e31d958f4c4c61a8df5f47b1294cd.pdf d9357180613847a11ba6af10909217da PDF Text Text 57 SLOVAKJA Reversing the Trend: Central Europe from Dictatorship to Democracy 1 Jan Camogursky A currently-popular political term is "globalization." Seen from a North American perspective, it is very real. When one reads American or Canadian newspapers, magazines or books, the globe seems to be a tiny button. Planes and boats filled with goods dash from one continent to the next. Billions of dollars are transferred via computers and satellites. Television viewers can instantly discover if it is hot or cold in distant parts of the world on the Weather Channel. Its pictures show continents without state borders, and the sky above them is either sunny and clear or cloudy and raining. Some observers praise globalization, some protest against it, but it probably cannot be stopped. Central Europe has given the world many scientific, economic and cultural stimuli from which globalization evolved. The territory between Ukraine and Germany, Scandinavia and the Balkans, is only about 1/10 the size of Canada, but it has six times as many inhabitants. A multitude of nations exist here, sometimes at peace, and sometimes at war. In the 20th century the Slavs and Germans clashed in two World Wars, into which Canada and the United States were drawn. American and Canadian military cemeteries in Europe speak dramatically about Central Europe's signi1 A public lecture presented at the University of Ottawa on Ferbruary 29, 2000. �58 SLOVAKIA ficance to these two countries. On the other hand, Central Europe also produced Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig Von Beethoven, Antonin Dvorak, Albert Einstein and John Paul II . Central Europe has been a problem for the Great Powers in the last two centuries , and after World War II it became especially acute. The victorious Allies solved the problem by erasing it. They divided Central Europe between them and for four decades it disappeared from the political map. Ironically enough, Central Europe at this time groaned under the highest concentration of soldiers and weapons in the history of mankind. Even though it was divided, Central Europe continued to exist. One Austrian publicist commented that Central Europe is everywhere where cafes serve soda water with black coffee. Such coffee and soda continued to be served in Warsaw, Munich, Vienna, Budapest and Bratislava. Central Europe also had a foreign social system forced upon it. This foreign system provoked isolated explosions against it: in East Berlin in 1953; in Poznan and Budapest in 1956; in Prague and Bratislava in 1968; and in Gdansk in 1980. All were suppressed by external forces (or the threat of such force) and all evoked a feeling of solidarity among the nations of Central Europe. Before World War II every Central European country , except Switzerland, had disputes with its neighbours. Repeated interventions by the Soviet Union led Central Europeans to a new awareness of their common suffering. Eventually, Central European dissidents started to cooperate. In the 1960's opponents of the various communist regimes, who had been imprisoned in the I 950's, were released. It became possible, though with much difficulty, for people to travel between Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. The level of freedom in these countries varied. In 1968 Czechoslovakia was the most free, �SLOVAKIA 59 and Polish and Hungarian political emigres in the West were able to bring forbidden books, magazines and photocopying machines to their respective countries via Czechoslovakia. In the l 970's and l 980's more liberal conditions prevailed in Hungary and Poland, and forbidden materials could be smuggled into Czechoslovakia from those countries. After the establishment of the Charter'77 movement in Czechoslovakia, dissidents in Hungary and Poland helped out. In the second half of the l 980's I twice met with Czech and Polish dissidents on the border. The first meeting was carefully planned. A few people on each side agreed on a place and time in northern Moravia. There the border runs through deep forests . Even though dissidents on both sides of the border had had their passports confiscated, they could approach the border in groups of two or three, ostensibly to pick mushrooms. After about an hour's walk, we arrived at the agreed-upon rendezvous and in the next three or four hours planned our future activities. The most prominent participant from the Czechoslovak side at the first meeting was Vaclav Havel. All the leading Polish dissidents, except Lech Walesa (who was interned by General Jaruzelski), were there. The second meeting took place in the early summer of 1989, when a free election had already been scheduled in Poland . Many of the participants were subsequently elected to the Polish Parliament. As MP's they had diplomatic passports, and they used them to visit us in August. The end of communism in 1989 was full of paradoxes. When Tadeusz Mazowiecki won the elections in Poland and came to power, I was in a Bratislava jail. Vaclav Havel then wrote to Mazowiecki and asked him to intervene with the Czechoslovak authorities on my behalf. Mazowiecki sent his reply to Havel via the-then communist Polish Ambassador in Prague! �60 SLOVAKIA Religious activists in Slovakia and Poland were very close. Religious oppression in Slovakia was much stronger than in Poland. The Slovak underground church sent its followers to summer camps in Poland and Polish bishops ordained Slovak priests who had secretly studied theology in Slovakia. Also, many thousands of religious books, printed by Slovaks in the West, were smuggled into Slovakia via the Polish Catholic church. Thus far I have spoken about solidarity between dissidents in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. The solidarity of the noncommunist Central European countries, Germany and Austria, was reflected in their political and moral support for dissidents in communist countries and their acceptance of refugees from those countries. Some refugees escaped in a spectacular manner. At the beginning of the l 980's a Slovak flew across the border to Austria in a balloon which he had made by sewing together a bunch of raincoats. Another built himself a cart, which he then suspended from a high-voltage power line that went to Austria and he pulled himself across the border on the suspended cart! Twenty years ago NATO's decision to install medium-range missiles in Germany provoked a heated debate. The Eastern bloc responded with threats of military countermeasures. Pershing missiles were eventually placed in Germany. We dissidents supported this move. We knew that the Communists only understood the use of force, and it was ultimately the demonstrated strength of the West, and the internal dissent in Central Europe, that led to the fall of Communism. Central Europe resurrected itself after the fall of Communism. Austria abolished its visa requirements for us as early as December, 1989. As a result, huge crowds of people moved across the breached Iron Curtain. I was among them. Even though my home �SLOVAKIA 61 town of Bratislava borders on Austria, I was 46 years old before I could cross this border! Democratic revolutions in 1989 brought people who shared the same values of a civic society to power. The time had come to demonstrate that these common values really counted for us . We faced the challenge of completing the reverse trend and bringing cooperation to Central Europe, and even a new integration. It was necessary first to remove certain remnants of Communism. In July, 1991 the Warsaw Pact was formally dissolved. At the same time, the Council for Economic Assistance (COMECON) was abolished. This decision was controversial because for four decades the economies of the states of East Central Europe had focussed on eastern markets, and these were suddenly gone. COMECON's member states now traded with each other only on the basis of market demands. Prices were also allowed to reflect market forces. At the same time, Russia started to sell these countries raw materials at world prices and for world currencies. At the fall of Communism two slogans common to all Central European countries suddenly rang out. They were "Free Elections," and "Back to Europe." Free elections did take place in all these countries during 1990. However, joining the European Union was another matter. Brussels was far away and the roads leading to it were fraught with difficulties. It would first be necessary to bring post-communist Central European countries back together. The initiative came from President Vaclav Havel. In February of 1990 Havel invited the Prime Ministers of Poland and Hungary to a meeting with their Czechoslovak counterpart in Bratislava. The plan was to get these three states to cooperate in the future. At their second meeting in Visegrad, Hungary, in 1991, this coalition acquired its name from this historic locality where, in the 14th �62 SLOVAKIA century the Kings of Poland, Bohemia and Hungary had agreed upon peace and mutual trade. In its short history, the Visegrad Group has been through a period of growth and decline. The geographical location, common history, interconnected economy and identical external interests of these countries pushed them into close cooperation. However, Vaclav Klaus's government in Prague did not place much importance on cooperation in the Visegrad Group. Similarly, Vladimir Meciar's government in Bratislava looked for other ways to achieve its goals. With a change in government in 1998 in both Prague and Bratislava, the situation improved and the Visegrad Group caught its second wind. Slovakia's membership is important for the Visegrad Group, which has no formal standing. Slovakia lies in its centre and is the only country to border all three of the others. Without Slovakia's active participation, the Visegrad Group would lose many of its advantages. Membership in the Visegrad Group does not remove all of the disputes between its members, but it does make resolving them easier. One such dispute was the completion of the joint Czechoslovak-Hungarian Gabcikovo waterworks on the Danube River. After the collapse of Communism, Hungary opposed the completion of these waterworks. Following a mutual agreement in 1992, both countries requested a ruling from the International Court of Justice in the Hague. Five years later the Court ruled that Slovakia was almost entirely in the right. The Gabcikovo waterwt>rks stopped attracting media attention and now reliably supply the grid with electricity, regulate the flow of the Danube, and have become a recreation area. The dispute between Hungary and Slovakia is over, although the technical and financial issues �SLOVAKIA 63 surrounding the Gabcikovo waterworks are still being discussed by experts from both countries. While Europe was divided ( 1945-1989), we m the East followed the grad ual formation of today's European Union with interest, envy and admiration. We did not understand all of the problems which occurred while the original six states unified; we smiled at how fishing, the production of butter, the sale of wine and the like could be problems for the member countries. Despite this, the attractiveness of the unifying Western Europe grew . After the fall of Communism all of the countries of Central Europe expressed an interest in joining the European Union . Talks of the accession of these countries to the European Union started very quickly and were completed at the beginning of the l 990's through the conclusion of European agreements on association. The European Union's entry and expansion into Central Europe is important from many perspectives. Henry Kissinger stated that when a power vacuum had formed in Central Europe in the past, Russia and Germany were pulled into and clashed over it. A power vacuum formed in Central Europe after the fall of Communism, but the European Union has filled it in . The agreements on association opened up the European market to the former communist countries. Union ' s On the other hand, the markets of post-communist countries are only gradually opening up. The European Union later established four so-called "Copenhagen criteria" for those interested in joining the Union. They are a developed market economy, the ability to cope with competition in the European Union, a stabilized democracy with guarantees for the functioning of constitutional institutions and the protection of minorities, the adoption of �SLOVAKJA 64 the European acquis communotaire and an institutional structure comparable to the European Union's . At the same time, the European Union developed a number of financial assistance programmes for post-communist countries . The European Union's political and economic criteria speeded up reforms in post-communist countries, while at the same time isolating sources of political extremism. In 1997 the European Union invited Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia to negotiate their future membership. In 1999 it also invited Slovakia, Lithuania and Latvia, as well as Romania and Bulgaria. These countries ' membership in the European Union has wide support from the population everywhere. It seems as if membership in the Union has turned into a speed trial for the governments of Central European countries . Slovakia fell out of the first group in 1997 because of the European Union's political reservations about Slovak politics at the time. The current Slovak government is trying to catch up with its neighbours and enter the European Union at roughly the same time, around 2004 . In expanding to the East, the European Union is approaching half a billion inhabitants. It will expand its territory and strengthen its position on the world playing field . At the same time, it will reach the eastern border of Western Christianity. Expansion further east will mean crossing the borders of a civilization. In fact, Greece's current membership and Bulgaria's and Romania ' s future memberships are preparing the European union for just such a step. Another western organization that has expanded its presence into Central Europe since the fall of Communism is NATO. For a while after the Warsaw Pact was abolished, the armies of its former members felt aimless. However, in 1991 the military units from former communist Central European countries took part in �SLOVAKIA operation 65 Desert Storm. Soon thereafter war broke out m Yugoslavia and again all the states contributed at least small units to UNPROFOR. In 1993 I visited a Slovak UNPROFOR corps of engineers in Croatia. They were under the command of a Canadian colonel named Harris, who was very satisfied with their performance. It was a new experience for Slovak soldiers and officers, and certainly also for Czechs and Poles and others, when they started to use NA TO terminology and operational rules. The Partnership for Peace programme enabled former enemies to come closer together and gradually unify at least their communication technology. All the ex-communist Central European countries showed an interest in joining NATO. At NATO 's Madrid Summit in 1997 , Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary were invited to join . They have since become members. Slovakia was excluded at that time. The Slovak army is now increasing its cooperation with NATO. It has liaison officers at the Brussels headquarters and membership in NATO is part of the current Slovak government's agenda. But, according to opinion polls, the majority of the Slovak population does not, as yet, support Slovakia's membership in NA TO. Germany has long been the most important country in Central Europe. From the end of the Napoleonic wars to the end of the Second World War German nationalism was a source of tension in Europe. After the defeat of Hitler, Germany turned itself around. Mostly under Christian Democratic governments, Germany achieved an economic miracle and rebuilt itself in record time. It then became a driving force for European integration, and still is today. In the 45 years since the war, Germany earned such trust from the East that there were no reservations in Central Europe about Germany' s reunification. Fran1yois Mitterand's �66 SLOVAKIA France and Margaret Thatcher's Great Britain placed greater obstacles to Germany's reunification than did Poland, Czechoslovakia or Russia. Germany acknowledged the permanence of its border with Poland and reconfirmed the invalidity of the Munich Agreement. Germany contributes the most to the European Union's treasury. British historian Paul Johnson called Germany of the l 920's a leading intellectual power. I do not intend to discuss the intellectual level of today's Germany, but politically Germany plays a very constructive role in Central Europe. Of the Central European countries, Poland is trying to present itself as a regional counterbalance to Germany. In Poland's case there is also a counterbalance to Johnson's statement on German intellect. Polish author Stan isl av Stomma wrote that Poland's intellectual potential has always exceeded its material possibilities. Unfortunately, Poland's material possibilities will probably hold back its intellectual potential for some time. Post-communist Central European countries also look to Germany with another question. Germany will have an important voice in the European Union's institutional reforms . The reforms will determine if and when the European Union will be able to accept new members. Under the current rule!>, the European Union does not have the resources to finance the development of new members from Central Europe to enable them to attain the level of the Union's current members. The countries that receive more money from the Union than they put into it do not want to share income with new members . The countries that contribute more than they take out, especially Germany, are not preparedjustifiably so-to pay more. German politicians freely answer the question of how to solve this quandary by saying that the European Union has always developed by a crisis coming along and then moving towards half-compromise. We shall see. �SLOVAKIA 67 The new Austrian government has posed a challenge for its eastern neighbours. In the Second World War, every country east of Germany, with the exception of Hungary, fought against Germany sooner or later. Some of them suffered exceptionally heavy losses. For example, Poland lost 20% of its population . Proud reminders of the Nazi regime from a politically relevant personality in Austria (forg Haider) are, therefore, unimaginable and incomprehensible in these countries. On the contrary, 40 years of denial of democracy under Communism fostered a tendency in these countries to trust democratic rules regardless of their content. Central European ex-communist countries were only able to give a constrained reaction to the new government in Austria; even more so as the harshness of the reaction from the European Union and some other countries was surprising. The division of Czechoslovakia in 1993 may seem to be at odds with the new integration of Central Europe. However, I would like to point out that in Central Europe the concept of a nation is understood in an ethnic, not in a political sense. Nations that see themselves as ethnically unique may live in one state. Two nations-Slovaks and Czechs-lived separate lives in Czechoslovakia. There was practically no common Czechoslovak culture, only Czech and Slovak cultures. The Slovak and Czech languages are similar, but they are also different. Under the communist dictatorship it was possible to silence national aspirations, but after the restoration of freedom the different political conceptions of the Czechs and Slovaks grew. The 1992 elections (the first free ones since 1946) brought very different political parties into power in Slovakia and in the Czech Lands, and these parties agreed to divide the country, and the Czechoslovak Federal Parliament then adopted the Constitutional Law on the Division of Czechoslovakia. �68 SLOVAKIA Happily, the story does not end there. After the breakup, Slovakia and the Czech Republic maintained fair or even friendly relations . When there were politically different governments in Prague and Bratislava, relations between the Republics were fair; when there are similar political parties in power in Prague and Bratislava, relations are friendly. The people of Slovakia and the Czech Republic have remained on friendly terms. According to public opinion surveys in Slovakia, the Czechs are the Slovaks ' favourite nation , and vice-versa. Slovak and Czech delegations generally support each other at international conferences. In the last few weeks the governments and parliaments of both countries have approved an agreement on the property settlement of the division of the former Czec hoslovakia. Both cooperate within the Visegrad group and their foreign policies are equally oriented towards western integration and security groups. On the other hand, the division of Czechoslovakia is final and there is no desire to resurrect it. Only one political party in 1994 ran on a pro-Czec hoslovak platform and it received a paltry one per cent of the vote. If we compare political developments in the two Republics since the "velvet divorce," Slovakia 's history has probably been more colourful. First, the Slovaks removed certain doubts about the viability of their state. Slovakia ' s economy also did fairly well despite a rather odd dispute between Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar and President Michal Kovac . The dispute did not escalate into a shooting war, but did result in the abduction of the president 's son to Austria. In 1999 the Slovak Parliament revoked the immunity of Ivan Lexa, the previous head of the secret service, who was suspected of having masterminded the abduction. In the seven years of Slovakia's independence there were three changes of government between political groups so opposed to each other that they were able to abduct or tolerate the abduc- �69 SLOVAKJA tion of one of their sons. Despite this, all the political changes took place democratically, within the parameters of the Constitution and on the basis of freely-held elections . In September of 1998, 84% of the electorate turned out to vote in the parliamentary elections. After 40 years of communism democracy works in strange ways. I often mention such figures as proof of the strength of democracy in Slovakia. I admit that it is sometimes necessary to make more of an effort for democracy to function in Slovakia than in other countries. But, it has always worked out. The sometimes strange workings of democracy in post- communist countries directly relate to their communist heritage. Communism ended in a sudden collapse but it soon became apparent that the Communists quickly found their way in the new social order. The Communist Parties changed their names and became Socialist Parties and former Communists appeared in other parties as well. After a short period of anti-communist enthusiasm in 1990 came the realization that economics, culture and politics are more complicated. It is not possible to replace people en masse because there are simply not enough experts to go around and certain stages of development cannot be omitted. In one country after another the former Communists were so successful in elections and constitutional cohabitation that even France was amazed . But the market economy was not disrupted and democracy survived . This is testimony to the strength of western democratic and political institutions which have come to the East. Just to complete the picture, I will mention that the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFT A) has existed since 1993. Originally it was between the Visegrad Group, but later it was joined by Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania. The Agreement liberalized trade between the participating countries and, except for agricultural products, it works well. �70 SLOYAKlA Another attempt at cooperation between Central and Eastern European countries is the Central European Initiative. It was established in 1989 as an association of four states (Italy, Austria, Hungary and Yugoslavia) at Italy's initiative. Today it includes sixteen states. Its aim is, not only economic cooperation, but also cultural and political, especially assistance in associating its members with the European Union. The Central European Initiative, on the other hand, is stagnating . Every generation has the tendency to talk about a change of paradigm brought about by its own efforts. Who would not want to change the world, even if we cannot explain it? Why should we give up this ambition? All the more so because the paradigm has changed. For centuries European history was marked by conflicts between Gennany and France. It seems that these conflicts are over. In the twentieth century two World Wars started in Central Europe. I do not see a source of tension here that could lead to another such conflict. Now the most serious dispute in Western and Central Europe is the " Beef War" between France and Great Britain. As long as we do not ask the poor cows for their opinion , we can really talk about a change of paradigm. If in future decades we manage to expand the zone of peace further cast, and even to the Balkans , then Isaiah 's words might come to apply to Europe: "He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation , neither shall they learn war any more ." � 57 SLOVAKJA Reversing the Trend: Central Europe from Dictatorship to Democracy 1 Jan Camogursky A currently-popular political term is "globalization." Seen from a North American perspective, it is very real. When one reads American or Canadian newspapers, magazines or books, the globe seems to be a tiny button. Planes and boats filled with goods dash from one continent to the next. Billions of dollars are transferred via computers and satellites. Television viewers can instantly discover if it is hot or cold in distant parts of the world on the Weather Channel. Its pictures show continents without state borders, and the sky above them is either sunny and clear or cloudy and raining. Some observers praise globalization, some protest against it, but it probably cannot be stopped. Central Europe has given the world many scientific, economic and cultural stimuli from which globalization evolved. The territory between Ukraine and Germany, Scandinavia and the Balkans, is only about 1/10 the size of Canada, but it has six times as many inhabitants. A multitude of nations exist here, sometimes at peace, and sometimes at war. In the 20th century the Slavs and Germans clashed in two World Wars, into which Canada and the United States were drawn. American and Canadian military cemeteries in Europe speak dramatically about Central Europe's signi1 A public lecture presented at the University of Ottawa on Ferbruary 29, 2000. �58 SLOVAKIA ficance to these two countries. On the other hand, Central Europe also produced Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig Von Beethoven, Antonin Dvorak, Albert Einstein and John Paul II . Central Europe has been a problem for the Great Powers in the last two centuries , and after World War II it became especially acute. The victorious Allies solved the problem by erasing it. They divided Central Europe between them and for four decades it disappeared from the political map. Ironically enough, Central Europe at this time groaned under the highest concentration of soldiers and weapons in the history of mankind. Even though it was divided, Central Europe continued to exist. One Austrian publicist commented that Central Europe is everywhere where cafes serve soda water with black coffee. Such coffee and soda continued to be served in Warsaw, Munich, Vienna, Budapest and Bratislava. Central Europe also had a foreign social system forced upon it. This foreign system provoked isolated explosions against it: in East Berlin in 1953; in Poznan and Budapest in 1956; in Prague and Bratislava in 1968; and in Gdansk in 1980. All were suppressed by external forces (or the threat of such force) and all evoked a feeling of solidarity among the nations of Central Europe. Before World War II every Central European country , except Switzerland, had disputes with its neighbours. Repeated interventions by the Soviet Union led Central Europeans to a new awareness of their common suffering. Eventually, Central European dissidents started to cooperate. In the 1960's opponents of the various communist regimes, who had been imprisoned in the I 950's, were released. It became possible, though with much difficulty, for people to travel between Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. The level of freedom in these countries varied. In 1968 Czechoslovakia was the most free, �SLOVAKIA 59 and Polish and Hungarian political emigres in the West were able to bring forbidden books, magazines and photocopying machines to their respective countries via Czechoslovakia. In the l 970's and l 980's more liberal conditions prevailed in Hungary and Poland, and forbidden materials could be smuggled into Czechoslovakia from those countries. After the establishment of the Charter'77 movement in Czechoslovakia, dissidents in Hungary and Poland helped out. In the second half of the l 980's I twice met with Czech and Polish dissidents on the border. The first meeting was carefully planned. A few people on each side agreed on a place and time in northern Moravia. There the border runs through deep forests . Even though dissidents on both sides of the border had had their passports confiscated, they could approach the border in groups of two or three, ostensibly to pick mushrooms. After about an hour's walk, we arrived at the agreed-upon rendezvous and in the next three or four hours planned our future activities. The most prominent participant from the Czechoslovak side at the first meeting was Vaclav Havel. All the leading Polish dissidents, except Lech Walesa (who was interned by General Jaruzelski), were there. The second meeting took place in the early summer of 1989, when a free election had already been scheduled in Poland . Many of the participants were subsequently elected to the Polish Parliament. As MP's they had diplomatic passports, and they used them to visit us in August. The end of communism in 1989 was full of paradoxes. When Tadeusz Mazowiecki won the elections in Poland and came to power, I was in a Bratislava jail. Vaclav Havel then wrote to Mazowiecki and asked him to intervene with the Czechoslovak authorities on my behalf. Mazowiecki sent his reply to Havel via the-then communist Polish Ambassador in Prague! �60 SLOVAKIA Religious activists in Slovakia and Poland were very close. Religious oppression in Slovakia was much stronger than in Poland. The Slovak underground church sent its followers to summer camps in Poland and Polish bishops ordained Slovak priests who had secretly studied theology in Slovakia. Also, many thousands of religious books, printed by Slovaks in the West, were smuggled into Slovakia via the Polish Catholic church. Thus far I have spoken about solidarity between dissidents in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. The solidarity of the noncommunist Central European countries, Germany and Austria, was reflected in their political and moral support for dissidents in communist countries and their acceptance of refugees from those countries. Some refugees escaped in a spectacular manner. At the beginning of the l 980's a Slovak flew across the border to Austria in a balloon which he had made by sewing together a bunch of raincoats. Another built himself a cart, which he then suspended from a high-voltage power line that went to Austria and he pulled himself across the border on the suspended cart! Twenty years ago NATO's decision to install medium-range missiles in Germany provoked a heated debate. The Eastern bloc responded with threats of military countermeasures. Pershing missiles were eventually placed in Germany. We dissidents supported this move. We knew that the Communists only understood the use of force, and it was ultimately the demonstrated strength of the West, and the internal dissent in Central Europe, that led to the fall of Communism. Central Europe resurrected itself after the fall of Communism. Austria abolished its visa requirements for us as early as December, 1989. As a result, huge crowds of people moved across the breached Iron Curtain. I was among them. Even though my home �SLOVAKIA 61 town of Bratislava borders on Austria, I was 46 years old before I could cross this border! Democratic revolutions in 1989 brought people who shared the same values of a civic society to power. The time had come to demonstrate that these common values really counted for us . We faced the challenge of completing the reverse trend and bringing cooperation to Central Europe, and even a new integration. It was necessary first to remove certain remnants of Communism. In July, 1991 the Warsaw Pact was formally dissolved. At the same time, the Council for Economic Assistance (COMECON) was abolished. This decision was controversial because for four decades the economies of the states of East Central Europe had focussed on eastern markets, and these were suddenly gone. COMECON's member states now traded with each other only on the basis of market demands. Prices were also allowed to reflect market forces. At the same time, Russia started to sell these countries raw materials at world prices and for world currencies. At the fall of Communism two slogans common to all Central European countries suddenly rang out. They were "Free Elections," and "Back to Europe." Free elections did take place in all these countries during 1990. However, joining the European Union was another matter. Brussels was far away and the roads leading to it were fraught with difficulties. It would first be necessary to bring post-communist Central European countries back together. The initiative came from President Vaclav Havel. In February of 1990 Havel invited the Prime Ministers of Poland and Hungary to a meeting with their Czechoslovak counterpart in Bratislava. The plan was to get these three states to cooperate in the future. At their second meeting in Visegrad, Hungary, in 1991, this coalition acquired its name from this historic locality where, in the 14th �62 SLOVAKIA century the Kings of Poland, Bohemia and Hungary had agreed upon peace and mutual trade. In its short history, the Visegrad Group has been through a period of growth and decline. The geographical location, common history, interconnected economy and identical external interests of these countries pushed them into close cooperation. However, Vaclav Klaus's government in Prague did not place much importance on cooperation in the Visegrad Group. Similarly, Vladimir Meciar's government in Bratislava looked for other ways to achieve its goals. With a change in government in 1998 in both Prague and Bratislava, the situation improved and the Visegrad Group caught its second wind. Slovakia's membership is important for the Visegrad Group, which has no formal standing. Slovakia lies in its centre and is the only country to border all three of the others. Without Slovakia's active participation, the Visegrad Group would lose many of its advantages. Membership in the Visegrad Group does not remove all of the disputes between its members, but it does make resolving them easier. One such dispute was the completion of the joint Czechoslovak-Hungarian Gabcikovo waterworks on the Danube River. After the collapse of Communism, Hungary opposed the completion of these waterworks. Following a mutual agreement in 1992, both countries requested a ruling from the International Court of Justice in the Hague. Five years later the Court ruled that Slovakia was almost entirely in the right. The Gabcikovo waterwt>rks stopped attracting media attention and now reliably supply the grid with electricity, regulate the flow of the Danube, and have become a recreation area. The dispute between Hungary and Slovakia is over, although the technical and financial issues �SLOVAKIA 63 surrounding the Gabcikovo waterworks are still being discussed by experts from both countries. While Europe was divided ( 1945-1989), we m the East followed the grad ual formation of today's European Union with interest, envy and admiration. We did not understand all of the problems which occurred while the original six states unified; we smiled at how fishing, the production of butter, the sale of wine and the like could be problems for the member countries. Despite this, the attractiveness of the unifying Western Europe grew . After the fall of Communism all of the countries of Central Europe expressed an interest in joining the European Union . Talks of the accession of these countries to the European Union started very quickly and were completed at the beginning of the l 990's through the conclusion of European agreements on association. The European Union's entry and expansion into Central Europe is important from many perspectives. Henry Kissinger stated that when a power vacuum had formed in Central Europe in the past, Russia and Germany were pulled into and clashed over it. A power vacuum formed in Central Europe after the fall of Communism, but the European Union has filled it in . The agreements on association opened up the European market to the former communist countries. Union ' s On the other hand, the markets of post-communist countries are only gradually opening up. The European Union later established four so-called "Copenhagen criteria" for those interested in joining the Union. They are a developed market economy, the ability to cope with competition in the European Union, a stabilized democracy with guarantees for the functioning of constitutional institutions and the protection of minorities, the adoption of �SLOVAKJA 64 the European acquis communotaire and an institutional structure comparable to the European Union's . At the same time, the European Union developed a number of financial assistance programmes for post-communist countries . The European Union's political and economic criteria speeded up reforms in post-communist countries, while at the same time isolating sources of political extremism. In 1997 the European Union invited Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia to negotiate their future membership. In 1999 it also invited Slovakia, Lithuania and Latvia, as well as Romania and Bulgaria. These countries ' membership in the European Union has wide support from the population everywhere. It seems as if membership in the Union has turned into a speed trial for the governments of Central European countries . Slovakia fell out of the first group in 1997 because of the European Union's political reservations about Slovak politics at the time. The current Slovak government is trying to catch up with its neighbours and enter the European Union at roughly the same time, around 2004 . In expanding to the East, the European Union is approaching half a billion inhabitants. It will expand its territory and strengthen its position on the world playing field . At the same time, it will reach the eastern border of Western Christianity. Expansion further east will mean crossing the borders of a civilization. In fact, Greece's current membership and Bulgaria's and Romania ' s future memberships are preparing the European union for just such a step. Another western organization that has expanded its presence into Central Europe since the fall of Communism is NATO. For a while after the Warsaw Pact was abolished, the armies of its former members felt aimless. However, in 1991 the military units from former communist Central European countries took part in �SLOVAKIA operation 65 Desert Storm. Soon thereafter war broke out m Yugoslavia and again all the states contributed at least small units to UNPROFOR. In 1993 I visited a Slovak UNPROFOR corps of engineers in Croatia. They were under the command of a Canadian colonel named Harris, who was very satisfied with their performance. It was a new experience for Slovak soldiers and officers, and certainly also for Czechs and Poles and others, when they started to use NA TO terminology and operational rules. The Partnership for Peace programme enabled former enemies to come closer together and gradually unify at least their communication technology. All the ex-communist Central European countries showed an interest in joining NATO. At NATO 's Madrid Summit in 1997 , Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary were invited to join . They have since become members. Slovakia was excluded at that time. The Slovak army is now increasing its cooperation with NATO. It has liaison officers at the Brussels headquarters and membership in NATO is part of the current Slovak government's agenda. But, according to opinion polls, the majority of the Slovak population does not, as yet, support Slovakia's membership in NA TO. Germany has long been the most important country in Central Europe. From the end of the Napoleonic wars to the end of the Second World War German nationalism was a source of tension in Europe. After the defeat of Hitler, Germany turned itself around. Mostly under Christian Democratic governments, Germany achieved an economic miracle and rebuilt itself in record time. It then became a driving force for European integration, and still is today. In the 45 years since the war, Germany earned such trust from the East that there were no reservations in Central Europe about Germany' s reunification. Fran1yois Mitterand's �66 SLOVAKIA France and Margaret Thatcher's Great Britain placed greater obstacles to Germany's reunification than did Poland, Czechoslovakia or Russia. Germany acknowledged the permanence of its border with Poland and reconfirmed the invalidity of the Munich Agreement. Germany contributes the most to the European Union's treasury. British historian Paul Johnson called Germany of the l 920's a leading intellectual power. I do not intend to discuss the intellectual level of today's Germany, but politically Germany plays a very constructive role in Central Europe. Of the Central European countries, Poland is trying to present itself as a regional counterbalance to Germany. In Poland's case there is also a counterbalance to Johnson's statement on German intellect. Polish author Stan isl av Stomma wrote that Poland's intellectual potential has always exceeded its material possibilities. Unfortunately, Poland's material possibilities will probably hold back its intellectual potential for some time. Post-communist Central European countries also look to Germany with another question. Germany will have an important voice in the European Union's institutional reforms . The reforms will determine if and when the European Union will be able to accept new members. Under the current rule!>, the European Union does not have the resources to finance the development of new members from Central Europe to enable them to attain the level of the Union's current members. The countries that receive more money from the Union than they put into it do not want to share income with new members . The countries that contribute more than they take out, especially Germany, are not preparedjustifiably so-to pay more. German politicians freely answer the question of how to solve this quandary by saying that the European Union has always developed by a crisis coming along and then moving towards half-compromise. We shall see. �SLOVAKIA 67 The new Austrian government has posed a challenge for its eastern neighbours. In the Second World War, every country east of Germany, with the exception of Hungary, fought against Germany sooner or later. Some of them suffered exceptionally heavy losses. For example, Poland lost 20% of its population . Proud reminders of the Nazi regime from a politically relevant personality in Austria (forg Haider) are, therefore, unimaginable and incomprehensible in these countries. On the contrary, 40 years of denial of democracy under Communism fostered a tendency in these countries to trust democratic rules regardless of their content. Central European ex-communist countries were only able to give a constrained reaction to the new government in Austria; even more so as the harshness of the reaction from the European Union and some other countries was surprising. The division of Czechoslovakia in 1993 may seem to be at odds with the new integration of Central Europe. However, I would like to point out that in Central Europe the concept of a nation is understood in an ethnic, not in a political sense. Nations that see themselves as ethnically unique may live in one state. Two nations-Slovaks and Czechs-lived separate lives in Czechoslovakia. There was practically no common Czechoslovak culture, only Czech and Slovak cultures. The Slovak and Czech languages are similar, but they are also different. Under the communist dictatorship it was possible to silence national aspirations, but after the restoration of freedom the different political conceptions of the Czechs and Slovaks grew. The 1992 elections (the first free ones since 1946) brought very different political parties into power in Slovakia and in the Czech Lands, and these parties agreed to divide the country, and the Czechoslovak Federal Parliament then adopted the Constitutional Law on the Division of Czechoslovakia. �68 SLOVAKIA Happily, the story does not end there. After the breakup, Slovakia and the Czech Republic maintained fair or even friendly relations . When there were politically different governments in Prague and Bratislava, relations between the Republics were fair; when there are similar political parties in power in Prague and Bratislava, relations are friendly. The people of Slovakia and the Czech Republic have remained on friendly terms. According to public opinion surveys in Slovakia, the Czechs are the Slovaks ' favourite nation , and vice-versa. Slovak and Czech delegations generally support each other at international conferences. In the last few weeks the governments and parliaments of both countries have approved an agreement on the property settlement of the division of the former Czec hoslovakia. Both cooperate within the Visegrad group and their foreign policies are equally oriented towards western integration and security groups. On the other hand, the division of Czechoslovakia is final and there is no desire to resurrect it. Only one political party in 1994 ran on a pro-Czec hoslovak platform and it received a paltry one per cent of the vote. If we compare political developments in the two Republics since the "velvet divorce," Slovakia 's history has probably been more colourful. First, the Slovaks removed certain doubts about the viability of their state. Slovakia ' s economy also did fairly well despite a rather odd dispute between Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar and President Michal Kovac . The dispute did not escalate into a shooting war, but did result in the abduction of the president 's son to Austria. In 1999 the Slovak Parliament revoked the immunity of Ivan Lexa, the previous head of the secret service, who was suspected of having masterminded the abduction. In the seven years of Slovakia's independence there were three changes of government between political groups so opposed to each other that they were able to abduct or tolerate the abduc- �69 SLOVAKJA tion of one of their sons. Despite this, all the political changes took place democratically, within the parameters of the Constitution and on the basis of freely-held elections . In September of 1998, 84% of the electorate turned out to vote in the parliamentary elections. After 40 years of communism democracy works in strange ways. I often mention such figures as proof of the strength of democracy in Slovakia. I admit that it is sometimes necessary to make more of an effort for democracy to function in Slovakia than in other countries. But, it has always worked out. The sometimes strange workings of democracy in post- communist countries directly relate to their communist heritage. Communism ended in a sudden collapse but it soon became apparent that the Communists quickly found their way in the new social order. The Communist Parties changed their names and became Socialist Parties and former Communists appeared in other parties as well. After a short period of anti-communist enthusiasm in 1990 came the realization that economics, culture and politics are more complicated. It is not possible to replace people en masse because there are simply not enough experts to go around and certain stages of development cannot be omitted. In one country after another the former Communists were so successful in elections and constitutional cohabitation that even France was amazed . But the market economy was not disrupted and democracy survived . This is testimony to the strength of western democratic and political institutions which have come to the East. Just to complete the picture, I will mention that the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFT A) has existed since 1993. Originally it was between the Visegrad Group, but later it was joined by Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania. The Agreement liberalized trade between the participating countries and, except for agricultural products, it works well. �70 SLOYAKlA Another attempt at cooperation between Central and Eastern European countries is the Central European Initiative. It was established in 1989 as an association of four states (Italy, Austria, Hungary and Yugoslavia) at Italy's initiative. Today it includes sixteen states. Its aim is, not only economic cooperation, but also cultural and political, especially assistance in associating its members with the European Union. The Central European Initiative, on the other hand, is stagnating . Every generation has the tendency to talk about a change of paradigm brought about by its own efforts. Who would not want to change the world, even if we cannot explain it? Why should we give up this ambition? All the more so because the paradigm has changed. For centuries European history was marked by conflicts between Gennany and France. It seems that these conflicts are over. In the twentieth century two World Wars started in Central Europe. I do not see a source of tension here that could lead to another such conflict. Now the most serious dispute in Western and Central Europe is the " Beef War" between France and Great Britain. As long as we do not ask the poor cows for their opinion , we can really talk about a change of paradigm. If in future decades we manage to expand the zone of peace further cast, and even to the Balkans , then Isaiah 's words might come to apply to Europe: "He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation , neither shall they learn war any more ." � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 2003, Vol. 37 Description An account of the resource Vol. 37 (No. 68-69), 2003. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document 57 SLOVAKJA Reversing the Trend: Central Europe from Dictatorship to Democracy 1 Jan Camogursky A currently-popular political term is "globalization." Seen from a North American perspective, it is very real. When one reads American or Canadian newspapers, magazines or books, the globe seems to be a tiny button. Planes and boats filled with goods dash from one continent to the next. Billions of dollars are transferred via computers and satellites. Television viewers can instantly discover if it is hot or cold in distant parts of the world on the Weather Channel. Its pictures show continents without state borders, and the sky above them is either sunny and clear or cloudy and raining. Some observers praise globalization, some protest against it, but it probably cannot be stopped. Central Europe has given the world many scientific, economic and cultural stimuli from which globalization evolved. The territory between Ukraine and Germany, Scandinavia and the Balkans, is only about 1/10 the size of Canada, but it has six times as many inhabitants. A multitude of nations exist here, sometimes at peace, and sometimes at war. In the 20th century the Slavs and Germans clashed in two World Wars, into which Canada and the United States were drawn. American and Canadian military cemeteries in Europe speak dramatically about Central Europe's signi1 A public lecture presented at the University of Ottawa on Ferbruary 29, 2000. 58 SLOVAKIA ficance to these two countries. On the other hand, Central Europe also produced Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig Von Beethoven, Antonin Dvorak, Albert Einstein and John Paul II . Central Europe has been a problem for the Great Powers in the last two centuries , and after World War II it became especially acute. The victorious Allies solved the problem by erasing it. They divided Central Europe between them and for four decades it disappeared from the political map. Ironically enough, Central Europe at this time groaned under the highest concentration of soldiers and weapons in the history of mankind. Even though it was divided, Central Europe continued to exist. One Austrian publicist commented that Central Europe is everywhere where cafes serve soda water with black coffee. Such coffee and soda continued to be served in Warsaw, Munich, Vienna, Budapest and Bratislava. Central Europe also had a foreign social system forced upon it. This foreign system provoked isolated explosions against it: in East Berlin in 1953; in Poznan and Budapest in 1956; in Prague and Bratislava in 1968; and in Gdansk in 1980. All were suppressed by external forces (or the threat of such force) and all evoked a feeling of solidarity among the nations of Central Europe. Before World War II every Central European country , except Switzerland, had disputes with its neighbours. Repeated interventions by the Soviet Union led Central Europeans to a new awareness of their common suffering. Eventually, Central European dissidents started to cooperate. In the 1960's opponents of the various communist regimes, who had been imprisoned in the I 950's, were released. It became possible, though with much difficulty, for people to travel between Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. The level of freedom in these countries varied. In 1968 Czechoslovakia was the most free, SLOVAKIA 59 and Polish and Hungarian political emigres in the West were able to bring forbidden books, magazines and photocopying machines to their respective countries via Czechoslovakia. In the l 970's and l 980's more liberal conditions prevailed in Hungary and Poland, and forbidden materials could be smuggled into Czechoslovakia from those countries. After the establishment of the Charter'77 movement in Czechoslovakia, dissidents in Hungary and Poland helped out. In the second half of the l 980's I twice met with Czech and Polish dissidents on the border. The first meeting was carefully planned. A few people on each side agreed on a place and time in northern Moravia. There the border runs through deep forests . Even though dissidents on both sides of the border had had their passports confiscated, they could approach the border in groups of two or three, ostensibly to pick mushrooms. After about an hour's walk, we arrived at the agreed-upon rendezvous and in the next three or four hours planned our future activities. The most prominent participant from the Czechoslovak side at the first meeting was Vaclav Havel. All the leading Polish dissidents, except Lech Walesa (who was interned by General Jaruzelski), were there. The second meeting took place in the early summer of 1989, when a free election had already been scheduled in Poland . Many of the participants were subsequently elected to the Polish Parliament. As MP's they had diplomatic passports, and they used them to visit us in August. The end of communism in 1989 was full of paradoxes. When Tadeusz Mazowiecki won the elections in Poland and came to power, I was in a Bratislava jail. Vaclav Havel then wrote to Mazowiecki and asked him to intervene with the Czechoslovak authorities on my behalf. Mazowiecki sent his reply to Havel via the-then communist Polish Ambassador in Prague! 60 SLOVAKIA Religious activists in Slovakia and Poland were very close. Religious oppression in Slovakia was much stronger than in Poland. The Slovak underground church sent its followers to summer camps in Poland and Polish bishops ordained Slovak priests who had secretly studied theology in Slovakia. Also, many thousands of religious books, printed by Slovaks in the West, were smuggled into Slovakia via the Polish Catholic church. Thus far I have spoken about solidarity between dissidents in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. The solidarity of the noncommunist Central European countries, Germany and Austria, was reflected in their political and moral support for dissidents in communist countries and their acceptance of refugees from those countries. Some refugees escaped in a spectacular manner. At the beginning of the l 980's a Slovak flew across the border to Austria in a balloon which he had made by sewing together a bunch of raincoats. Another built himself a cart, which he then suspended from a high-voltage power line that went to Austria and he pulled himself across the border on the suspended cart! Twenty years ago NATO's decision to install medium-range missiles in Germany provoked a heated debate. The Eastern bloc responded with threats of military countermeasures. Pershing missiles were eventually placed in Germany. We dissidents supported this move. We knew that the Communists only understood the use of force, and it was ultimately the demonstrated strength of the West, and the internal dissent in Central Europe, that led to the fall of Communism. Central Europe resurrected itself after the fall of Communism. Austria abolished its visa requirements for us as early as December, 1989. As a result, huge crowds of people moved across the breached Iron Curtain. I was among them. Even though my home SLOVAKIA 61 town of Bratislava borders on Austria, I was 46 years old before I could cross this border! Democratic revolutions in 1989 brought people who shared the same values of a civic society to power. The time had come to demonstrate that these common values really counted for us . We faced the challenge of completing the reverse trend and bringing cooperation to Central Europe, and even a new integration. It was necessary first to remove certain remnants of Communism. In July, 1991 the Warsaw Pact was formally dissolved. At the same time, the Council for Economic Assistance (COMECON) was abolished. This decision was controversial because for four decades the economies of the states of East Central Europe had focussed on eastern markets, and these were suddenly gone. COMECON's member states now traded with each other only on the basis of market demands. Prices were also allowed to reflect market forces. At the same time, Russia started to sell these countries raw materials at world prices and for world currencies. At the fall of Communism two slogans common to all Central European countries suddenly rang out. They were "Free Elections," and "Back to Europe." Free elections did take place in all these countries during 1990. However, joining the European Union was another matter. Brussels was far away and the roads leading to it were fraught with difficulties. It would first be necessary to bring post-communist Central European countries back together. The initiative came from President Vaclav Havel. In February of 1990 Havel invited the Prime Ministers of Poland and Hungary to a meeting with their Czechoslovak counterpart in Bratislava. The plan was to get these three states to cooperate in the future. At their second meeting in Visegrad, Hungary, in 1991, this coalition acquired its name from this historic locality where, in the 14th 62 SLOVAKIA century the Kings of Poland, Bohemia and Hungary had agreed upon peace and mutual trade. In its short history, the Visegrad Group has been through a period of growth and decline. The geographical location, common history, interconnected economy and identical external interests of these countries pushed them into close cooperation. However, Vaclav Klaus's government in Prague did not place much importance on cooperation in the Visegrad Group. Similarly, Vladimir Meciar's government in Bratislava looked for other ways to achieve its goals. With a change in government in 1998 in both Prague and Bratislava, the situation improved and the Visegrad Group caught its second wind. Slovakia's membership is important for the Visegrad Group, which has no formal standing. Slovakia lies in its centre and is the only country to border all three of the others. Without Slovakia's active participation, the Visegrad Group would lose many of its advantages. Membership in the Visegrad Group does not remove all of the disputes between its members, but it does make resolving them easier. One such dispute was the completion of the joint Czechoslovak-Hungarian Gabcikovo waterworks on the Danube River. After the collapse of Communism, Hungary opposed the completion of these waterworks. Following a mutual agreement in 1992, both countries requested a ruling from the International Court of Justice in the Hague. Five years later the Court ruled that Slovakia was almost entirely in the right. The Gabcikovo waterwt>rks stopped attracting media attention and now reliably supply the grid with electricity, regulate the flow of the Danube, and have become a recreation area. The dispute between Hungary and Slovakia is over, although the technical and financial issues SLOVAKIA 63 surrounding the Gabcikovo waterworks are still being discussed by experts from both countries. While Europe was divided ( 1945-1989), we m the East followed the grad ual formation of today's European Union with interest, envy and admiration. We did not understand all of the problems which occurred while the original six states unified; we smiled at how fishing, the production of butter, the sale of wine and the like could be problems for the member countries. Despite this, the attractiveness of the unifying Western Europe grew . After the fall of Communism all of the countries of Central Europe expressed an interest in joining the European Union . Talks of the accession of these countries to the European Union started very quickly and were completed at the beginning of the l 990's through the conclusion of European agreements on association. The European Union's entry and expansion into Central Europe is important from many perspectives. Henry Kissinger stated that when a power vacuum had formed in Central Europe in the past, Russia and Germany were pulled into and clashed over it. A power vacuum formed in Central Europe after the fall of Communism, but the European Union has filled it in . The agreements on association opened up the European market to the former communist countries. Union ' s On the other hand, the markets of post-communist countries are only gradually opening up. The European Union later established four so-called "Copenhagen criteria" for those interested in joining the Union. They are a developed market economy, the ability to cope with competition in the European Union, a stabilized democracy with guarantees for the functioning of constitutional institutions and the protection of minorities, the adoption of SLOVAKJA 64 the European acquis communotaire and an institutional structure comparable to the European Union's . At the same time, the European Union developed a number of financial assistance programmes for post-communist countries . The European Union's political and economic criteria speeded up reforms in post-communist countries, while at the same time isolating sources of political extremism. In 1997 the European Union invited Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia to negotiate their future membership. In 1999 it also invited Slovakia, Lithuania and Latvia, as well as Romania and Bulgaria. These countries ' membership in the European Union has wide support from the population everywhere. It seems as if membership in the Union has turned into a speed trial for the governments of Central European countries . Slovakia fell out of the first group in 1997 because of the European Union's political reservations about Slovak politics at the time. The current Slovak government is trying to catch up with its neighbours and enter the European Union at roughly the same time, around 2004 . In expanding to the East, the European Union is approaching half a billion inhabitants. It will expand its territory and strengthen its position on the world playing field . At the same time, it will reach the eastern border of Western Christianity. Expansion further east will mean crossing the borders of a civilization. In fact, Greece's current membership and Bulgaria's and Romania ' s future memberships are preparing the European union for just such a step. Another western organization that has expanded its presence into Central Europe since the fall of Communism is NATO. For a while after the Warsaw Pact was abolished, the armies of its former members felt aimless. However, in 1991 the military units from former communist Central European countries took part in SLOVAKIA operation 65 Desert Storm. Soon thereafter war broke out m Yugoslavia and again all the states contributed at least small units to UNPROFOR. In 1993 I visited a Slovak UNPROFOR corps of engineers in Croatia. They were under the command of a Canadian colonel named Harris, who was very satisfied with their performance. It was a new experience for Slovak soldiers and officers, and certainly also for Czechs and Poles and others, when they started to use NA TO terminology and operational rules. The Partnership for Peace programme enabled former enemies to come closer together and gradually unify at least their communication technology. All the ex-communist Central European countries showed an interest in joining NATO. At NATO 's Madrid Summit in 1997 , Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary were invited to join . They have since become members. Slovakia was excluded at that time. The Slovak army is now increasing its cooperation with NATO. It has liaison officers at the Brussels headquarters and membership in NATO is part of the current Slovak government's agenda. But, according to opinion polls, the majority of the Slovak population does not, as yet, support Slovakia's membership in NA TO. Germany has long been the most important country in Central Europe. From the end of the Napoleonic wars to the end of the Second World War German nationalism was a source of tension in Europe. After the defeat of Hitler, Germany turned itself around. Mostly under Christian Democratic governments, Germany achieved an economic miracle and rebuilt itself in record time. It then became a driving force for European integration, and still is today. In the 45 years since the war, Germany earned such trust from the East that there were no reservations in Central Europe about Germany' s reunification. Fran1yois Mitterand's 66 SLOVAKIA France and Margaret Thatcher's Great Britain placed greater obstacles to Germany's reunification than did Poland, Czechoslovakia or Russia. Germany acknowledged the permanence of its border with Poland and reconfirmed the invalidity of the Munich Agreement. Germany contributes the most to the European Union's treasury. British historian Paul Johnson called Germany of the l 920's a leading intellectual power. I do not intend to discuss the intellectual level of today's Germany, but politically Germany plays a very constructive role in Central Europe. Of the Central European countries, Poland is trying to present itself as a regional counterbalance to Germany. In Poland's case there is also a counterbalance to Johnson's statement on German intellect. Polish author Stan isl av Stomma wrote that Poland's intellectual potential has always exceeded its material possibilities. Unfortunately, Poland's material possibilities will probably hold back its intellectual potential for some time. Post-communist Central European countries also look to Germany with another question. Germany will have an important voice in the European Union's institutional reforms . The reforms will determine if and when the European Union will be able to accept new members. Under the current rule!>, the European Union does not have the resources to finance the development of new members from Central Europe to enable them to attain the level of the Union's current members. The countries that receive more money from the Union than they put into it do not want to share income with new members . The countries that contribute more than they take out, especially Germany, are not preparedjustifiably so-to pay more. German politicians freely answer the question of how to solve this quandary by saying that the European Union has always developed by a crisis coming along and then moving towards half-compromise. We shall see. SLOVAKIA 67 The new Austrian government has posed a challenge for its eastern neighbours. In the Second World War, every country east of Germany, with the exception of Hungary, fought against Germany sooner or later. Some of them suffered exceptionally heavy losses. For example, Poland lost 20% of its population . Proud reminders of the Nazi regime from a politically relevant personality in Austria (forg Haider) are, therefore, unimaginable and incomprehensible in these countries. On the contrary, 40 years of denial of democracy under Communism fostered a tendency in these countries to trust democratic rules regardless of their content. Central European ex-communist countries were only able to give a constrained reaction to the new government in Austria; even more so as the harshness of the reaction from the European Union and some other countries was surprising. The division of Czechoslovakia in 1993 may seem to be at odds with the new integration of Central Europe. However, I would like to point out that in Central Europe the concept of a nation is understood in an ethnic, not in a political sense. Nations that see themselves as ethnically unique may live in one state. Two nations-Slovaks and Czechs-lived separate lives in Czechoslovakia. There was practically no common Czechoslovak culture, only Czech and Slovak cultures. The Slovak and Czech languages are similar, but they are also different. Under the communist dictatorship it was possible to silence national aspirations, but after the restoration of freedom the different political conceptions of the Czechs and Slovaks grew. The 1992 elections (the first free ones since 1946) brought very different political parties into power in Slovakia and in the Czech Lands, and these parties agreed to divide the country, and the Czechoslovak Federal Parliament then adopted the Constitutional Law on the Division of Czechoslovakia. 68 SLOVAKIA Happily, the story does not end there. After the breakup, Slovakia and the Czech Republic maintained fair or even friendly relations . When there were politically different governments in Prague and Bratislava, relations between the Republics were fair; when there are similar political parties in power in Prague and Bratislava, relations are friendly. The people of Slovakia and the Czech Republic have remained on friendly terms. According to public opinion surveys in Slovakia, the Czechs are the Slovaks ' favourite nation , and vice-versa. Slovak and Czech delegations generally support each other at international conferences. In the last few weeks the governments and parliaments of both countries have approved an agreement on the property settlement of the division of the former Czec hoslovakia. Both cooperate within the Visegrad group and their foreign policies are equally oriented towards western integration and security groups. On the other hand, the division of Czechoslovakia is final and there is no desire to resurrect it. Only one political party in 1994 ran on a pro-Czec hoslovak platform and it received a paltry one per cent of the vote. If we compare political developments in the two Republics since the "velvet divorce," Slovakia 's history has probably been more colourful. First, the Slovaks removed certain doubts about the viability of their state. Slovakia ' s economy also did fairly well despite a rather odd dispute between Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar and President Michal Kovac . The dispute did not escalate into a shooting war, but did result in the abduction of the president 's son to Austria. In 1999 the Slovak Parliament revoked the immunity of Ivan Lexa, the previous head of the secret service, who was suspected of having masterminded the abduction. In the seven years of Slovakia's independence there were three changes of government between political groups so opposed to each other that they were able to abduct or tolerate the abduc- 69 SLOVAKJA tion of one of their sons. Despite this, all the political changes took place democratically, within the parameters of the Constitution and on the basis of freely-held elections . In September of 1998, 84% of the electorate turned out to vote in the parliamentary elections. After 40 years of communism democracy works in strange ways. I often mention such figures as proof of the strength of democracy in Slovakia. I admit that it is sometimes necessary to make more of an effort for democracy to function in Slovakia than in other countries. But, it has always worked out. The sometimes strange workings of democracy in post- communist countries directly relate to their communist heritage. Communism ended in a sudden collapse but it soon became apparent that the Communists quickly found their way in the new social order. The Communist Parties changed their names and became Socialist Parties and former Communists appeared in other parties as well. After a short period of anti-communist enthusiasm in 1990 came the realization that economics, culture and politics are more complicated. It is not possible to replace people en masse because there are simply not enough experts to go around and certain stages of development cannot be omitted. In one country after another the former Communists were so successful in elections and constitutional cohabitation that even France was amazed . But the market economy was not disrupted and democracy survived . This is testimony to the strength of western democratic and political institutions which have come to the East. Just to complete the picture, I will mention that the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFT A) has existed since 1993. Originally it was between the Visegrad Group, but later it was joined by Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania. The Agreement liberalized trade between the participating countries and, except for agricultural products, it works well. 70 SLOYAKlA Another attempt at cooperation between Central and Eastern European countries is the Central European Initiative. It was established in 1989 as an association of four states (Italy, Austria, Hungary and Yugoslavia) at Italy's initiative. Today it includes sixteen states. Its aim is, not only economic cooperation, but also cultural and political, especially assistance in associating its members with the European Union. The Central European Initiative, on the other hand, is stagnating . Every generation has the tendency to talk about a change of paradigm brought about by its own efforts. Who would not want to change the world, even if we cannot explain it? Why should we give up this ambition? All the more so because the paradigm has changed. For centuries European history was marked by conflicts between Gennany and France. It seems that these conflicts are over. In the twentieth century two World Wars started in Central Europe. I do not see a source of tension here that could lead to another such conflict. Now the most serious dispute in Western and Central Europe is the " Beef War" between France and Great Britain. As long as we do not ask the poor cows for their opinion , we can really talk about a change of paradigm. If in future decades we manage to expand the zone of peace further cast, and even to the Balkans , then Isaiah 's words might come to apply to Europe: "He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation , neither shall they learn war any more ."  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Reversing the Trend: Central Europe from Dictatorship to Democracy Description An account of the resource Ján Čarnogurský Slovakia, Vol. 37 (No. 68-69), 2003 pp. 57-70 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Čarnogurský, Ján, 1944- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/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/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/05fe4f2f83dc4f2aa778c108aefd8aec.pdf c0a4fb8581aad0734d386ff72b9d397f PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 95 SLOVAK-POLISH RELATIONS Joanna Glowinska, ed., Stosunki polsko-slowackie w I polowie XX wieku. Wroclaw: Instytut Pami~ci Narodowej Wroclaw, 2006. 118 pp., list of abbreviations, name index. Petr Blazek, Pawel Jaworski, and Lukasz Kaminski , eds., Mirdzy przymusowq przyjainiq a prawdziwq solidarnosciq. Czesi - Polacy Slowacy, 1938-39 - 1945 - 1989, Cz~sc I. Warszawa: Instytut Pami~ci Narodowej , 2007 . 152 pp., name index. Grzegorz Motyka, ed., Sluiby bezpieczenstwa Polski i Czechoslowacji wobec Ukrainc6w (1945-1989) . Z warsztat6w badawczych. Warszawa: Instytut Pami~ci Narodowej , 2005 . 381 pp., list of abbreviations, name index. MARCEL JESENSKY University of Ottawa lnstytut Pamirci Narodowej (the Institute of National Remembrance) in Warsaw was established by the Polish Parliament in 1998 to preserve the memory of the 1939-1989 period. It is also engages in public education, research and dissemination of its findings. The three publications under review cover various aspects of Slovak Czech - Polish bilateral and trilateral relations in the 20th century. Polish-Slovak Relations in the First Half of the 20th Century, edited by Joanna Glowinska presents materials from a 2006 PolishSlovak conference held in Opole, Poland. Despite the fact that Polish-Slovak relations in the first half of the 20th century remained in the shadow of Polish-Czech relations, publications like this could signal the beginnings of a "catch-up" process. The book offers the contributions of four Slovak and three Polish historians on a wide range of topics. For the Polish contributors, Dariusz Dllbrowski examined Eastern Slovakia as a subject of PolishHungarian activities before WW II, Mateusz Gniazdowski reviewed relations between Slovak autonomists and the so-called Sanacja government of Jozef Pilsudski , and Ewa Orlof discussed relations between the Polish and Slovak governments from 15 March to 1 Sep- �96 SLOVAKIA tember 1939. For the Slovak contributors, Ivan A. Petransky evaluated the history of the Slovak Republic in 1939 - 1945, Dusan Seges discussed relations between the Polish exile government and Slovak politicians during WW II, Martin Lacko scrutinized the activities of Slovak soldiers in Poland in 1939 and 1941 and Juraj Marusiak reconsidered the Slovak National Uprising in 1944 and its consequences and the role of the Poles in the Uprising. Lukasz Kaminski concluded the conference with a comparison of Polish and Slovak positions at the end of WW II. Two additional pieces were particularly interesting. One was a review of the Polish "awakening movement" among the highlanders of the Slovak-Polish borderland (Gorals) by Mateusz Gniazdowski. The Gorals fascinated Polish "awakeners" and they considered them to be Poles because of the closeness of their dialect to the Polish language (asserting as obvious the link between language and nationality). But the majority of the Gorals in Slovakia lacked any Polish national consciousness and claimed Slovak nationality. Some Polish "awakeners" maintained the naive view that the Polish-Slovak rapprochement would persuade the Slovaks to accept Polish ethno-linguistic argumentation with the consequent border readjustment in the Slovak-Polish borderland. Thus one of the interesting paradoxes of Polish-Slovak relations in the interwar period was the fact that the persons who supported and shaped the Polish policy of rapprochement with the Slovaks advocated, at the same time, irredentism in the common borderland. Secondly, Dusan Seges's penetrating analysis of multifaceted and evolving contacts between the Polish and Slovak political authorities during WW II made a strong argument for the need to consider Slovak-Polish relations as a distinct problem, not as one element of Polish-Czechoslovak relations during wartime. It is hardly surprising that, on some historical questions, the Slovak and Polish perspectives could not be reconciled. This was demonstrated in Kaminski's concluding remarks that "Slovakia saw the war end with the losses of territories that had never been an integral part of the country, neither in a historical nor in a cultural sense." The issue of the Polish-Slovak borderland and its population remains particularly challenging, but the era of a single "correct" historical perspective has ended. The publication Between the Forced Sympathy and the Real Soli- �SLOVAKIA 97 darity. Czechs - Poles - Slovaks, 1938-39 - 1945 - 1989, Part I, contains 18 contributions of historians from Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Great Britain made within the "Enemies or Allies during WWII" segment of the November 2004 conference in Wroclaw, Poland. The History Institute of Wroclaw University and the Institute of National Remembrance jointly sponsored the conference in collaboration with the Institute For Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Thus, Slawomir M. Nowinowski presented an introductory overview of Polish-Czechoslovak relations at the outset of WW II, Jaroslav Boucek gave a picture of Poland in the work of the Czech historian Jan Slavik (1885-1978) and Anna Cichocka reviewed the portrayal of Czechoslovakia on the pages of the Polish journal Polityka in 193 8-193 9. Furthermore, Piotr Kolakowski focused his attention on the activities of Polish military intelligence against Czechoslovakia at the end of the 1930s, Robert Kowalski described Polish-Slovak relations against a background of German diplomatic activities in 1939, Pavel Micianik inspected the activities of the Slovak army during the campaign against Poland and Jan Nemecek examined the relations between the Polish and Czechoslovak governments in exile. In addition, Jacek Piotrowski observed exiled Polish president Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz and the plans for a Polish-Czechoslovak federation , Dariusz Miszewski talked about general Kazimierz Sosnkowski's views on the strategic importance of Czechoslovakia for Poland' s security in 1938-1943, Pawel Jaworski pondered on the Polish-Czechoslovak contacts in Sweden during WWII and Dusan Seges explored Karol Sidor's contacts with Kazimierz Papee in the Vatican through the memorandum La question slovaque from June of 1943. Subsequently, Roman Baron clarified the mutual perceptions of the Czechs and Poles from the perspective of Polish and Czechoslovak political emigres, Martin D. Brown shed light on the Foreign Office ' s influence on shaping British-PolishCzechoslovak relations, Radoslaw Zurawski elucidated on the Foreign Office' s role in Polish-Czechoslovak relations (November 1940-August 1942) and Vit Smetana expounded on the issue of Czecho-slovak-Polish confederation and the big powers. Finally, Jaroslav Vaculik illustrated the activities of the Czechoslovak army group in Volhynia in 1939-1940, Mecislav Barak gave details about two concepts of resistance in Tes in Silesia (Zaolzie) in 193 8-1945 and Petr Koura talked about the picture of Poland in the Czech un- �98 SLOVAKIA derground press in 1939-1945. The majority of the participants reflected, from various perspectives, upon the issues of competing Slovak, Czech and Polish territorial claims in Tesin Silesia (Zaolzie), Spis and Orava, and on Slovak-Czech-Polish regional cooperation with the emphasis on the role of Slovakia and its presence or absence. The presentations made several interesting observations and I would like to focus on two of them. Slawomir Nowikowski observed that the Zaolzie region played the role of a barometer in Polish-Czechoslovak relations in 19181938. It was a striking revelation that the Poles seemed unaware of the extent of hostility generated in Czechoslovakia by Polish territorial aspirations in Zaolzie, Spis and Orava. Accordingly, the search for a consensus in the Czechoslovak-Polish territorial issues in 19181938 appeared like squaring the circle. The Czechoslovak-Polish territorial disputes became insignificant after 1945 in comparison with the Polish territorial loses incurred in its eastern regions. Mecislav Borak demonstrated divergent attitudes of the Communists towards the territorial ambitions of their governments. While the Polish Communists condemned and distanced themselves verbally from the prewar Polish governments' foreign policies, they never abandoned Polish territorial claims in Tesin. The Polish Communists adopted the view of their bourgeois predecessors, upholding in their activities the right of self-determination of all Poles. This attitude sharply contrasted with that of the Slovak and Czech Communists who supported the abandonment of Slovak territorial claims in the Northern Spis and Orava regions. This publication advances further Slovak-Czech-Polish exchanges of views on their shared past, particularly in less researched and published topics. A divergence of views should not hamper the continuing evaluation and re-evaluation of the shared Slovak-Czech-Polish past. The publication's plentiful collection of new and older archival resources will certainly help researchers and historians dealing with the Slovak, Czech and Polish histories. Therefore, the publication is recommended reading for professional and amateur historians. The IPN 's Monografie series is dedicated to the modem history of Poland (1939-1989). Its publication The Security Services of Poland and Czechoslovakia against the Ukrainians (1945-1989) presents eight works of Polish and Czech authors dealing with the �SLOVAKIA 99 Polish and Czechoslovak special services and their activities against the Ukrainian minority and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Resistance Anny (UPA). Grzegorz Motyka introduced the activities of the security services of Poland and Czechoslovakia against the Ukrainians, Jan Pisulinski spoke about Rzeszow's security office and its activities against the Ukrainians in 1944-1956, Tomasz Balbus described anti-communist actions of the Ukrainians in south-west Poland in 1945-1954 and Mariusz Zaj<l_czkowski glanced at Polish-Czechoslovak security cooperation in the case of Jan Szpontak. Marcin Majewski, meanwhile, spoke about the case of Teodor Oak and the security operation "Paj<l,ki," Igor Halagida discussed the cooperation of the Polish State Security (SB) and the Soviet KGB against the Ukrainian minority in the 1960s, Grzegorz Motyka and Mariusz Zaj<l_czkowski documented attempts at re-writing history in the Peoples' Republic of Poland, Ondrej Koutek commented on the activities of the Czechoslovak security services against the Ukrainians in 1945-1989 and Lubos Vesely expounded on the war with the banderovci in post-war Czechoslovakia. The contribution of Tomasz Balbus attracted my attention. The governments of Poland and Czechoslovakia resolved to keep all aspects of Ukrainian nationalist expression under control and to manipulate it for their own purposes. The Polish government successfully created and maintained the perception, widely shared by the Poles until today, that the OUN-UPA activities targeted primarily the Polish population. In reality the Ukrainian nationalists hoped to liberate the Ukraine from the Soviet Union and to create an independent country. The publication concludes the current stage of research conduced by the Office of Public Education of the IPN on the Polish-Ukrainian relations in 1939-1989. Historians of Central and East Europe will find plentiful archival resources in The Security Services of Poland and Czechoslovakia Against the Ukrainians (I 945-1989). However, many interesting questions remain on the activities of the Ukrainian resistance in Poland and Czechoslovakia. Taking into account the fact that their resistance activities made substantial contact with Slovakia, Slovak scholars should also be involved in such research. �� SLOVAKIA 95 SLOVAK-POLISH RELATIONS Joanna Glowinska, ed., Stosunki polsko-slowackie w I polowie XX wieku. Wroclaw: Instytut Pami~ci Narodowej Wroclaw, 2006. 118 pp., list of abbreviations, name index. Petr Blazek, Pawel Jaworski, and Lukasz Kaminski , eds., Mirdzy przymusowq przyjainiq a prawdziwq solidarnosciq. Czesi - Polacy Slowacy, 1938-39 - 1945 - 1989, Cz~sc I. Warszawa: Instytut Pami~ci Narodowej , 2007 . 152 pp., name index. Grzegorz Motyka, ed., Sluiby bezpieczenstwa Polski i Czechoslowacji wobec Ukrainc6w (1945-1989) . Z warsztat6w badawczych. Warszawa: Instytut Pami~ci Narodowej , 2005 . 381 pp., list of abbreviations, name index. MARCEL JESENSKY University of Ottawa lnstytut Pamirci Narodowej (the Institute of National Remembrance) in Warsaw was established by the Polish Parliament in 1998 to preserve the memory of the 1939-1989 period. It is also engages in public education, research and dissemination of its findings. The three publications under review cover various aspects of Slovak Czech - Polish bilateral and trilateral relations in the 20th century. Polish-Slovak Relations in the First Half of the 20th Century, edited by Joanna Glowinska presents materials from a 2006 PolishSlovak conference held in Opole, Poland. Despite the fact that Polish-Slovak relations in the first half of the 20th century remained in the shadow of Polish-Czech relations, publications like this could signal the beginnings of a "catch-up" process. The book offers the contributions of four Slovak and three Polish historians on a wide range of topics. For the Polish contributors, Dariusz Dllbrowski examined Eastern Slovakia as a subject of PolishHungarian activities before WW II, Mateusz Gniazdowski reviewed relations between Slovak autonomists and the so-called Sanacja government of Jozef Pilsudski , and Ewa Orlof discussed relations between the Polish and Slovak governments from 15 March to 1 Sep- �96 SLOVAKIA tember 1939. For the Slovak contributors, Ivan A. Petransky evaluated the history of the Slovak Republic in 1939 - 1945, Dusan Seges discussed relations between the Polish exile government and Slovak politicians during WW II, Martin Lacko scrutinized the activities of Slovak soldiers in Poland in 1939 and 1941 and Juraj Marusiak reconsidered the Slovak National Uprising in 1944 and its consequences and the role of the Poles in the Uprising. Lukasz Kaminski concluded the conference with a comparison of Polish and Slovak positions at the end of WW II. Two additional pieces were particularly interesting. One was a review of the Polish "awakening movement" among the highlanders of the Slovak-Polish borderland (Gorals) by Mateusz Gniazdowski. The Gorals fascinated Polish "awakeners" and they considered them to be Poles because of the closeness of their dialect to the Polish language (asserting as obvious the link between language and nationality). But the majority of the Gorals in Slovakia lacked any Polish national consciousness and claimed Slovak nationality. Some Polish "awakeners" maintained the naive view that the Polish-Slovak rapprochement would persuade the Slovaks to accept Polish ethno-linguistic argumentation with the consequent border readjustment in the Slovak-Polish borderland. Thus one of the interesting paradoxes of Polish-Slovak relations in the interwar period was the fact that the persons who supported and shaped the Polish policy of rapprochement with the Slovaks advocated, at the same time, irredentism in the common borderland. Secondly, Dusan Seges's penetrating analysis of multifaceted and evolving contacts between the Polish and Slovak political authorities during WW II made a strong argument for the need to consider Slovak-Polish relations as a distinct problem, not as one element of Polish-Czechoslovak relations during wartime. It is hardly surprising that, on some historical questions, the Slovak and Polish perspectives could not be reconciled. This was demonstrated in Kaminski's concluding remarks that "Slovakia saw the war end with the losses of territories that had never been an integral part of the country, neither in a historical nor in a cultural sense." The issue of the Polish-Slovak borderland and its population remains particularly challenging, but the era of a single "correct" historical perspective has ended. The publication Between the Forced Sympathy and the Real Soli- �SLOVAKIA 97 darity. Czechs - Poles - Slovaks, 1938-39 - 1945 - 1989, Part I, contains 18 contributions of historians from Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Great Britain made within the "Enemies or Allies during WWII" segment of the November 2004 conference in Wroclaw, Poland. The History Institute of Wroclaw University and the Institute of National Remembrance jointly sponsored the conference in collaboration with the Institute For Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Thus, Slawomir M. Nowinowski presented an introductory overview of Polish-Czechoslovak relations at the outset of WW II, Jaroslav Boucek gave a picture of Poland in the work of the Czech historian Jan Slavik (1885-1978) and Anna Cichocka reviewed the portrayal of Czechoslovakia on the pages of the Polish journal Polityka in 193 8-193 9. Furthermore, Piotr Kolakowski focused his attention on the activities of Polish military intelligence against Czechoslovakia at the end of the 1930s, Robert Kowalski described Polish-Slovak relations against a background of German diplomatic activities in 1939, Pavel Micianik inspected the activities of the Slovak army during the campaign against Poland and Jan Nemecek examined the relations between the Polish and Czechoslovak governments in exile. In addition, Jacek Piotrowski observed exiled Polish president Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz and the plans for a Polish-Czechoslovak federation , Dariusz Miszewski talked about general Kazimierz Sosnkowski's views on the strategic importance of Czechoslovakia for Poland' s security in 1938-1943, Pawel Jaworski pondered on the Polish-Czechoslovak contacts in Sweden during WWII and Dusan Seges explored Karol Sidor's contacts with Kazimierz Papee in the Vatican through the memorandum La question slovaque from June of 1943. Subsequently, Roman Baron clarified the mutual perceptions of the Czechs and Poles from the perspective of Polish and Czechoslovak political emigres, Martin D. Brown shed light on the Foreign Office ' s influence on shaping British-PolishCzechoslovak relations, Radoslaw Zurawski elucidated on the Foreign Office' s role in Polish-Czechoslovak relations (November 1940-August 1942) and Vit Smetana expounded on the issue of Czecho-slovak-Polish confederation and the big powers. Finally, Jaroslav Vaculik illustrated the activities of the Czechoslovak army group in Volhynia in 1939-1940, Mecislav Barak gave details about two concepts of resistance in Tes in Silesia (Zaolzie) in 193 8-1945 and Petr Koura talked about the picture of Poland in the Czech un- �98 SLOVAKIA derground press in 1939-1945. The majority of the participants reflected, from various perspectives, upon the issues of competing Slovak, Czech and Polish territorial claims in Tesin Silesia (Zaolzie), Spis and Orava, and on Slovak-Czech-Polish regional cooperation with the emphasis on the role of Slovakia and its presence or absence. The presentations made several interesting observations and I would like to focus on two of them. Slawomir Nowikowski observed that the Zaolzie region played the role of a barometer in Polish-Czechoslovak relations in 19181938. It was a striking revelation that the Poles seemed unaware of the extent of hostility generated in Czechoslovakia by Polish territorial aspirations in Zaolzie, Spis and Orava. Accordingly, the search for a consensus in the Czechoslovak-Polish territorial issues in 19181938 appeared like squaring the circle. The Czechoslovak-Polish territorial disputes became insignificant after 1945 in comparison with the Polish territorial loses incurred in its eastern regions. Mecislav Borak demonstrated divergent attitudes of the Communists towards the territorial ambitions of their governments. While the Polish Communists condemned and distanced themselves verbally from the prewar Polish governments' foreign policies, they never abandoned Polish territorial claims in Tesin. The Polish Communists adopted the view of their bourgeois predecessors, upholding in their activities the right of self-determination of all Poles. This attitude sharply contrasted with that of the Slovak and Czech Communists who supported the abandonment of Slovak territorial claims in the Northern Spis and Orava regions. This publication advances further Slovak-Czech-Polish exchanges of views on their shared past, particularly in less researched and published topics. A divergence of views should not hamper the continuing evaluation and re-evaluation of the shared Slovak-Czech-Polish past. The publication's plentiful collection of new and older archival resources will certainly help researchers and historians dealing with the Slovak, Czech and Polish histories. Therefore, the publication is recommended reading for professional and amateur historians. The IPN 's Monografie series is dedicated to the modem history of Poland (1939-1989). Its publication The Security Services of Poland and Czechoslovakia against the Ukrainians (1945-1989) presents eight works of Polish and Czech authors dealing with the �SLOVAKIA 99 Polish and Czechoslovak special services and their activities against the Ukrainian minority and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Resistance Anny (UPA). Grzegorz Motyka introduced the activities of the security services of Poland and Czechoslovakia against the Ukrainians, Jan Pisulinski spoke about Rzeszow's security office and its activities against the Ukrainians in 1944-1956, Tomasz Balbus described anti-communist actions of the Ukrainians in south-west Poland in 1945-1954 and Mariusz Zaj<l_czkowski glanced at Polish-Czechoslovak security cooperation in the case of Jan Szpontak. Marcin Majewski, meanwhile, spoke about the case of Teodor Oak and the security operation "Paj<l,ki," Igor Halagida discussed the cooperation of the Polish State Security (SB) and the Soviet KGB against the Ukrainian minority in the 1960s, Grzegorz Motyka and Mariusz Zaj<l_czkowski documented attempts at re-writing history in the Peoples' Republic of Poland, Ondrej Koutek commented on the activities of the Czechoslovak security services against the Ukrainians in 1945-1989 and Lubos Vesely expounded on the war with the banderovci in post-war Czechoslovakia. The contribution of Tomasz Balbus attracted my attention. The governments of Poland and Czechoslovakia resolved to keep all aspects of Ukrainian nationalist expression under control and to manipulate it for their own purposes. The Polish government successfully created and maintained the perception, widely shared by the Poles until today, that the OUN-UPA activities targeted primarily the Polish population. In reality the Ukrainian nationalists hoped to liberate the Ukraine from the Soviet Union and to create an independent country. The publication concludes the current stage of research conduced by the Office of Public Education of the IPN on the Polish-Ukrainian relations in 1939-1989. Historians of Central and East Europe will find plentiful archival resources in The Security Services of Poland and Czechoslovakia Against the Ukrainians (I 945-1989). However, many interesting questions remain on the activities of the Ukrainian resistance in Poland and Czechoslovakia. Taking into account the fact that their resistance activities made substantial contact with Slovakia, Slovak scholars should also be involved in such research. �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 2010, Vol. 40 Description An account of the resource Vol. 40 (No. 74-75), 2010. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SLOVAKIA 95 SLOVAK-POLISH RELATIONS Joanna Glowinska, ed., Stosunki polsko-slowackie w I polowie XX wieku. Wroclaw: Instytut Pami~ci Narodowej Wroclaw, 2006. 118 pp., list of abbreviations, name index. Petr Blazek, Pawel Jaworski, and Lukasz Kaminski , eds., Mirdzy przymusowq przyjainiq a prawdziwq solidarnosciq. Czesi - Polacy Slowacy, 1938-39 - 1945 - 1989, Cz~sc I. Warszawa: Instytut Pami~ci Narodowej , 2007 . 152 pp., name index. Grzegorz Motyka, ed., Sluiby bezpieczenstwa Polski i Czechoslowacji wobec Ukrainc6w (1945-1989) . Z warsztat6w badawczych. Warszawa: Instytut Pami~ci Narodowej , 2005 . 381 pp., list of abbreviations, name index. MARCEL JESENSKY University of Ottawa lnstytut Pamirci Narodowej (the Institute of National Remembrance) in Warsaw was established by the Polish Parliament in 1998 to preserve the memory of the 1939-1989 period. It is also engages in public education, research and dissemination of its findings. The three publications under review cover various aspects of Slovak Czech - Polish bilateral and trilateral relations in the 20th century. Polish-Slovak Relations in the First Half of the 20th Century, edited by Joanna Glowinska presents materials from a 2006 PolishSlovak conference held in Opole, Poland. Despite the fact that Polish-Slovak relations in the first half of the 20th century remained in the shadow of Polish-Czech relations, publications like this could signal the beginnings of a "catch-up" process. The book offers the contributions of four Slovak and three Polish historians on a wide range of topics. For the Polish contributors, Dariusz Dllbrowski examined Eastern Slovakia as a subject of PolishHungarian activities before WW II, Mateusz Gniazdowski reviewed relations between Slovak autonomists and the so-called Sanacja government of Jozef Pilsudski , and Ewa Orlof discussed relations between the Polish and Slovak governments from 15 March to 1 Sep- 96 SLOVAKIA tember 1939. For the Slovak contributors, Ivan A. Petransky evaluated the history of the Slovak Republic in 1939 - 1945, Dusan Seges discussed relations between the Polish exile government and Slovak politicians during WW II, Martin Lacko scrutinized the activities of Slovak soldiers in Poland in 1939 and 1941 and Juraj Marusiak reconsidered the Slovak National Uprising in 1944 and its consequences and the role of the Poles in the Uprising. Lukasz Kaminski concluded the conference with a comparison of Polish and Slovak positions at the end of WW II. Two additional pieces were particularly interesting. One was a review of the Polish "awakening movement" among the highlanders of the Slovak-Polish borderland (Gorals) by Mateusz Gniazdowski. The Gorals fascinated Polish "awakeners" and they considered them to be Poles because of the closeness of their dialect to the Polish language (asserting as obvious the link between language and nationality). But the majority of the Gorals in Slovakia lacked any Polish national consciousness and claimed Slovak nationality. Some Polish "awakeners" maintained the naive view that the Polish-Slovak rapprochement would persuade the Slovaks to accept Polish ethno-linguistic argumentation with the consequent border readjustment in the Slovak-Polish borderland. Thus one of the interesting paradoxes of Polish-Slovak relations in the interwar period was the fact that the persons who supported and shaped the Polish policy of rapprochement with the Slovaks advocated, at the same time, irredentism in the common borderland. Secondly, Dusan Seges's penetrating analysis of multifaceted and evolving contacts between the Polish and Slovak political authorities during WW II made a strong argument for the need to consider Slovak-Polish relations as a distinct problem, not as one element of Polish-Czechoslovak relations during wartime. It is hardly surprising that, on some historical questions, the Slovak and Polish perspectives could not be reconciled. This was demonstrated in Kaminski's concluding remarks that "Slovakia saw the war end with the losses of territories that had never been an integral part of the country, neither in a historical nor in a cultural sense." The issue of the Polish-Slovak borderland and its population remains particularly challenging, but the era of a single "correct" historical perspective has ended. The publication Between the Forced Sympathy and the Real Soli- SLOVAKIA 97 darity. Czechs - Poles - Slovaks, 1938-39 - 1945 - 1989, Part I, contains 18 contributions of historians from Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Great Britain made within the "Enemies or Allies during WWII" segment of the November 2004 conference in Wroclaw, Poland. The History Institute of Wroclaw University and the Institute of National Remembrance jointly sponsored the conference in collaboration with the Institute For Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Thus, Slawomir M. Nowinowski presented an introductory overview of Polish-Czechoslovak relations at the outset of WW II, Jaroslav Boucek gave a picture of Poland in the work of the Czech historian Jan Slavik (1885-1978) and Anna Cichocka reviewed the portrayal of Czechoslovakia on the pages of the Polish journal Polityka in 193 8-193 9. Furthermore, Piotr Kolakowski focused his attention on the activities of Polish military intelligence against Czechoslovakia at the end of the 1930s, Robert Kowalski described Polish-Slovak relations against a background of German diplomatic activities in 1939, Pavel Micianik inspected the activities of the Slovak army during the campaign against Poland and Jan Nemecek examined the relations between the Polish and Czechoslovak governments in exile. In addition, Jacek Piotrowski observed exiled Polish president Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz and the plans for a Polish-Czechoslovak federation , Dariusz Miszewski talked about general Kazimierz Sosnkowski's views on the strategic importance of Czechoslovakia for Poland' s security in 1938-1943, Pawel Jaworski pondered on the Polish-Czechoslovak contacts in Sweden during WWII and Dusan Seges explored Karol Sidor's contacts with Kazimierz Papee in the Vatican through the memorandum La question slovaque from June of 1943. Subsequently, Roman Baron clarified the mutual perceptions of the Czechs and Poles from the perspective of Polish and Czechoslovak political emigres, Martin D. Brown shed light on the Foreign Office ' s influence on shaping British-PolishCzechoslovak relations, Radoslaw Zurawski elucidated on the Foreign Office' s role in Polish-Czechoslovak relations (November 1940-August 1942) and Vit Smetana expounded on the issue of Czecho-slovak-Polish confederation and the big powers. Finally, Jaroslav Vaculik illustrated the activities of the Czechoslovak army group in Volhynia in 1939-1940, Mecislav Barak gave details about two concepts of resistance in Tes in Silesia (Zaolzie) in 193 8-1945 and Petr Koura talked about the picture of Poland in the Czech un- 98 SLOVAKIA derground press in 1939-1945. The majority of the participants reflected, from various perspectives, upon the issues of competing Slovak, Czech and Polish territorial claims in Tesin Silesia (Zaolzie), Spis and Orava, and on Slovak-Czech-Polish regional cooperation with the emphasis on the role of Slovakia and its presence or absence. The presentations made several interesting observations and I would like to focus on two of them. Slawomir Nowikowski observed that the Zaolzie region played the role of a barometer in Polish-Czechoslovak relations in 19181938. It was a striking revelation that the Poles seemed unaware of the extent of hostility generated in Czechoslovakia by Polish territorial aspirations in Zaolzie, Spis and Orava. Accordingly, the search for a consensus in the Czechoslovak-Polish territorial issues in 19181938 appeared like squaring the circle. The Czechoslovak-Polish territorial disputes became insignificant after 1945 in comparison with the Polish territorial loses incurred in its eastern regions. Mecislav Borak demonstrated divergent attitudes of the Communists towards the territorial ambitions of their governments. While the Polish Communists condemned and distanced themselves verbally from the prewar Polish governments' foreign policies, they never abandoned Polish territorial claims in Tesin. The Polish Communists adopted the view of their bourgeois predecessors, upholding in their activities the right of self-determination of all Poles. This attitude sharply contrasted with that of the Slovak and Czech Communists who supported the abandonment of Slovak territorial claims in the Northern Spis and Orava regions. This publication advances further Slovak-Czech-Polish exchanges of views on their shared past, particularly in less researched and published topics. A divergence of views should not hamper the continuing evaluation and re-evaluation of the shared Slovak-Czech-Polish past. The publication's plentiful collection of new and older archival resources will certainly help researchers and historians dealing with the Slovak, Czech and Polish histories. Therefore, the publication is recommended reading for professional and amateur historians. The IPN 's Monografie series is dedicated to the modem history of Poland (1939-1989). Its publication The Security Services of Poland and Czechoslovakia against the Ukrainians (1945-1989) presents eight works of Polish and Czech authors dealing with the SLOVAKIA 99 Polish and Czechoslovak special services and their activities against the Ukrainian minority and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Resistance Anny (UPA). Grzegorz Motyka introduced the activities of the security services of Poland and Czechoslovakia against the Ukrainians, Jan Pisulinski spoke about Rzeszow's security office and its activities against the Ukrainians in 1944-1956, Tomasz Balbus described anti-communist actions of the Ukrainians in south-west Poland in 1945-1954 and Mariusz Zaj<l_czkowski glanced at Polish-Czechoslovak security cooperation in the case of Jan Szpontak. Marcin Majewski, meanwhile, spoke about the case of Teodor Oak and the security operation "Paj<l,ki," Igor Halagida discussed the cooperation of the Polish State Security (SB) and the Soviet KGB against the Ukrainian minority in the 1960s, Grzegorz Motyka and Mariusz Zaj<l_czkowski documented attempts at re-writing history in the Peoples' Republic of Poland, Ondrej Koutek commented on the activities of the Czechoslovak security services against the Ukrainians in 1945-1989 and Lubos Vesely expounded on the war with the banderovci in post-war Czechoslovakia. The contribution of Tomasz Balbus attracted my attention. The governments of Poland and Czechoslovakia resolved to keep all aspects of Ukrainian nationalist expression under control and to manipulate it for their own purposes. The Polish government successfully created and maintained the perception, widely shared by the Poles until today, that the OUN-UPA activities targeted primarily the Polish population. In reality the Ukrainian nationalists hoped to liberate the Ukraine from the Soviet Union and to create an independent country. The publication concludes the current stage of research conduced by the Office of Public Education of the IPN on the Polish-Ukrainian relations in 1939-1989. Historians of Central and East Europe will find plentiful archival resources in The Security Services of Poland and Czechoslovakia Against the Ukrainians (I 945-1989). However, many interesting questions remain on the activities of the Ukrainian resistance in Poland and Czechoslovakia. Taking into account the fact that their resistance activities made substantial contact with Slovakia, Slovak scholars should also be involved in such research.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Review Essay: Slovak-Polish Relations Description An account of the resource Marcel Jesenský Slovakia, Vol. 40 (No. 74-75), 2010 pp. 95-99 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jesenský, Marcel Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/e042cae3d975eba92d39991df47aace0.pdf 0f326f309d067af6ab96aeb8a67372ed PDF Text Text REVIEW ESSAYS ��SLOVAKIA 119 SUBCARPATHIAN RUS' AND THE NEW SLOVAK HISTORIOGRAPHY: Peter Mosny. Podkarpatska Rus ': nerealizovana auton6mia. Bratislava: Slovak Academic Press, 2001 , 2 I 6 pp. Index. Paper. Peter Svorc. Krajinska hranica medzi Sloven skom a Podkarpatskou Rusou, 1919-1939. Presov: Vydavatel'stvo Universum , 2003, 424 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index . cloth. PAUL ROBERT MAGOCSI University of Toronto As we move further and further into the twenty-first century, the former Czechoslovakia is rapidly being transformed into little more than a hi stori c memory. The first phase of memory loss about the concept of Czechoslovakia began just after World War II, when the country was reco nstituted but without its far eastern reg ion, Subcarpathian Ru s', which was formally annexed to the Soviet Union. After 1945 the concept of Czechoslovakia became one in which for all intents and purposes Subcarpathian Ru s' did not exist. Now that we are in the second stage of memory loss, which could be said to have begun with the break-up of Czechoslovakia in 1993, it is not difficult to foresee a time when the inhabitants of the Czech Republic and Slovakia will at best have only some vague recollection that their two countries once formed a single sociopolitical entity. The second stage of memory loss will be like the first, which occurred between 1945 and 1993 , when the public-at-large and sc hol ars (who should have known better) forgot that the country was founded as a state of three, not two , Slavic peoples-Czec hs, Slovaks, and CarpathoRusyns. It is interesting to note that even during the first Czechoslovak Republic (19 I 9-1938) , let alone post-World War II Socialist Czechoslovakia (1948-1989) , Slovak sc hol arl y interest in the region of Subcarpathian Ru s' and its majority population , Carpatho-Rusyns , was virtually non-ex istent. For example, during the First Republic there was a whole host of Czech scholars (Vac lav Chaloupecky, Frantisek Gabriel , Antonfn Hartl , Jiri Kral, Frantisek Tichy, among �120 SLOVAKIA others), not to mention belletrists (Karel Capek, Ivan Olbracht, Jaromfr Tomecek, Vladislav Vancura), who studied Subcarpathian Rus' or who were inspired by its landscape and people. One would be hard-pressed to find a few Slovaks who during that period evinced any interest in their Slavic brethren to the east. One could speculate about the reasons for thi s lack of interest: at the time Slovak intellectual s had enough of a challenge to demonstrate that they themselves represented a culture and people distinct from the Czechs. Moreover, in contrast to the largely urbanized Czechs, interwar Slovak intellectuals-removed from the village at best by one generation-did not have to seek, nor were they particularly interested in , an undeveloped rural area like Subcarpathian Rus' , no matter how exotic its peop le and landscape may have seemed. During the post-World War II Communist decades, neither Czechs nor Slovaks (in the unlikely case that they wanted) were able to publish about their country 's former eastern province, since Subcarpathian Rus ', or the Transcarpathian oblast' of Ukraine, was by then part of the Soviet workers' state, whose scholarly and literary circles were allowed to remember only that once their homeland had been "occupied" by "bourgeois Czechoslovakia." In short, Subcarpathian Ru s' as a subject was a taboo for Czechs and Slovaks, who in popular parlance referred to everything east of the Slovak border, including the Transcarpathian oblast' of Ukraine, as Rusko-Russia. As for the handful of Slovak scholars who during the Communist era were allowed to publish on Rusyn topics (the historian I.:udovft Haraksim, the ethnographer Jan Podolak), they were forced to focus solely on the "Ukrainian minority" (i. e., Rusyns) living in northeastern Slovakia. The political and intellectual environment has certainly changed in Slovakia since the collapse of Communist rule in l 989 and the establishment of independent Slovakia three years later. The old Soviet taboo has been lifted, and Rusyns, not only in eastern Slovakia, but also in Subcarpathian Rus ', have finally become legitimate topics of scholarly inquiry. Among the new generation of Slovak scholars who have turned their attention to Carpatho-Rusyns are the sociologist Marian Gajdos, the historian Stanislav Konecny, the political scientist Alexander Duleba, and the authors of the two books under review, Peter Mosny and Peter Svorc. �SLOVAKIA 121 Both authors examine different but related aspects of Subcarpathia' s relationship to Czechoslovakia during the period 1919 to 1945. In contrast to the Czech lands and Slovakia, Subcarpathian Rus' had joined Czechoslovakia in 1919 under the specific condition that it would granted "the widest degree of autonomy compatible with the Czechoslovak state." The proviso on autonomy was spelled out in two of the treaties (St. Germain and Trianon) signed within the framework of the Paris Peace Conference ( 1919 and 1920) and it was incorporated into the Czechoslovak Con stitution adopted in February of 1920. Mosny 's monograph focuses on three themes: the reluctance of Czechoslovakia's authorities to implement autonomy in Subcarpathian Rus' during the years of the First Republic; the form of autonomy that finally came into being in post-Munich Czechoslovakia (October 1938-March I 939); and the promises that were again made to Rusyns during World War II, when it was expected that Czechoslovakia was to be recreated according to its pre-Munich boundaries as "a state comprised of three Slavic peoples: Czechs, Slovaks, and Carpatho-Rusyns/Ukrainians" (p. 162). Mosny provides an incredible amount of documented detail for those who wish to know of Czechoslovak policy toward Subcarpathian Rus ' from the standpoint of the regime in Prague. His legalistic and often tediously dry account says virtually nothing, however, about the activity of Rusyn civic and political leaders to attain the autonomy their province was promised at the close of World War I. Mosny 's onesided approach to the problem may be explained by the fact that he used only Czech- and Slovak-language sources, a serious shortcoming for anyone interested in studying a region in which knowledge of Ukrainian, Russian, and Hungarian is essential. Far more ambitious and intellectually satisfying is the monograph by Peter Svorc. His ostensible focus is the question of the regional border between Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus' during the First Czechoslovak Republic. In fact, the book provides a wide-ranging discussion of Slovak national activists toward Rusy ns beginning already in the nineteenth century, as well as the key political issues faced by Subcarpathia' s leaders from the end of World War I to the end of World War II. Svorc is not only a specialist and widelypublished historian of eastern Slovakia in the twentieth century, but �122 SLOVAKIA he has also published several studies on specific aspects of Ru syn history, as well as the first survey of Subcarpathian Rus' in the first half of the twentieth century to appear in Slovak: Zakliata krajina: Podkarpatska Rus, 1918-1946 (Presov, 1996). The book by Svorc under review here reflects his close familiarity with the secondary literature in a wide variety of languages. Svorc has made use of materials from archives in Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Great Britain, and Slovakia, but not in Hungary or Ukraine. Particularly valuable are several historic photographs and maps that accompany the heavily-footnoted text, although considering the author's approach to the subject, it is surprising not to find a map that compares the various proposals put forth by Slovak and non-Slovak scholars in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries regarding the traditional ethnolinguistic boundary between Slovaks and Rusyns. Svorc's monograph comprises 24 chapters. Several of them provide a detailed description of the views put forth by Slovak, Czech, and Ru syn authors-Pavo! Jozef Safarik, Josef Skultety, Stefan Misik, Lubor Niederle, Samuel Czambel, Jan Husek, and Nikolaj Beskid-who in their writings tried to define the ethnolinguistic border between Slovaks and Rusyns. Svorc also deals at length with Slovak and Rusyn immigrants in the United States and their impact on homeland politics, with the Rusyn question at the Paris Peace Conference and League of Nations, with Czechoslovak administrative policy in Subcarpathian Rus ' and the efforts of Rusyn activists to attain autonomy, and with the controversy in eastern Slovakia among Slovaks and Rusyns regarding the possible unification of all or part of that region with Subcarpathian Rus '. The latter topic is only one of many in which Svorc provides new or previously littleknown information. For example, a bilateral Slovak-Rusyn governmental commission met as early as September 1919 to propose a Slovak-Subcarpathian boundary. The Slovak negotiators, who included Igor Hrusovsky, Jozef Skultety, Karel Chotek, and Yiktor Dvorsky proposed that the following "Rusyn-inhabited" areas should be united with Subcarpathian Rus ' : northeastern Saris county (including the town of Svidnfk and surrounding villages), northeastern Zemplfn county (beyond the line connecting Hanusovce and Snina), and parts of Uh county west of the Uh River (below the Vihorlat �123 SLOVAKIA ridge). The Rusyn delegation , however, refused to compromise on its demand that all of Uh and Zemplfn counties, most of Saris county, and northern Spis county around Stani r.ubovna should be included within Subcarpathian Rus '. As a result of the impasse, Subcarpathian Rus' was in the end reduced to territory east of the Uh River and eventually (after 1928) along a parallel line just west of the river that was to become an international border that remains in place to this day. Slovak-Rusyn political (as opposed to cultural) relations could be said to have begun in 1918, when the land s within the Danubian Bas in were being reconfi gured to accord with the new post-World War I international order. Since that time Slovak scholars have been very slow in coming to grips with the Rusy n lands just to the east. When Czechoslovakia existed, whether in the form of the First Republic or the post-World War II socialist state, Slovak researchers showed little or no interest in their neighbors to the east. It is only from the last decade of the twentieth century that one can finally speak of a Slovak historiography about Rusyn s and Subcarpathian Rus ' . This new tradition has certainly gotten off to a good start with serious and impartial writings by sc holars like Peter Mosny and, in particular, Peter Svare. Eighty Years of English Studies at the Faculty of Arts, ed. by Alojz Kenfz. PHILOLOGICA LX , Zbornfk Filozofickej fakulty Univerzity Komenskeho Bratislava: FFUK, 2004; 406 pages. JA.N SIMKO Washington, DC A SHORT HISTORY In 1924 English studies began at the Comenius University in Bratislava. The first professor, Otakar Yocadlo, however, resigned in February 1939 during the turbulent political developments rocking Czecho-Slovakia . The continuation of English studies was, nevertheless, secured thanks to the appointment of both one lecturer taking over the instruction of the older periods of English language and literature and the other one to teach the modern period. �124 SLOVAKIA Following the communist seizure of political power in February 1948, hotheads began urging the total elimination of English from FFUK, and, in the early I 950 ' s, no new students were admitted for three consecutive years. Fortunately, the argument prevailed that the only Slovak University in existence needed to have its own Department of English . For several years thereafter, on ly three new students were enrolled per year. In the 1960s this number was raised to 20, and later even more. So much so that, when it was later renamed the Department of English and American Studies, it was in a good position to commemorate its eighty years of existence with the publication of this festive, anniversary volume of Ang listic contributions. The total of forty-nine articles includes nine by foreign contributors and forty by domestic authors. All "guest" contributors are current or retired professors of English and are leading world experts in their respective fields of specialization. Their inclusion in this volume is justified by their positive personal relations with Slovakia and the Slovaks as attested by these facts : not only have they been for many years colleagues and friends of this reviewer but, three of them: S. Berkner, S. Noguchi, R. Quirk, and Y. Nakao's son, have paid individual visits to Slovakia, while K. Fukuda has extended his effective help to the FFUK's new Department of Japanese Studies! LANGUAGE STUDIES (1) Sergey Berkner of Voronezh University in Russia spent eight months in 1994 at Ohio State University on a Fu lbright grant. His topical contribution: "Language as an Instrument of Politics: the Role of Cliches and Ideological Lexicon," characterizes the use of language of propaganda as a strong instrument of persuasion, as illustrated by examples from Ru ssian , English , and German. (2) Shunichi Noguchi (b.1933), since 1996 an Emeritus from Osaka University of Education, sent in: "How Can We Not Mismetre Chaucer's Troilus?" He argues that Chaucer had very few specialized terms at his disposal referring to poetry. In classifying the variety of verse patterns used in Troilus, Noguchi has adopted my methods applied to the study of the word-order patterns in 15th century English, namely: "simplification and abstraction" as implemented in my 1957 book. Many typographical errors mar �SLOVAKIA 125 this valuable article. S. Noguchi is one of the world's foremost Malory scholars. The discussion of his article here has been found preferable with regard to the following: (3) Yuji Nakao (b.1935), since March 2007 an Emeritus from both Nagoya and Chubu Universities. He had spent 1967-68 at Brown University in Providence, R.I. , while I was at the same time a Folger Shakespeare Library scholar in Washington, D.C., with neither of us knowing "aught" of the other! His contribution: "On Negative Disjunctive Connectives" in Malory and Caxton of the 15th century, deals with the same material as did I in my 1957 book. While, however, I had been studying the "larger picture," that is, the word-order, he studied the small connectives: nother, neuther, neyther, nor. In the 15th century, they were interchangeable. While of an inconspicuous personal appearance, Y. Nakao is a giant in Arthurian studies. (4) Kazuo Fukuda (b. 1947), of Niigata University, sent in an article: "Theme-Rheme Articulation: A View Based on a Comparison of English and Japanese." He examines the various definitions of these terms well-known to Slovak linguists. He emphasizes the need of a functional , rather than a formalistic view of language. He has extended his generous help to the new Slovak Japanists at FFUK. LITERARY STUDIES (1) Paul Miller (b. 1926), is an Emeritus of Wittenberg University of Springfield, Ohio, where he had taught from 1961 to 1991. In his article: "In Theodore Roosevelt's Footsteps: Midwestern Writers Hunt Lion in East Africa," he offers a fascinating insight into the positive evolution of the African safari wild animal hunter and killer into a wild animal photographer. (2) David George, of Urbana University in Ohio, has, since 1986, been working on a monumental New Yariorum edition of Shakespeare's Roman tragedy CORIOLANUS (1608), to be ready at the end of 2007. In his contribution: "Coriolanus: Narrative and Mythic Sources, " he aims at establishing that, rather than having read Livy in Latin, Shakespeare consulted Livy and Plutarch in English translation. In his meticulous, "clinical" dissection, the author demonstrates that Shakespeare not only followed Plutarch �126 SLOVAKIA but also improved upon his sources, thus exemplifying the Bard's amazing mastery of Roman and Greek history and mythology. (3) Robert Fleissner retired, after 38 years of service (1967-2006), from the Central State University of Springfield, Ohio. He is an unusually prolific author, with fourteen books and 585 published articles (by 2006). Nor does he shun controversy with startling statements, such as, the ones of, respectively, 2000 and 2006 (in the Publications of the Modern Language Association of America), suggesting that Shakespeare could have studied, or spent some time, at Oxford! In his article: "Richard II in His Own Way: An Intertextual Study," he debates the question "whether the play is more of a historical play or a tragedy." He inclines to the opinion that it is "a history play with a tragic hero manque" (that is: might have been but is not). (4) The eminent Shakespearean Soji Iwasaki (b.1929) has been, among others, also a professor at Nagoya University. It is surprising that his mentor and supervisor at Cambridge (1964-66), the late eminent Shakespearean, Muriel C. Bradbrook, was, by family connections, related to Professor 0. Vocadlo, through 1939 at FFUK! Also surprisingly but significantly, the two of us have found common ground in each of us having devoted some related unconventional insights into Shakespeare's masterful comedy As You Like It (c . 1599) : he, in his contribution : "Transvestism and Social Reformation in A YLI;" and, as to me, in " W. Shakespeare's A YLI and Slovakia" (Almanac of the National Slovak Society, Pittsburgh 1999). The latter article compares the situation in the former Czecho-Slovakia, both after WW II in May 1945 and to the demise of Communism on November 17, 1989, to the situation following the usurper Duke Frederick's abdication in A YLI. (5) Jan Simko was, from 1945 to 1967 at FFUK, then in the U.S .A. In his contribution: "A Possible Parallel to 'Shall I Die?' A Poem Attributed to Shakespeare?" he compares this poem to English poetry of the 1590s, finding it highly unlikely for it to be by Shakespeare. �SLOVAKIA 127 These contributions by mainly foreign, outstanding Anglicists , have added both luster and prestige to thi s commemorative volume published by Slovak Anglicists. Contributions by Domestic, that is, Slovak Anglicists LANGUAGE STUDIES Seventeen articles deal with the following areas: syntax; wordformation; semantics; style and stylistics; language and culture; language teaching (this is to be grouped with methodology below) ; translation (also to be grouped with translation below). Missing are articles on historical linguistics, varieties of English, etc, Seven (c.42%) of these articles quote A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (London: Longman, 1985), a seminal , monumental work created by Lord Quirk (and collaborators) of the University College, London. Although, for health reasons, he was unable to send in a contribution, his keen interest in the progress of Slovak studies of English and his April 1966 lecture at FFUK deserve special recognition. LITERARY STUDIES Out of eight contributions, English literature is di sc ussed in three; one each disc usses Canadian literature, women's iss ues, theory (realism: modified, and magic; tragedy). No article is devoted to Shakespeare or to American literature. TEACHING METHODOLOGY Nine articles di scuss various topics: the use of storytelling and drama; novels; on-line tutoring; innovative approaches; learning strategies; foreign-language teaching training. Eva Tandlichova (author of the introductory article) advocates, in her contribution: "More Autonomy ... The Need for Real LearnerCentred Teaching and Leaming." BRITISH STUDIES (2 contributions) �128 SLOVAKIA TRANSLATIONS (4 contributions) The emphasis is on quality philological preparation and a good memory. Jan Vilikovsky (former Czecho-Slovak and after 1993 Slovak Republic's first Ambassador to London) di sc usses, in his fundamental contribution: "Orwell, Politics and Translation - Notes of a Translator." He emphasizes the need to evaluate Orwell's texts with a view to the political situation in which they were written. CONCLUSION Even if considering the empty spaces in its overall coverage of the wide field of Anglistics, PHILOLOGICA LX of 2004 cannot but be evaluated as an obvious quantitative and qualitative advance of Slovak studies of English. � REVIEW ESSAYS ��SLOVAKIA 119 SUBCARPATHIAN RUS' AND THE NEW SLOVAK HISTORIOGRAPHY: Peter Mosny. Podkarpatska Rus ': nerealizovana auton6mia. Bratislava: Slovak Academic Press, 2001 , 2 I 6 pp. Index. Paper. Peter Svorc. Krajinska hranica medzi Sloven skom a Podkarpatskou Rusou, 1919-1939. Presov: Vydavatel'stvo Universum , 2003, 424 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index . cloth. PAUL ROBERT MAGOCSI University of Toronto As we move further and further into the twenty-first century, the former Czechoslovakia is rapidly being transformed into little more than a hi stori c memory. The first phase of memory loss about the concept of Czechoslovakia began just after World War II, when the country was reco nstituted but without its far eastern reg ion, Subcarpathian Ru s', which was formally annexed to the Soviet Union. After 1945 the concept of Czechoslovakia became one in which for all intents and purposes Subcarpathian Ru s' did not exist. Now that we are in the second stage of memory loss, which could be said to have begun with the break-up of Czechoslovakia in 1993, it is not difficult to foresee a time when the inhabitants of the Czech Republic and Slovakia will at best have only some vague recollection that their two countries once formed a single sociopolitical entity. The second stage of memory loss will be like the first, which occurred between 1945 and 1993 , when the public-at-large and sc hol ars (who should have known better) forgot that the country was founded as a state of three, not two , Slavic peoples-Czec hs, Slovaks, and CarpathoRusyns. It is interesting to note that even during the first Czechoslovak Republic (19 I 9-1938) , let alone post-World War II Socialist Czechoslovakia (1948-1989) , Slovak sc hol arl y interest in the region of Subcarpathian Ru s' and its majority population , Carpatho-Rusyns , was virtually non-ex istent. For example, during the First Republic there was a whole host of Czech scholars (Vac lav Chaloupecky, Frantisek Gabriel , Antonfn Hartl , Jiri Kral, Frantisek Tichy, among �120 SLOVAKIA others), not to mention belletrists (Karel Capek, Ivan Olbracht, Jaromfr Tomecek, Vladislav Vancura), who studied Subcarpathian Rus' or who were inspired by its landscape and people. One would be hard-pressed to find a few Slovaks who during that period evinced any interest in their Slavic brethren to the east. One could speculate about the reasons for thi s lack of interest: at the time Slovak intellectual s had enough of a challenge to demonstrate that they themselves represented a culture and people distinct from the Czechs. Moreover, in contrast to the largely urbanized Czechs, interwar Slovak intellectuals-removed from the village at best by one generation-did not have to seek, nor were they particularly interested in , an undeveloped rural area like Subcarpathian Rus' , no matter how exotic its peop le and landscape may have seemed. During the post-World War II Communist decades, neither Czechs nor Slovaks (in the unlikely case that they wanted) were able to publish about their country 's former eastern province, since Subcarpathian Rus ', or the Transcarpathian oblast' of Ukraine, was by then part of the Soviet workers' state, whose scholarly and literary circles were allowed to remember only that once their homeland had been "occupied" by "bourgeois Czechoslovakia." In short, Subcarpathian Ru s' as a subject was a taboo for Czechs and Slovaks, who in popular parlance referred to everything east of the Slovak border, including the Transcarpathian oblast' of Ukraine, as Rusko-Russia. As for the handful of Slovak scholars who during the Communist era were allowed to publish on Rusyn topics (the historian I.:udovft Haraksim, the ethnographer Jan Podolak), they were forced to focus solely on the "Ukrainian minority" (i. e., Rusyns) living in northeastern Slovakia. The political and intellectual environment has certainly changed in Slovakia since the collapse of Communist rule in l 989 and the establishment of independent Slovakia three years later. The old Soviet taboo has been lifted, and Rusyns, not only in eastern Slovakia, but also in Subcarpathian Rus ', have finally become legitimate topics of scholarly inquiry. Among the new generation of Slovak scholars who have turned their attention to Carpatho-Rusyns are the sociologist Marian Gajdos, the historian Stanislav Konecny, the political scientist Alexander Duleba, and the authors of the two books under review, Peter Mosny and Peter Svorc. �SLOVAKIA 121 Both authors examine different but related aspects of Subcarpathia' s relationship to Czechoslovakia during the period 1919 to 1945. In contrast to the Czech lands and Slovakia, Subcarpathian Rus' had joined Czechoslovakia in 1919 under the specific condition that it would granted "the widest degree of autonomy compatible with the Czechoslovak state." The proviso on autonomy was spelled out in two of the treaties (St. Germain and Trianon) signed within the framework of the Paris Peace Conference ( 1919 and 1920) and it was incorporated into the Czechoslovak Con stitution adopted in February of 1920. Mosny 's monograph focuses on three themes: the reluctance of Czechoslovakia's authorities to implement autonomy in Subcarpathian Rus' during the years of the First Republic; the form of autonomy that finally came into being in post-Munich Czechoslovakia (October 1938-March I 939); and the promises that were again made to Rusyns during World War II, when it was expected that Czechoslovakia was to be recreated according to its pre-Munich boundaries as "a state comprised of three Slavic peoples: Czechs, Slovaks, and Carpatho-Rusyns/Ukrainians" (p. 162). Mosny provides an incredible amount of documented detail for those who wish to know of Czechoslovak policy toward Subcarpathian Rus ' from the standpoint of the regime in Prague. His legalistic and often tediously dry account says virtually nothing, however, about the activity of Rusyn civic and political leaders to attain the autonomy their province was promised at the close of World War I. Mosny 's onesided approach to the problem may be explained by the fact that he used only Czech- and Slovak-language sources, a serious shortcoming for anyone interested in studying a region in which knowledge of Ukrainian, Russian, and Hungarian is essential. Far more ambitious and intellectually satisfying is the monograph by Peter Svorc. His ostensible focus is the question of the regional border between Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus' during the First Czechoslovak Republic. In fact, the book provides a wide-ranging discussion of Slovak national activists toward Rusy ns beginning already in the nineteenth century, as well as the key political issues faced by Subcarpathia' s leaders from the end of World War I to the end of World War II. Svorc is not only a specialist and widelypublished historian of eastern Slovakia in the twentieth century, but �122 SLOVAKIA he has also published several studies on specific aspects of Ru syn history, as well as the first survey of Subcarpathian Rus' in the first half of the twentieth century to appear in Slovak: Zakliata krajina: Podkarpatska Rus, 1918-1946 (Presov, 1996). The book by Svorc under review here reflects his close familiarity with the secondary literature in a wide variety of languages. Svorc has made use of materials from archives in Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Great Britain, and Slovakia, but not in Hungary or Ukraine. Particularly valuable are several historic photographs and maps that accompany the heavily-footnoted text, although considering the author's approach to the subject, it is surprising not to find a map that compares the various proposals put forth by Slovak and non-Slovak scholars in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries regarding the traditional ethnolinguistic boundary between Slovaks and Rusyns. Svorc's monograph comprises 24 chapters. Several of them provide a detailed description of the views put forth by Slovak, Czech, and Ru syn authors-Pavo! Jozef Safarik, Josef Skultety, Stefan Misik, Lubor Niederle, Samuel Czambel, Jan Husek, and Nikolaj Beskid-who in their writings tried to define the ethnolinguistic border between Slovaks and Rusyns. Svorc also deals at length with Slovak and Rusyn immigrants in the United States and their impact on homeland politics, with the Rusyn question at the Paris Peace Conference and League of Nations, with Czechoslovak administrative policy in Subcarpathian Rus ' and the efforts of Rusyn activists to attain autonomy, and with the controversy in eastern Slovakia among Slovaks and Rusyns regarding the possible unification of all or part of that region with Subcarpathian Rus '. The latter topic is only one of many in which Svorc provides new or previously littleknown information. For example, a bilateral Slovak-Rusyn governmental commission met as early as September 1919 to propose a Slovak-Subcarpathian boundary. The Slovak negotiators, who included Igor Hrusovsky, Jozef Skultety, Karel Chotek, and Yiktor Dvorsky proposed that the following "Rusyn-inhabited" areas should be united with Subcarpathian Rus ' : northeastern Saris county (including the town of Svidnfk and surrounding villages), northeastern Zemplfn county (beyond the line connecting Hanusovce and Snina), and parts of Uh county west of the Uh River (below the Vihorlat �123 SLOVAKIA ridge). The Rusyn delegation , however, refused to compromise on its demand that all of Uh and Zemplfn counties, most of Saris county, and northern Spis county around Stani r.ubovna should be included within Subcarpathian Rus '. As a result of the impasse, Subcarpathian Rus' was in the end reduced to territory east of the Uh River and eventually (after 1928) along a parallel line just west of the river that was to become an international border that remains in place to this day. Slovak-Rusyn political (as opposed to cultural) relations could be said to have begun in 1918, when the land s within the Danubian Bas in were being reconfi gured to accord with the new post-World War I international order. Since that time Slovak scholars have been very slow in coming to grips with the Rusy n lands just to the east. When Czechoslovakia existed, whether in the form of the First Republic or the post-World War II socialist state, Slovak researchers showed little or no interest in their neighbors to the east. It is only from the last decade of the twentieth century that one can finally speak of a Slovak historiography about Rusyn s and Subcarpathian Rus ' . This new tradition has certainly gotten off to a good start with serious and impartial writings by sc holars like Peter Mosny and, in particular, Peter Svare. Eighty Years of English Studies at the Faculty of Arts, ed. by Alojz Kenfz. PHILOLOGICA LX , Zbornfk Filozofickej fakulty Univerzity Komenskeho Bratislava: FFUK, 2004; 406 pages. JA.N SIMKO Washington, DC A SHORT HISTORY In 1924 English studies began at the Comenius University in Bratislava. The first professor, Otakar Yocadlo, however, resigned in February 1939 during the turbulent political developments rocking Czecho-Slovakia . The continuation of English studies was, nevertheless, secured thanks to the appointment of both one lecturer taking over the instruction of the older periods of English language and literature and the other one to teach the modern period. �124 SLOVAKIA Following the communist seizure of political power in February 1948, hotheads began urging the total elimination of English from FFUK, and, in the early I 950 ' s, no new students were admitted for three consecutive years. Fortunately, the argument prevailed that the only Slovak University in existence needed to have its own Department of English . For several years thereafter, on ly three new students were enrolled per year. In the 1960s this number was raised to 20, and later even more. So much so that, when it was later renamed the Department of English and American Studies, it was in a good position to commemorate its eighty years of existence with the publication of this festive, anniversary volume of Ang listic contributions. The total of forty-nine articles includes nine by foreign contributors and forty by domestic authors. All "guest" contributors are current or retired professors of English and are leading world experts in their respective fields of specialization. Their inclusion in this volume is justified by their positive personal relations with Slovakia and the Slovaks as attested by these facts : not only have they been for many years colleagues and friends of this reviewer but, three of them: S. Berkner, S. Noguchi, R. Quirk, and Y. Nakao's son, have paid individual visits to Slovakia, while K. Fukuda has extended his effective help to the FFUK's new Department of Japanese Studies! LANGUAGE STUDIES (1) Sergey Berkner of Voronezh University in Russia spent eight months in 1994 at Ohio State University on a Fu lbright grant. His topical contribution: "Language as an Instrument of Politics: the Role of Cliches and Ideological Lexicon," characterizes the use of language of propaganda as a strong instrument of persuasion, as illustrated by examples from Ru ssian , English , and German. (2) Shunichi Noguchi (b.1933), since 1996 an Emeritus from Osaka University of Education, sent in: "How Can We Not Mismetre Chaucer's Troilus?" He argues that Chaucer had very few specialized terms at his disposal referring to poetry. In classifying the variety of verse patterns used in Troilus, Noguchi has adopted my methods applied to the study of the word-order patterns in 15th century English, namely: "simplification and abstraction" as implemented in my 1957 book. Many typographical errors mar �SLOVAKIA 125 this valuable article. S. Noguchi is one of the world's foremost Malory scholars. The discussion of his article here has been found preferable with regard to the following: (3) Yuji Nakao (b.1935), since March 2007 an Emeritus from both Nagoya and Chubu Universities. He had spent 1967-68 at Brown University in Providence, R.I. , while I was at the same time a Folger Shakespeare Library scholar in Washington, D.C., with neither of us knowing "aught" of the other! His contribution: "On Negative Disjunctive Connectives" in Malory and Caxton of the 15th century, deals with the same material as did I in my 1957 book. While, however, I had been studying the "larger picture," that is, the word-order, he studied the small connectives: nother, neuther, neyther, nor. In the 15th century, they were interchangeable. While of an inconspicuous personal appearance, Y. Nakao is a giant in Arthurian studies. (4) Kazuo Fukuda (b. 1947), of Niigata University, sent in an article: "Theme-Rheme Articulation: A View Based on a Comparison of English and Japanese." He examines the various definitions of these terms well-known to Slovak linguists. He emphasizes the need of a functional , rather than a formalistic view of language. He has extended his generous help to the new Slovak Japanists at FFUK. LITERARY STUDIES (1) Paul Miller (b. 1926), is an Emeritus of Wittenberg University of Springfield, Ohio, where he had taught from 1961 to 1991. In his article: "In Theodore Roosevelt's Footsteps: Midwestern Writers Hunt Lion in East Africa," he offers a fascinating insight into the positive evolution of the African safari wild animal hunter and killer into a wild animal photographer. (2) David George, of Urbana University in Ohio, has, since 1986, been working on a monumental New Yariorum edition of Shakespeare's Roman tragedy CORIOLANUS (1608), to be ready at the end of 2007. In his contribution: "Coriolanus: Narrative and Mythic Sources, " he aims at establishing that, rather than having read Livy in Latin, Shakespeare consulted Livy and Plutarch in English translation. In his meticulous, "clinical" dissection, the author demonstrates that Shakespeare not only followed Plutarch �126 SLOVAKIA but also improved upon his sources, thus exemplifying the Bard's amazing mastery of Roman and Greek history and mythology. (3) Robert Fleissner retired, after 38 years of service (1967-2006), from the Central State University of Springfield, Ohio. He is an unusually prolific author, with fourteen books and 585 published articles (by 2006). Nor does he shun controversy with startling statements, such as, the ones of, respectively, 2000 and 2006 (in the Publications of the Modern Language Association of America), suggesting that Shakespeare could have studied, or spent some time, at Oxford! In his article: "Richard II in His Own Way: An Intertextual Study," he debates the question "whether the play is more of a historical play or a tragedy." He inclines to the opinion that it is "a history play with a tragic hero manque" (that is: might have been but is not). (4) The eminent Shakespearean Soji Iwasaki (b.1929) has been, among others, also a professor at Nagoya University. It is surprising that his mentor and supervisor at Cambridge (1964-66), the late eminent Shakespearean, Muriel C. Bradbrook, was, by family connections, related to Professor 0. Vocadlo, through 1939 at FFUK! Also surprisingly but significantly, the two of us have found common ground in each of us having devoted some related unconventional insights into Shakespeare's masterful comedy As You Like It (c . 1599) : he, in his contribution : "Transvestism and Social Reformation in A YLI;" and, as to me, in " W. Shakespeare's A YLI and Slovakia" (Almanac of the National Slovak Society, Pittsburgh 1999). The latter article compares the situation in the former Czecho-Slovakia, both after WW II in May 1945 and to the demise of Communism on November 17, 1989, to the situation following the usurper Duke Frederick's abdication in A YLI. (5) Jan Simko was, from 1945 to 1967 at FFUK, then in the U.S .A. In his contribution: "A Possible Parallel to 'Shall I Die?' A Poem Attributed to Shakespeare?" he compares this poem to English poetry of the 1590s, finding it highly unlikely for it to be by Shakespeare. �SLOVAKIA 127 These contributions by mainly foreign, outstanding Anglicists , have added both luster and prestige to thi s commemorative volume published by Slovak Anglicists. Contributions by Domestic, that is, Slovak Anglicists LANGUAGE STUDIES Seventeen articles deal with the following areas: syntax; wordformation; semantics; style and stylistics; language and culture; language teaching (this is to be grouped with methodology below) ; translation (also to be grouped with translation below). Missing are articles on historical linguistics, varieties of English, etc, Seven (c.42%) of these articles quote A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (London: Longman, 1985), a seminal , monumental work created by Lord Quirk (and collaborators) of the University College, London. Although, for health reasons, he was unable to send in a contribution, his keen interest in the progress of Slovak studies of English and his April 1966 lecture at FFUK deserve special recognition. LITERARY STUDIES Out of eight contributions, English literature is di sc ussed in three; one each disc usses Canadian literature, women's iss ues, theory (realism: modified, and magic; tragedy). No article is devoted to Shakespeare or to American literature. TEACHING METHODOLOGY Nine articles di scuss various topics: the use of storytelling and drama; novels; on-line tutoring; innovative approaches; learning strategies; foreign-language teaching training. Eva Tandlichova (author of the introductory article) advocates, in her contribution: "More Autonomy ... The Need for Real LearnerCentred Teaching and Leaming." BRITISH STUDIES (2 contributions) �128 SLOVAKIA TRANSLATIONS (4 contributions) The emphasis is on quality philological preparation and a good memory. Jan Vilikovsky (former Czecho-Slovak and after 1993 Slovak Republic's first Ambassador to London) di sc usses, in his fundamental contribution: "Orwell, Politics and Translation - Notes of a Translator." He emphasizes the need to evaluate Orwell's texts with a view to the political situation in which they were written. CONCLUSION Even if considering the empty spaces in its overall coverage of the wide field of Anglistics, PHILOLOGICA LX of 2004 cannot but be evaluated as an obvious quantitative and qualitative advance of Slovak studies of English. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 2007, Vol. 39 Description An account of the resource Vol. 39 (No. 72-73), 2007. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document REVIEW ESSAYS SLOVAKIA 119 SUBCARPATHIAN RUS' AND THE NEW SLOVAK HISTORIOGRAPHY: Peter Mosny. Podkarpatska Rus ': nerealizovana auton6mia. Bratislava: Slovak Academic Press, 2001 , 2 I 6 pp. Index. Paper. Peter Svorc. Krajinska hranica medzi Sloven skom a Podkarpatskou Rusou, 1919-1939. Presov: Vydavatel'stvo Universum , 2003, 424 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index . cloth. PAUL ROBERT MAGOCSI University of Toronto As we move further and further into the twenty-first century, the former Czechoslovakia is rapidly being transformed into little more than a hi stori c memory. The first phase of memory loss about the concept of Czechoslovakia began just after World War II, when the country was reco nstituted but without its far eastern reg ion, Subcarpathian Ru s', which was formally annexed to the Soviet Union. After 1945 the concept of Czechoslovakia became one in which for all intents and purposes Subcarpathian Ru s' did not exist. Now that we are in the second stage of memory loss, which could be said to have begun with the break-up of Czechoslovakia in 1993, it is not difficult to foresee a time when the inhabitants of the Czech Republic and Slovakia will at best have only some vague recollection that their two countries once formed a single sociopolitical entity. The second stage of memory loss will be like the first, which occurred between 1945 and 1993 , when the public-at-large and sc hol ars (who should have known better) forgot that the country was founded as a state of three, not two , Slavic peoples-Czec hs, Slovaks, and CarpathoRusyns. It is interesting to note that even during the first Czechoslovak Republic (19 I 9-1938) , let alone post-World War II Socialist Czechoslovakia (1948-1989) , Slovak sc hol arl y interest in the region of Subcarpathian Ru s' and its majority population , Carpatho-Rusyns , was virtually non-ex istent. For example, during the First Republic there was a whole host of Czech scholars (Vac lav Chaloupecky, Frantisek Gabriel , Antonfn Hartl , Jiri Kral, Frantisek Tichy, among 120 SLOVAKIA others), not to mention belletrists (Karel Capek, Ivan Olbracht, Jaromfr Tomecek, Vladislav Vancura), who studied Subcarpathian Rus' or who were inspired by its landscape and people. One would be hard-pressed to find a few Slovaks who during that period evinced any interest in their Slavic brethren to the east. One could speculate about the reasons for thi s lack of interest: at the time Slovak intellectual s had enough of a challenge to demonstrate that they themselves represented a culture and people distinct from the Czechs. Moreover, in contrast to the largely urbanized Czechs, interwar Slovak intellectuals-removed from the village at best by one generation-did not have to seek, nor were they particularly interested in , an undeveloped rural area like Subcarpathian Rus' , no matter how exotic its peop le and landscape may have seemed. During the post-World War II Communist decades, neither Czechs nor Slovaks (in the unlikely case that they wanted) were able to publish about their country 's former eastern province, since Subcarpathian Rus ', or the Transcarpathian oblast' of Ukraine, was by then part of the Soviet workers' state, whose scholarly and literary circles were allowed to remember only that once their homeland had been "occupied" by "bourgeois Czechoslovakia." In short, Subcarpathian Ru s' as a subject was a taboo for Czechs and Slovaks, who in popular parlance referred to everything east of the Slovak border, including the Transcarpathian oblast' of Ukraine, as Rusko-Russia. As for the handful of Slovak scholars who during the Communist era were allowed to publish on Rusyn topics (the historian I.:udovft Haraksim, the ethnographer Jan Podolak), they were forced to focus solely on the "Ukrainian minority" (i. e., Rusyns) living in northeastern Slovakia. The political and intellectual environment has certainly changed in Slovakia since the collapse of Communist rule in l 989 and the establishment of independent Slovakia three years later. The old Soviet taboo has been lifted, and Rusyns, not only in eastern Slovakia, but also in Subcarpathian Rus ', have finally become legitimate topics of scholarly inquiry. Among the new generation of Slovak scholars who have turned their attention to Carpatho-Rusyns are the sociologist Marian Gajdos, the historian Stanislav Konecny, the political scientist Alexander Duleba, and the authors of the two books under review, Peter Mosny and Peter Svorc. SLOVAKIA 121 Both authors examine different but related aspects of Subcarpathia' s relationship to Czechoslovakia during the period 1919 to 1945. In contrast to the Czech lands and Slovakia, Subcarpathian Rus' had joined Czechoslovakia in 1919 under the specific condition that it would granted "the widest degree of autonomy compatible with the Czechoslovak state." The proviso on autonomy was spelled out in two of the treaties (St. Germain and Trianon) signed within the framework of the Paris Peace Conference ( 1919 and 1920) and it was incorporated into the Czechoslovak Con stitution adopted in February of 1920. Mosny 's monograph focuses on three themes: the reluctance of Czechoslovakia's authorities to implement autonomy in Subcarpathian Rus' during the years of the First Republic; the form of autonomy that finally came into being in post-Munich Czechoslovakia (October 1938-March I 939); and the promises that were again made to Rusyns during World War II, when it was expected that Czechoslovakia was to be recreated according to its pre-Munich boundaries as "a state comprised of three Slavic peoples: Czechs, Slovaks, and Carpatho-Rusyns/Ukrainians" (p. 162). Mosny provides an incredible amount of documented detail for those who wish to know of Czechoslovak policy toward Subcarpathian Rus ' from the standpoint of the regime in Prague. His legalistic and often tediously dry account says virtually nothing, however, about the activity of Rusyn civic and political leaders to attain the autonomy their province was promised at the close of World War I. Mosny 's onesided approach to the problem may be explained by the fact that he used only Czech- and Slovak-language sources, a serious shortcoming for anyone interested in studying a region in which knowledge of Ukrainian, Russian, and Hungarian is essential. Far more ambitious and intellectually satisfying is the monograph by Peter Svorc. His ostensible focus is the question of the regional border between Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus' during the First Czechoslovak Republic. In fact, the book provides a wide-ranging discussion of Slovak national activists toward Rusy ns beginning already in the nineteenth century, as well as the key political issues faced by Subcarpathia' s leaders from the end of World War I to the end of World War II. Svorc is not only a specialist and widelypublished historian of eastern Slovakia in the twentieth century, but 122 SLOVAKIA he has also published several studies on specific aspects of Ru syn history, as well as the first survey of Subcarpathian Rus' in the first half of the twentieth century to appear in Slovak: Zakliata krajina: Podkarpatska Rus, 1918-1946 (Presov, 1996). The book by Svorc under review here reflects his close familiarity with the secondary literature in a wide variety of languages. Svorc has made use of materials from archives in Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Great Britain, and Slovakia, but not in Hungary or Ukraine. Particularly valuable are several historic photographs and maps that accompany the heavily-footnoted text, although considering the author's approach to the subject, it is surprising not to find a map that compares the various proposals put forth by Slovak and non-Slovak scholars in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries regarding the traditional ethnolinguistic boundary between Slovaks and Rusyns. Svorc's monograph comprises 24 chapters. Several of them provide a detailed description of the views put forth by Slovak, Czech, and Ru syn authors-Pavo! Jozef Safarik, Josef Skultety, Stefan Misik, Lubor Niederle, Samuel Czambel, Jan Husek, and Nikolaj Beskid-who in their writings tried to define the ethnolinguistic border between Slovaks and Rusyns. Svorc also deals at length with Slovak and Rusyn immigrants in the United States and their impact on homeland politics, with the Rusyn question at the Paris Peace Conference and League of Nations, with Czechoslovak administrative policy in Subcarpathian Rus ' and the efforts of Rusyn activists to attain autonomy, and with the controversy in eastern Slovakia among Slovaks and Rusyns regarding the possible unification of all or part of that region with Subcarpathian Rus '. The latter topic is only one of many in which Svorc provides new or previously littleknown information. For example, a bilateral Slovak-Rusyn governmental commission met as early as September 1919 to propose a Slovak-Subcarpathian boundary. The Slovak negotiators, who included Igor Hrusovsky, Jozef Skultety, Karel Chotek, and Yiktor Dvorsky proposed that the following "Rusyn-inhabited" areas should be united with Subcarpathian Rus ' : northeastern Saris county (including the town of Svidnfk and surrounding villages), northeastern Zemplfn county (beyond the line connecting Hanusovce and Snina), and parts of Uh county west of the Uh River (below the Vihorlat 123 SLOVAKIA ridge). The Rusyn delegation , however, refused to compromise on its demand that all of Uh and Zemplfn counties, most of Saris county, and northern Spis county around Stani r.ubovna should be included within Subcarpathian Rus '. As a result of the impasse, Subcarpathian Rus' was in the end reduced to territory east of the Uh River and eventually (after 1928) along a parallel line just west of the river that was to become an international border that remains in place to this day. Slovak-Rusyn political (as opposed to cultural) relations could be said to have begun in 1918, when the land s within the Danubian Bas in were being reconfi gured to accord with the new post-World War I international order. Since that time Slovak scholars have been very slow in coming to grips with the Rusy n lands just to the east. When Czechoslovakia existed, whether in the form of the First Republic or the post-World War II socialist state, Slovak researchers showed little or no interest in their neighbors to the east. It is only from the last decade of the twentieth century that one can finally speak of a Slovak historiography about Rusyn s and Subcarpathian Rus ' . This new tradition has certainly gotten off to a good start with serious and impartial writings by sc holars like Peter Mosny and, in particular, Peter Svare. Eighty Years of English Studies at the Faculty of Arts, ed. by Alojz Kenfz. PHILOLOGICA LX , Zbornfk Filozofickej fakulty Univerzity Komenskeho Bratislava: FFUK, 2004; 406 pages. JA.N SIMKO Washington, DC A SHORT HISTORY In 1924 English studies began at the Comenius University in Bratislava. The first professor, Otakar Yocadlo, however, resigned in February 1939 during the turbulent political developments rocking Czecho-Slovakia . The continuation of English studies was, nevertheless, secured thanks to the appointment of both one lecturer taking over the instruction of the older periods of English language and literature and the other one to teach the modern period. 124 SLOVAKIA Following the communist seizure of political power in February 1948, hotheads began urging the total elimination of English from FFUK, and, in the early I 950 ' s, no new students were admitted for three consecutive years. Fortunately, the argument prevailed that the only Slovak University in existence needed to have its own Department of English . For several years thereafter, on ly three new students were enrolled per year. In the 1960s this number was raised to 20, and later even more. So much so that, when it was later renamed the Department of English and American Studies, it was in a good position to commemorate its eighty years of existence with the publication of this festive, anniversary volume of Ang listic contributions. The total of forty-nine articles includes nine by foreign contributors and forty by domestic authors. All "guest" contributors are current or retired professors of English and are leading world experts in their respective fields of specialization. Their inclusion in this volume is justified by their positive personal relations with Slovakia and the Slovaks as attested by these facts : not only have they been for many years colleagues and friends of this reviewer but, three of them: S. Berkner, S. Noguchi, R. Quirk, and Y. Nakao's son, have paid individual visits to Slovakia, while K. Fukuda has extended his effective help to the FFUK's new Department of Japanese Studies! LANGUAGE STUDIES (1) Sergey Berkner of Voronezh University in Russia spent eight months in 1994 at Ohio State University on a Fu lbright grant. His topical contribution: "Language as an Instrument of Politics: the Role of Cliches and Ideological Lexicon," characterizes the use of language of propaganda as a strong instrument of persuasion, as illustrated by examples from Ru ssian , English , and German. (2) Shunichi Noguchi (b.1933), since 1996 an Emeritus from Osaka University of Education, sent in: "How Can We Not Mismetre Chaucer's Troilus?" He argues that Chaucer had very few specialized terms at his disposal referring to poetry. In classifying the variety of verse patterns used in Troilus, Noguchi has adopted my methods applied to the study of the word-order patterns in 15th century English, namely: "simplification and abstraction" as implemented in my 1957 book. Many typographical errors mar SLOVAKIA 125 this valuable article. S. Noguchi is one of the world's foremost Malory scholars. The discussion of his article here has been found preferable with regard to the following: (3) Yuji Nakao (b.1935), since March 2007 an Emeritus from both Nagoya and Chubu Universities. He had spent 1967-68 at Brown University in Providence, R.I. , while I was at the same time a Folger Shakespeare Library scholar in Washington, D.C., with neither of us knowing "aught" of the other! His contribution: "On Negative Disjunctive Connectives" in Malory and Caxton of the 15th century, deals with the same material as did I in my 1957 book. While, however, I had been studying the "larger picture," that is, the word-order, he studied the small connectives: nother, neuther, neyther, nor. In the 15th century, they were interchangeable. While of an inconspicuous personal appearance, Y. Nakao is a giant in Arthurian studies. (4) Kazuo Fukuda (b. 1947), of Niigata University, sent in an article: "Theme-Rheme Articulation: A View Based on a Comparison of English and Japanese." He examines the various definitions of these terms well-known to Slovak linguists. He emphasizes the need of a functional , rather than a formalistic view of language. He has extended his generous help to the new Slovak Japanists at FFUK. LITERARY STUDIES (1) Paul Miller (b. 1926), is an Emeritus of Wittenberg University of Springfield, Ohio, where he had taught from 1961 to 1991. In his article: "In Theodore Roosevelt's Footsteps: Midwestern Writers Hunt Lion in East Africa," he offers a fascinating insight into the positive evolution of the African safari wild animal hunter and killer into a wild animal photographer. (2) David George, of Urbana University in Ohio, has, since 1986, been working on a monumental New Yariorum edition of Shakespeare's Roman tragedy CORIOLANUS (1608), to be ready at the end of 2007. In his contribution: "Coriolanus: Narrative and Mythic Sources, " he aims at establishing that, rather than having read Livy in Latin, Shakespeare consulted Livy and Plutarch in English translation. In his meticulous, "clinical" dissection, the author demonstrates that Shakespeare not only followed Plutarch 126 SLOVAKIA but also improved upon his sources, thus exemplifying the Bard's amazing mastery of Roman and Greek history and mythology. (3) Robert Fleissner retired, after 38 years of service (1967-2006), from the Central State University of Springfield, Ohio. He is an unusually prolific author, with fourteen books and 585 published articles (by 2006). Nor does he shun controversy with startling statements, such as, the ones of, respectively, 2000 and 2006 (in the Publications of the Modern Language Association of America), suggesting that Shakespeare could have studied, or spent some time, at Oxford! In his article: "Richard II in His Own Way: An Intertextual Study," he debates the question "whether the play is more of a historical play or a tragedy." He inclines to the opinion that it is "a history play with a tragic hero manque" (that is: might have been but is not). (4) The eminent Shakespearean Soji Iwasaki (b.1929) has been, among others, also a professor at Nagoya University. It is surprising that his mentor and supervisor at Cambridge (1964-66), the late eminent Shakespearean, Muriel C. Bradbrook, was, by family connections, related to Professor 0. Vocadlo, through 1939 at FFUK! Also surprisingly but significantly, the two of us have found common ground in each of us having devoted some related unconventional insights into Shakespeare's masterful comedy As You Like It (c . 1599) : he, in his contribution : "Transvestism and Social Reformation in A YLI;" and, as to me, in " W. Shakespeare's A YLI and Slovakia" (Almanac of the National Slovak Society, Pittsburgh 1999). The latter article compares the situation in the former Czecho-Slovakia, both after WW II in May 1945 and to the demise of Communism on November 17, 1989, to the situation following the usurper Duke Frederick's abdication in A YLI. (5) Jan Simko was, from 1945 to 1967 at FFUK, then in the U.S .A. In his contribution: "A Possible Parallel to 'Shall I Die?' A Poem Attributed to Shakespeare?" he compares this poem to English poetry of the 1590s, finding it highly unlikely for it to be by Shakespeare. SLOVAKIA 127 These contributions by mainly foreign, outstanding Anglicists , have added both luster and prestige to thi s commemorative volume published by Slovak Anglicists. Contributions by Domestic, that is, Slovak Anglicists LANGUAGE STUDIES Seventeen articles deal with the following areas: syntax; wordformation; semantics; style and stylistics; language and culture; language teaching (this is to be grouped with methodology below) ; translation (also to be grouped with translation below). Missing are articles on historical linguistics, varieties of English, etc, Seven (c.42%) of these articles quote A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (London: Longman, 1985), a seminal , monumental work created by Lord Quirk (and collaborators) of the University College, London. Although, for health reasons, he was unable to send in a contribution, his keen interest in the progress of Slovak studies of English and his April 1966 lecture at FFUK deserve special recognition. LITERARY STUDIES Out of eight contributions, English literature is di sc ussed in three; one each disc usses Canadian literature, women's iss ues, theory (realism: modified, and magic; tragedy). No article is devoted to Shakespeare or to American literature. TEACHING METHODOLOGY Nine articles di scuss various topics: the use of storytelling and drama; novels; on-line tutoring; innovative approaches; learning strategies; foreign-language teaching training. Eva Tandlichova (author of the introductory article) advocates, in her contribution: "More Autonomy ... The Need for Real LearnerCentred Teaching and Leaming." BRITISH STUDIES (2 contributions) 128 SLOVAKIA TRANSLATIONS (4 contributions) The emphasis is on quality philological preparation and a good memory. Jan Vilikovsky (former Czecho-Slovak and after 1993 Slovak Republic's first Ambassador to London) di sc usses, in his fundamental contribution: "Orwell, Politics and Translation - Notes of a Translator." He emphasizes the need to evaluate Orwell's texts with a view to the political situation in which they were written. CONCLUSION Even if considering the empty spaces in its overall coverage of the wide field of Anglistics, PHILOLOGICA LX of 2004 cannot but be evaluated as an obvious quantitative and qualitative advance of Slovak studies of English.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Review Essays, Slovakia, Vol. 39 (No. 72-73) Description An account of the resource includes:<br /><ul><li>Subcarpathian Rus' and the New Slovak Historiography: Peter Mosný, Podkarpatská Rus', and Peter Švorc, Krajinská hranica medzi Slovenskom a Podkarpatskou Rusou, 1919-1939 (Paul Robert Magocsi), p. 119</li> <li>Zborník Filozofickej fakulty Univerzity Komenského, Philologica LX (Ján Šimko), p. 123</li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Magocsi, Paul Robert, 1945- Šimko, Ján, 1920-2011 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007 SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/e23b30d9c18f6ab55f89c7ca48a7b6e0.pdf ad08d2ad7eb8104d12818bbb29c41235 PDF Text Text 60 SLOVAKIA RISING AGAINST STALINISM: DESTALINIZATION AND THE REINTERPRETATION OF THE SLOVAK NATIONAL UPRISING IN SLOVAK HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE 1960s Scott Brown In the morning hours of 29 August 1944, several thousand Slovak and foreign partisans took up arms against the German soldiers who entered Slovakia the previous day to crush the country's growing anti-German resistance. This armed insurrection marked the start of the Slovak National Uprising (Slovenske narodne povstanie, or SNP), a rebellion centered on the city of Banska Bystrica and directed against the German invaders and the pro-German leaders of the wartime Slovak state. Over the ensuing two months, roughly 60,000 Slovak and foreign partisans, including rebel units of the Slovak Army, fought a loosely coordinated campaign against the German incursion. Outnumbered and outgunned, the partisans steadily lost the territory they had initially controlled, and by the end of October 1944 the German units had quelled the Uprising. Yet the military shortcomings of the SNP paled in comparison to its political significance: the Slovak underground had carried out the largest resistance operation on once (and future) Czechoslovak soil during the Second World War. The Uprising bolstered the position of the Czechoslovak government in exile, which could point to the SNP as proof that Czechoslovakia had contributed militarily to its own liberation. Further-more, in the eyes of Czechs, the Uprising also helped to "redeem" Slovaks for their unilateral declaration of independence in 1939, and for the quasi-fascist government that ruled Slovakia during the war. After the war, the SNP became the centerpiece of a new, reconstructed form of Slovak nationalism that played a major role in precipitating the Czechoslovak Spring of the late 1960s. Nonetheless, Slovak nationalism remained a liability for nearly two decades after the war. The mere existence of the wartime Slovak state left Slovak nationalism suspect, since many Czechs continued �SLOVAKIA 61 to equate it with Slovak separatism and the humiliating loss of Czech independence in 1939. In addition, the persecution of Slovak "bourgeois nationalists" - many of whom had played prominent roles in the Uprising - in the political trials of the 1950s further compromised the legitimacy of Slovak nationalism in a Czechoslovak context. These problematic legacies left Slovak nationalism without a usable past until the rehabilitation of the erstwhile Slovak "bourgeois nationalists" in 1963 afforded the Slovaks a political opening to reevaluate the SNP. In tum, this reinterpretation of the Uprising's historical significance provided the foundation for a new, positive brand of nationalism Slovaks could safely assert. If nothing else, the SNP had given the lie to the notion that Slovak nationalism was incompatible with a Czechoslovak state. Gradually, many Slovak historians, intellectuals and politicians advanced a narrative of the SNP that interpreted the Uprising as the great redemptive act of the Slovak nation. In this view, Slovaks rose up as a nation against the wartime pro-Nazi regime of Jozef Tiso, sacrificing "their own" state in order to resurrect Czechoslovakia and make the new republic their own state. For champions of the Slovak national cause in the 1960s, finding their place in the restored Czechoslovakia entailed recognition of the existence of a separate Slovak nation and the enshrinement of its equality with the other titular nation through the federalization of the state. By reconstructing the history of the Uprising in this way, Slovak nationalists could then lay claim to specific rights as a nation. Like their calls for a Czechoslovak federation later in the decade, Slovak nationalists' demands for legal recognition of Slovak nationhood in the mid- to late 1960s referred directly or indirectly to the Slovak National Uprising for justification. As historians and political figures constructed a new narrative of the Uprising in the 1960s, they toned down old Stalinist and Marxist dogmas. Instead, the language they used to describe the SNP restored Slovaks - and the Slovak nation - to a central role. Important in this regard was how Slovaks writing and speaking about the Uprising during the Czechoslovak Spring began to accentuate the Slovak nation (narod) in retelling the history of the Uprising, placing new stress on the national component of the Slovak National Uprising. Thus, along with their stated desire to seek historical truth and to rectify the "errors" of Stalinism, Slovak historians writing about the �62 SLOVAKIA Uprising in the sixties also contributed to the reconstruction of Slovak nationalism by linking Slovaks' demands for national rights and a just solution to the Slovak question with the progressive and democratic traditions of the Uprising. The process of reinterpreting the Uprising and reconstructing Slovak nationalism - a process that occurred in fits and starts, with much equivocation - shows, in turn, how important Slovak developments of the mid-1960s served as antecedents to the Czechoslovak Spring that blossomed in 1968. One of the crucial, yet underappreciated, facets of this prehistory took shape in the new historiography of the SNP produced in the l 960s. Several groups of historians participated in crafting this new narrative. Younger historians, such as Jozef Jablonicky, perhaps had an advantage of personal detachment, since they had fought in neither the Uprising nor the battles over its history during the Stalinist era. 1 Other important contributors came from the historians who served on the Bamabite Commission and subsequently attempted to produce more "objective" and "factual" histories of the Uprising. 2 But veterans of the Up1 lndeed, Jab lonicky di sti ngui shed himself as arguabl y the most profess iona l and darin g histo ri an with hi s willingness to te ll the story of the significant but politically margin ali zed non-communi st "c ivilian" component of the Slovak resi stance that fought in th e NP. Yet even Jablonicky's work ex hibited an evolution in hi s willingness to challenge former taboos, since his first works from early in the decade did not go quite so far in this regard as hi s later work. See Jozef Jablon icky, Sloven- ska na prelome: Zapas o vit'azstvo narodnej a demokratickej revohicie na Slovensku (Bratislava : Yydavatel'stvo politickej literatury, 1965); and Jozef Jablonicky, Z ilegality do povstania (Kapitoly z obcianskeho odboja) (Bratislava : Epocha, 1969). 2 In Apri l 1963 , the Central Comm ittee of th e Communist Party of Czechos lovakia (Komunis ticka strana Ceskoslovenska, or KSC) convened a working gro up of Slovak and Czech party and academic "experts," popularly known as the " Bamabite Commiss ion," to investi gate th e allegations of " bourgeois nationalism" that had been leve led aga inst Ladi slav ovomesky, Gustav Husak and oth er wartime leaders of the Communist Party of Slovakia (Komunisticka strana S/o venska, or KSS) in th e major Slovak political trial s of the early 1950s. The Bamabite Commission's report, issued in August 1963 , di spro ved the Stalinist-era charges and called for the co mplete political rehabilitation of Husak, Novomesky and the oth er accused Slovak " bourgeois nationa lists." Stanis lav Sikora, " Politicky vyvoj na Slovensku v rokoch I 960- 1967 ," in Miroslav Londak, Stanis lav Sikora an d Elena Londakova, Predjarie: Politicky, ekonomicky a kul!iirny vyvoj na Slovensku v rokoch 1960- 1967 (Bratislava: Veda, 2002), 46-47 . The major schol arl y product that followed from th e work of the Barnabite Comm ission , not to mention one of the best studi es of th e Uprising from this era, was Ferdinand Beer and others, Dejinna kriiovatka: Slovenske ncirod- �SLOVAKIA 63 rising, like Gustav Husak, and older scholars like Samo Falt'an (also a former partisan) participated in this process as well, whether to exonerate themselves for their activities during the SNP, or to offer a mea culpa for their distorted publications from the Stalinist era.3 Many western studies of the Czechoslovak Spring that address the years prior to 1968 offer at best a fleeting mention of the revival of Slovak history and efforts to remove discredited cliches of the 4 Stalinist era from the historical image of the SNP. Nonetheless, the lack of scholarly attention to this important trend in Slovak historiography does a disservice to its importance in Slovak - and Czechoslovak - politics of the mid- to late 1960s. Though de-Stalinization may have begun from on high in the Czechoslovak capital, Slovak historians, writers, intellectuals, politicians and other public figures took full advantage of the chance to break old taboos and raise formerly forbidden issues, none of which was more heretical or politically pregnant than the Slovak question. As the Slovak writer Peter Karvas told Antonin J. Liehrn in 1968, Stalinist propaganda had a banalizing effect on all this; it reduced the Uprising to a historical cliche, and in the end the generation of the Uprising convinced itself that this view was somehow a more noble and correct one. Thus it is neither an accident nor an illusion that the rehabilitation of the ne povstanie - predpoklady a vysledky (Brati slava: Vydavatel's tvo po litic kej literatury, I 964). Important exampl es of these work s we re Samo Falt'an, 0 Slovenskom narodnom povstani (Bra ti slava: Osveta, 1964); a nd Gustav Husak, Svedectvo o Slovenskom narodnom povstani (Brati slava: Vydavatel'stvo po litickej literatury, 1964). Husak also published a second , slightl y rev ised editi o n of hi s memo ir cum hi story in 1969. nd Gustav Hu sak, Svedectvo o Slovensko narodnom povstani, 2 ed. (Bratislava: Epocha, 1969). 4 H. Gordon Skilling a nd V ladimir V . Ku sin each pro vide a pass in g mention of the importance of SN P hi stori ography in th e m id-sixties. See H. Gordon Skilling, Czechoslovakia ·s Interrupted Revolution (Princeto n, N .J .: Princeton Uni ve rsity Press, 1976), 50-51 ; V ladimir V. Kusin, The Intellectual Origins of the Prague 3 Spring: The Development of Reform ist Ideas in Czechoslovakia, 1956- 1967 (Ca mbridge: Ca mbrid ge Uni versity Press, 197 1), 70. �64 SLOVAKIA Uprising coincided with a wave of reawakening sweeping across all the Slovak social and intellectual life. 5 Accordingly, chronicling the "history of the history" of the Slovak National Uprising during the 1960s offers a way to challenge these conventional boundaries and interpretations of the Czechoslovak Spring. Tracing the shifts in Slovak historiography and the new brand of Slovak nationalism constructed in the process restores Slovaks to the significant role they played in this upheaval, showing how Slovakia experienced an "early spring" following the renewed effort at de-Stalinization and rehabilitation in 1963 . The Pitfalls of History (and Historiography) Pointing to the "errors" that plagued earlier histories of the Slovak National Uprising, the writer Ladislav Novomesky made a plea to Slovak and Czech historians in 1964. His appeal to the participants at a conference at Smolenice on the Uprising urged historians to pay close attention to the image of the SNP through twenty years of historiography. As part of the process of rectifying the mistakes of Stalinism and rewriting history, Novomesky proposed that historians "delineate the history of the history [emphasis in original]" of the Uprising. 6 As Novomesky's remarks indicated, the political context in which historians worked had left an indelible mark on historiography and on the history of the Slovak National Uprising. Political constraints of the Stalinist era had curtailed the research possibilities available to scholars, who could not access most of the relevant documents and other materials. But political dictates had also imposed ready-made interpretations on historians' narratives. When Novomesky made his pitch to historians to take stock of the historiography of the Uprising, he mainly had in mind the correction of the lies, distortions and half-truths that had colored histories of the Uprising 5 Antonin J. Liehm, The Politics of Culture, trans. Peter Kussi (New York : Grove Press, 1972), 351. 6 Ladislav Novomesky, "Za hi storicku pravdu o Povstani," in Slovenske narodne povstanie ro/..."U 1944 (Sbornik prispevkov z narodnooslobodzovacieho boja 19381945), eds . Cudovit Holotik and Miroslav Kropilak, (Bratislava: Vydavatel'stvo Slovenskej akademie vied, 1965), 668. �SLOVAKIA 65 since the onset of Stalinism in Czechoslovakia in the late 1940s. Revisions to these histories had become possible only with the work of the Bamabite Commission and the first concrete steps at deStalinization in 1963 . As the Slovak writer Michal Chorvath claimed on the Uprising's nineteenth anniversary in August 1963 , the "liquidation of the cult of personality" made it possible for the first time in years "to say about the Slovak National Uprising and its significance for our nation and state what the whole public has already thought for a long time." 7 De-Stalinization thus provided an important stimulus in the midI 960s for historians to attempt a more objective look at the Uprising. But while this political opening afforded scholars an opportunity to contest the older dogmatic accounts of the SNP, the historical image of the Uprising remained deeply politicized in the new narratives of the sixties. In the middle and later years of the decade, many Slovak intellectuals and politicians contested Stalinist-era views in rewriting the history of the SNP, yet the individuals driving these shifts continued to interpret the historical significance of the Uprising in a way that served their contemporary personal and political agendas. For instance, Husak claimed expertise as a historian of the Uprising based on his background as the leading Slovak Communist in the SNP. Yet Husak also traded on his stature as an "authority" on the Uprising (and as the most prominent surviving Slovak victim of the Stalinist era) to mount his political comeback, culminating in his ascent to the post of KSC first secretary in April 1969. As the Czech historian Jan Rychlik notes, the new interpretation of the Uprising formulated in the mid-sixties "had a supremely political character," since it weighed directly on the question of rehabilitation and a return to politics for Husak and Novomesky.8 Nonetheless, a "rehabilitation" of the historical image of the SNP was a necessary part of de-Stalinization in Slovakia after 1963 , because the dictates of Stalinism had skewed earlier narratives. Older histories of the Uprising painted it as the opening act of the national and democratic revolution in Czechoslovakia, depicting the SNP as little more than a stepping stone toward the Communist seizure of 7 Mi cha l Chorvath , "K metodam skum ani a SN P," Ku /uirny i ivot, 3 1 August 1963. Jan Rychlik, Ce.si a Slovaci ve 20. sto /eti: Cesko-slovenske vztahy 1945-/ 992, vo l. 2 (Bra ti slava : Academi c Electroni c Press, 1998), 206. 8 �66 SLOVAKIA power. 9 These Stalinist-era narratives forced the SNP into a doctrinaire Marxist framework. Accordingly, historiography from the 1950s and early 1960s celebrated the toiling masses of the Slovak people (l'ud) , who rejected the "clerico-fascism" of the Tiso regime and adopted an internationalist outlook in fightin g side by side with the fraternal Czech nation, aided by the heroic Soviet Union, in order to create a new Czechoslovak Republic oriented towards the international Communist movement centered in Moscow. The heavy-handed Marxist language employed in these older narratives practically wrote Slovaks out of their own Uprising as it lionized the role of the Red Army and even of Czech partisans in the SNP, treating the contributions of Slovaks as an afterthought. Writing in samizdat in 1980, Jablonicky, the leading Slovak historian of the Uprising, divided historiography of the SNP into three distinct periods. Jablonicky characterized the first period, from 1949 to 1962, as one of "deformation," a time when historians falsified the history of the SNP to suit the dogmas of Stalinism and the attack on Slovak "bourgeois nationalism," which claimed as victims many prominent communist veterans of the Slovak resistance, including Husak, Novomesky and Karol Smidke. 10 Beginning with the work of the Barnabite Commission, a second period, which Jablonicky called "rehabilitation" took shape in 1963 . Though it lasted only until the installation of the Husak regime in April 1969, this era witnessed a burst of scholarship on the Uprising distinguished by its pursuit of "historical truth," including efforts to docu9 See, for instance, Jaros lav Kubat, ed., Slovenske narodni po vstani - Vyznamna etapa narodne osvobozeneckeho boje ceskoslovenskeho lidu: Material pro lektory a propagandisty k 15. vyroci SNP (Prague: Statn i nak ladatelstvi poli ticke literatu ry, 1959) . 10 Smidke had been a member the illegal KSS Centra l Committee that orga nized the Uprising, as we ll as the co-creator of the Christmas Agreement. Du ring the early stages of the campa ign aga inst the "bourgeois nationalists," Smidke faced accusations of collaboration, along with Vladimir Clementi s, Husak and Novo mesky, and lost his party and governmenta l posts, inc ludi ng his position as chairman of the Slovak Nati onal Council. Sm idke avo ided jo ining his supposed co llaborators in the dock at the poli tical tria ls of the ea rl y fifti es only due to hi s death in an automobile acc ident in late 1952, th ough various witnesses c laimed it had been a planned murder. He was posthumously rehabilitated with the other Slovak "bourgeois nati onalists" in December 1963. Jan Pesek, " Karo l Smidke," ed. Ja n Pesek, Akteri jednej ery na Slovensku: Personiflkacia politickeho vyvoja (Presov: Vydavatel'stvo Michala Vaska, 2003), 328-330. �SLOVAKIA 67 ment the role of non-Communists in the SNP. With the onset of "normalization" in 1970, a third period commenced, bringing a return to deformations and the silencing of "inconvenient historians" a group that included Jablonicky - and lasted until the fall of the communist regime in 1989. 11 Though Jablonicky's periodization conforms to wide trends in historiography on the Uprising, his characterization of the second period oversimplifies the contours of this pivotal era. Scholarship on the SNP produced from 1963 to 1969 witnessed a new push for historical truth and objectivity, with historians drawing on previously inaccessible documents, filling in former "blank spots" and challenging earlier dogmatic interpretations of the Uprising. However, the general trend toward historical fidelity did not follow the linear trajectory Jablonicky describes. While many historians sought accuracy and improved professional practices, others held fast to old dogmas, resulting in a multiplicity of narratives and interpretations of the SNP. Moreover, the ambiguities inherent in the quest for historical truth cut through the scholarship of individual historians. In May 1963 , Jan Kfen, a Czech historian who served as one of the experts on the Bamabite Commission, explained the challenges ahead for historians after Stalinism: The battle against dogmatism is, in my opmzon, above all an internal matter of every historian, a question of his theoretical level, his ideological potential. Like all progress in science, the overcoming of dogmatism is not possible without abilities and talent. Untalented thinking is always dogmatic, stereotypical and toady ish. 12 Yet Kfen overstated the importance of professional abilities, as many talented historians struggled to discard political considerations in order to write better histories. For instance, while Jablonicky's Slovensko na prelome, published in 1965, stressed the importance of the Uprising for inaugurating a new chapter in Czech-Slovak rela11 Jozef Ja bl oni cky, Glosy o historiograjii SNP: Zneuiivanie a f alfovanie dej in SNP (Brati slava: NVK In te rn ati onal, 1994), I 0, 13. 12 Jan Kfe n, " Kult a hi stori e," Kulttirna tvorba, 23 May 1963. �68 SLOVAKIA tions, Jablonicky equivocated in repeating the best orthodox cliches about nefarious Slovak and Czech bourgeoisies and the leading role of Communists in the resistance. 13 To Jablonicky's credit, he penned perhaps the decade ' s most important historiographical contribution in 1969, Z illegality do povstania, which offered the most stunning refutation of dogmatic interpretations of the Uprising and destroyed several taboos in praising the non-communist resistance and units of the Slovak Army for their roles in the Uprising while simultaneously portraying its communist leaders in an unflattering light. In a samizdat essay from 1979, Jablonicky even offered a mea culpa for his early scholarship in which he acknowledges the shortcomings of his first works. As Jablonicky recalled, conversations with dozens of former partisans and victims of Stalinism "gradually opened my eyes" as a young historian in the 1960s, leading him to appreciate the importance of the non-communist resistance. 14 Of course, Jablonicky was not alone. At a conference of Slovak historians in June 1963, Milos Gosiorovsky presented a harsh evaluation of his own works on the Uprising from the Stalinist era, criticizing his monographs Ilegalny boj KSS and Slovenske narodne povstanie for presenting a "substantially deformed" picture of the 15 SNP. A year later, Samo Falt'an described how the dictates of editorial boards and the pressures of self-censorship had handicapped evaluations of the Uprising in the Stalinist era, preventing him from including anything critical in his book Partizanska vojna na Slovensku, published in 1959 . 16 As the confessions of Gosiorovsky and Falt'an revealed, the most prominent Slovak historians had been especially susceptible to pressures for ideological conformity, which 13 Jablonicky, Slovensko na prelome, 3 1, 148- 149. Vilem Precan, " Historik proti nas iliu - Jozef Jabloni cky," in Jozef Jablonicky, Samizdat o odboji: Stiidie a clanky, vol. 2 (Bratislava: Kalligram, 2006), 12; Jablonicky, Glosy o historiografii SNP, 6 1. 15 Frantisek Bokes, "Vaine zhromazdeni e Slovenskej hi stori ckej spolocnosti ," Historicky casopis 12, no. 4 (1963): 650; Milos Gosiorovsky, !legalny boj KSS a Slovenske narodne povstanie (Bratislava: Nakladatel'stvo Pravda, 1949); Milos Gosiorovsky, Slovenske narodne povstanie (Bra ti slava : Slovenske vydava tel'stvo politi ckej literatury, 1954). 16 Samo Falt'an, "Niektore otazky okolo hodnoteni a Slovenskeho narodneho povstania," Historicky casop is 12, no. 2 ( 1964): 161 , 164; Samo Falt'an, Partizanska vojna na Slovensku (Bratislava: Osveta, 1959). 14 �SLOVAKIA 69 seemed to spur their self-conscious push for objectivity in the more relaxed Slovak political climate of the mid-l 960s. Just as Slovak historians in the l 960s recognized the harmful effects of Stalinism on scholarship on the Uprising, scholars writing about the sixties acknowledge the importance of historiography for the larger crisis gestating in Czechoslovakia. Nonetheless, scholarship about the l 960s has pronounced limitations when it comes to historiography from the 1960s. Non-Slovak writers treat the history of the Uprising as but one issue among many new historiographical developments in Czechoslovakia, an approach characterristic of the wider tendency to trivialize the role of Slovaks and the Slovak question in the l 960s. 17 While the Slovak National Uprising was hardly the only historical theme to gamer renewed interest from historians in the mid-sixties - or even the only topic from Slovak history - it was unique in the political purposes to which prominent Slovaks put it in justifying contemporary demands for a resolution of the Slovak question in line with the ostensible aims of the Uprising. More obvious, however, was the extent to which the new historiography on the SNP from the 1960s broke with old dogmas. The doctrinaire narrative of the Uprising from the Stalinist era marginalized the role of Slovaks in the Slovak National Uprising. An instructional manual for lecturers and propagandists published in advance of the SNP's fifteenth anniversary - and, tellingly, written in Czech inflated the importance of Soviet and Czech contributions to the Uprising: In August 1944 the Slovak nation, emboldened by the heroic battle of the Soviet p eople in the Great Patriotic War, under the leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, alongside the Soviet Army advancing to victory, together with the fraternal Czech nation, rose up with weapons in 17 See, fo r instance, th e scant treatm ent prov ided in Stanl ey Z. Pec h, " Fe rment in Czec hoslova k Marxist Hi stori ograph y," Canadian Slavonic Papers l 0, no. 4 (Dece mber 1968): 502-522; Ga lia Gol an, The Czechoslovak Refo rm Movement: Communism in Crisis. 1962- / 968 ; and Skillin g, Czechoslovakia 's Interrupted Revolution. By contrast, M. Mark Stolarik observed how hi stori ans, beginning with Husak and the th eme of the SNP, increasingly reasserted Slovak nati onali sm in their th work . M. Mark Stolarik , "The Painful Birth of Slovak Histori ography in the 20 Century," Zeitschriftfiir Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung 50, no. 2 (2 00 I): 176 . �70 SLOVAKIA hand against the German occupiers and their domestic fascist supporters in order to contribute to the liberation of their own homeland - the Czechoslovak Republic. 18 Amid the rambling succession of clauses inserted to show obligatory deference to the Soviet Union and the KSC and to flatter Czechs, the propaganda manual, like the Stalinist-era interpretations of the SNP it typifies, lost sight of the Slovaks, who nearly disappeared from the history of their own Uprising. At the same time, older orthodoxy ascribed the Marxist categories of proletarian internationalism and class struggle to the Uprising. In their work on international participation in the SNP, the Czech Jii'i Dolezal and the Slovak Jozef Hroziencik credited the liberation of Czechoslovakia to the Soviet Army on the international stage, and to the working class at home. The Uprising occurred as a consequence, Dolezal and Hroziencik argued, of "the strengthening of the working class and its ideological leadership in the nation," along with the blossoming of the idea of internationalism within the proletariat. 19 Near the end of the Stalinist era, an editorial in 1962 from the KSC Central Committee daily Rude pravo made the dubious claim that, "on an ideological plane," the Uprising "aimed mainly at developing a unified economy," along with combining all other aspects of Slovak and Czech society after liberation - making the SNP appear as the first step toward amalgamating Slovaks and Czechs into a single Czechoslovak nation.2° Conventional interpretations from the Stalinist era thus reduced the Uprising to little more than the opening act in the Czechoslovak revolution and a prelude to the communist takeover in 1948.21 Such a view seemed at odds with the reality of communist electoral strength in the elections of 1946, when the party made considerable gains over its interwar showing, yet still suffered a decisive defeat at the hands of the Democratic Party. 18 Kubat, Slovenske narodni povstani, 3. Jifi Dolezal and Jozef Hroziencik, Medzinarodna solidarita v Slovenskom narodnom povstani (Bratislava: Osveta, 1959), 35, 219 20 " Rozvij ime spolecne dilo," Rude pravo, 29 August 1962. 21 Doleza l and Hroziencik, Medzinarodna solidarita , 74. 19 �SLOVAKIA 71 Coming to Terms with the Past: De-Stalinization and the Uprising Rewriting the history of the Slovak National Uprising first required important political developments to transpire, and the process drew succor from new efforts at de-Stalinization in 1963 . But the impact of the Bamabite Commission also revealed the crucial role historians played in this process. As Ferdinand Beer, Antonin Bencik, Frantisek Janacek and Jan Kfon recalled, their work on the Bamabite Commission offered historians a rare chance to play an important role in current events: ft was - as far as we know - the first time such a large group of scholars was asked to do this kind of work. This experience left its mark on their whole way of doing work and became, at least for historians, one of those rare occasions when they could not only reconstruct history, but also help to make it. 22 The recollections of these historians also spoke to the transformative effect the Bamabite Commission had on its member-scholars, which proved a formative experience for the way they approached their craft thereafter. Because it focused not only on the political trials of the early 1950s, but also on the activities of the "bourgeois nationalists" during the SNP, the Bamabite Commission employed several professional historians who consequently gained access to documents formerly off limits to researchers, including the files of the "bourgeois nationalists" and materials concerning the cases of Vladimir Clementis and others.23 A document collection on the SNP, originally planned to appear in conjunction with the twentieth anniversary of the Uprising in 1964 and intended to span 300 to 400 pages when conceived in the spring of 1963, soon ballooned to more than a thousand pages and took an extra year to produce. As Vilem Precan, the Czech editor of the volume, recounts in hi s preface, the renewed interest in the Uprising first observed during celebrations of its nineteenth anniversary, coupled with the political fallout of the 22 23 Beer and others, "Svedectvi z Barnabitek," Kulturni tvorba, 2 May 1968. Sikora, " Po liticky vyvoj na Slovensku," 38. �72 SLOVAKIA Barnabite Commission's report, created "editorial possibilities" that compelled him to broaden the scope of the project. Precan had to sift through piles of newly available documents and include as many of these materials as he could, a daunting task that kept him from completing the volume until 1965 - a full year behind schedule.24 Confronted with documentary evidence of the fabrications from the political trials, the historian-members of the Bamabite Commission were floored by the level of deceit, which exceeded their wildest imagination. Confronting such proof of the crimes of Stalinism had a galvanizing effect on Slovak and Czech historians similar to the jolt Nikita Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" had given to Soviet Communists in 1956. As a group of historians recalled in the spring of 1968, "In a certain sense, all of us inside the walls of the former Bamabite monastery went through our own 20 th Congress." 25 For these historians at least, there could be no going back to the old, dogmatic interpretations of Slovak history, especially where the Uprising was concerned. Sensing the opportunity de-Stalinization and the Barnabite Commission had created, historians took the initiative in probing sensitive issues like the Slovak question and the wartime resistance in Slovakia. As early as March of 1963, Falt'an had urged a drastic reexamination of the Uprising, one that would break out of the "black-and-white pigeonholes" of historiography from the Stalinist era to "evaluate objectively and justly" such topics as the role of (non-communist) Slovak regulars from the 1st Czechoslovak Army in the SNP. 26 Further steps in this direction came in the summer of 1963, when historians openly connected the significance of their professional work to the concurrent process of rehabilitation. Miroslav Kropilak opened the Slovak Historical Society ' s conference in June 1963 by reminding his fellow historians of their shared obligation in reassessing "wrongly interpreted" segments of their history. 27 The congress helped to engage Slovak historians in the task 24 Vilem Precan, "S lovo cita tel'ovi," in Slovenske narodne povstanie - Dokumenty, ed. Precan, 5-6. 25 Beer and others, " Svedectvi z Barnabitek. " 26 Samo Falt'an, " Histori a a dn esok," Kulturny i ivot, 23 March 1963 . 27 Kropilak's ex hortati on to eliminate th e "unscienti fic methods" of research employed in studi es of recent Slovak history marked an about fac e from his own presentation at the Fourth Congress of Slovak Histori ans a year earli er in Kosice. At Kosi- �SLOVAKIA 73 of eliminating vestiges of the "cult of personality," and it created space, as the historian Marek Havrila remarked, for the "de-ideologizing" (odideologizovanie) of history and the "academifying" (zvedectenie) of the discipline.28 Rewriting History: New (and Old) Narratives of the Uprising Historians began to rewrite the history of the Uprising in time for its twentieth anniversary in 1964, reflecting not only the opportunities created by the Bamabite Commission, but also the heightened interest in commemorating this milestone. Many historians took seriously the need for better scholarship on the Uprising and strove to make use both of newly available materials as well as the relaxation of political constraints. But other historians largely paid lip service to the tasks of writing new, post-Stalinist narratives of the SNP, hewing closely to older, more dogmatic interpretations. On the whole, the new historiography of the Uprising produced in the 1960s yielded improved histories, but it remained bound to the shifting politics of the day. A key development early in this process was an academic conference held at Smolenice on 8-10 June 1964, when several Slovak and Czech historians presented their latest research on the Uprising. The conference marked important progress on the "arduous journey" historians had traveled, as Kropilak recalled in his foreword to the published volume of conference papers, since it brought a "difficult acknowledgment of the unexamined truths, half-truths and untruths" that had characterized historiography of the Uprising from the Stalinist era.29 In a similar vein, Alexander Dubcek, who became KSS first secretary amid the political shakeup of the previous year, ce in I 962 , Kropil ak gave a paper on the anti fas ci st move ment in Eastern Slovakia th at uphe ld communist orthodoxy. He credited the party for building the resistance from the grass roots until the Upri sing, but made no mention of th e contributions of non-Co mmuni sts in the Slova k res istance. Bokes, " Va ine zhromazdenie," 650 ; "Stvrty sjazd slovenskych hi storik ov," Historicky casopis I 0, no. 4 ( 1962): 632. 28 Marek Havril a, " K ni ektory m pro blemom vyv inu slovenskej hi storiografie a slovenskej histori ckej spolocnosti pri SA V v 50. a 60. rokoch 20. storocia," Historicky casopis 55 , no. I (2007) : 28, 32. 29 Mi ros lav Kropil ak, " Uvod," in Slovenske narodne povstanie roku I 944, eds. Hol otik and Kropilak, 5. �74 SLOVAKIA opened the conference proceedings by exhorting historians to undertake "a really broad and deep critical analysis of all problems" concerning this significant chapter in recent Slovak history, and Dubcek also reminded historians that the rectification of earlier mistakes was not simply a question of the past, but also a living concern of the present and future .30 As if Dubcek's point could somehow be lost on his audience, the participation of Husak and Novomesky at Smolenice underscored the topicality of scholarship on the SNP. Indeed, Husak expressed his belief on the final day that the conference itself was a sign of the times, since a definite measure of political relaxation in Slovakia was a precondition for historians to address openly the pitfalls of Stalinist-era historiography, and to shed new light on the history of the Uprising. 31 The papers presented at Smolenice aimed mainly at debunking the myths and errors of the Stalinist-era narrative of the SNP. For instance, Falt'an directly criticized the Ninth KSS Congress for having "artificially created" a circle of "bourgeois nationalist traitors and agents of imperialism" that included Husak, Novomesky and Smidke as its leading figures. This trio of Slovak Communists had created the illegal Fifth KSS Central Committee in 1943 , following the arrest of members of the Fourth KSS Central Committee, and had played a major role in organizing the Uprising. Yet the members of the Fifth KSS Central Committee came under fire after the communist takeover of 1948 for their collaboration with nonCommunists, which provided one justification for their persecution as Slovak "bourgeois nationalists." Falt'an portrayed the Slovak Communists who had helped to orchestrate the SNP as both patriotic and communist, rendering the wartime KSS leadership as neither "bourgeois" nor "nationalist" in an effort to break with the dogmatic interpretations that had marred previous historiography.32 Another crucial component of this attempt to cast aside Stalinistera narratives was the effort historians made to address lacunae in scholarship on the Uprising. To this end, the Slovak historian Milos 30 Alexander Dubcek, "Marx isticka histori ografia a nasa revolucna minulost'," in S/ovenske narodne povstanie roku / 944, eds. Holotik and Kropil ak, I 8. 31 Gustav Husak, " K ni ektorym otazkam Slovenskeho narodn eho povstania," in S/ovenske narodne povstanie roku / 944, eds. Holotik and Kropilak, 652-653. 32 Samo Falt'an, " Slovenske narodn e povstani e a jeho problemy," in Slovenske narodne povstanie roku / 944, eds. Holotik and Kropilak, 222, 234. �SLOVAKIA 75 Tichy called attention to the contributions of non-Communists in the SNP. Though the Communists had been the only party in Slovakia that opposed the breakup of the republic and the Tiso government from the outset, Tichy emphasized how the non-communist parties could not be treated as monolithic supporters of Slovak separatism. Thus, Tichy took care to note how segments of the Social Democratic Party, along with individual members of other "bourgeois" (meaning non-communist) parties had held views similar to those of Slovak Communists with respect to the creation of a pro-German Slovak state. It was noteworthy for Tichy even to mention these nonCommunists who went on to join the wartime resistance, since, as he noted, the record of the non-communist resistance had been thoroughly trivialized and falsified in earlier historiography.33 Tichy struck one of the first important blows against the Stalinist narrative of the Uprising by virtue of recognizing the existence of noncommunist opposition to the Slovak state, though it was not until Jablonicky published Z ilegality do povstania at the end of the decade that this "civilian" segment of the wartime Slovak resistance gained the recognition it deserved. Even though historians consciously sought objectivity and historical fidelity at Smolen ice, they did not reject all elements of the Stalinist-era narrative of the SNP. Thus, while Falt'an preached the importance of historical truth in denouncing the lies that characterrized earlier histories, he sought this "truth" within a distinctly Marxist framework. Comparing the Slovak National Uprising of 1944 to the Warsaw Uprising of the same year, Falt'an placed the Slovak revolt on a qualitatively higher plane than the Polish insurrection, since the SNP had, in Falt'an 's estimation, the superior class orientation. Whereas the Polish "reactionary bourgeoisie" had "abused" popular hatred of Nazi Germany in order to serve its own "political speculations" and "anti-Soviet aims," the Slovak people had taken up arms under the leadership of "revolutionary forces" headed by the KSS .34 Marxist hermeneutics continued to color other interpretations of the Uprising advanced at Smolenice. Like Falt'an, Tichy took great 33 Milos Tic hy, " Hl avne etapy fo rmy a probl emy narodn ooslobodzo vac ieho hnuti a na Slove nsku do vzniku Povstani a," in Slovenske narodne povstanie roku / 944, eds. Ho lotik and Kropilak, 65, 7 1. 34 Fa lt'a n, "S lovens ke narodn e povstanie a jeho pro bl emy," 27 1. �76 SLOVAKIA pains to emphasize the class dimension of the Slovak people's rejection of the pre-Munich First Republic. Tichy claimed the Slovak people (l'ud) had directed their hatred not at the fraternal Czech nation, but rather against the "politics of the ruling Czech bourgeoisie." 35 Similarly, Frantisek Janacek, a Czech historian and former member of the Barnabite Commission, conceded the importance of the national element in the Uprising, yet he suggested there was less real significance to such national sentiment in and of itself than in the political objectives to which Slovak Communists could put it in the SNP. Thus, Janacek upheld a doctrinaire Marxist interpretation of national sentiment in deeming it instrumental to revolutionary ends. He argued the initiative the Communists exhibited on the Slovak question had made the KSS a vanguard force that Slovaks recognized as a "national" (narodm) party. 36 Husak also hewed closely to this orthodox narrative of the Uprising instead of accentuating the national dimension of the SNP, averring at Smolenice that "the Slovak National Uprising was above all a political conception, the political revolution of the Slovak people." 37 Even as historians embarked on a pursuit for the truth about the SNP at Smolenice, they continued to parrot old party cliches about the Uprising. Indeed, historical fidelity coexisted alongside shifting political dictates in the historiography of the SNP throughout the l 960s, demonstrating how historians' professed desire for objectivity toward the past ran aground on their inability to remain aloof from the politics of the present. In O Slovenskom narodnom povstani, published in 1964, Falt'an culled new facts and documents in a quest to tell the truth about the Uprising, albeit a truth with a clear agenda. Falt'an's book expanded on the ideas he presented at Smolenice, as he continued his efforts to vindicate the Slovak Communists who had been condemned as "bourgeois nationalists" in the 1950s. But while Falt'an made skillful use of wartime documents to present a more historically accurate picture of the Slovak resistance, the same tired cliches about international solidarity and the Soviet Union 35 Tichy, " Hlavne etapy formy a problemy narodnooslobodzovacieho hnutia na Slovensku," 68-69. 36 Frantisek Janacek, " Dve promeny slovenske otazky (Mezi Mnichovem a Slovenskym narodnim povsta nim)," in Slovenske narodne povstanie roku /944 , eds. Holotik and Kropilak, 618 , 628. 37 Husak, "K ni ektorym otazkam Slovenskeho narodneho povstania," 657. �SLOVAKIA 77 still peppered his work. He claimed the Uprising, among other things, "was the expression of great faith in the Soviet people," showing how de-Stalinization and a more relaxed political environment did not relieve Slovaks and Czechs of the duty to show deference to their Soviet allies - an obligation that remained in force even at the height of liberalization in 1968.38 Even the most groundbreaking histories of the Uprising from the mid-sixties exhibited a multiplicity of agendas. In Dejinna kriiovatka, a group of Slovak and Czech historians drew on their work on the Bamabite Commission in an attempt to "rehabilitate" the historical image of the SNP. Their work helped to expose the distortions of the Stalinist era, but it also restored the Slovak question to a prominent role in the new, post-Stalinist narrative of the Uprising. Dejinna kriiovatka appeared in a modest printing of 10,000 copies, yet it gained renown as the first attempt at a comprehensive history of the Slovak National Uprising that consciously rejected the Stalinist narrative and addressed several lacunae in scholarship on the Uprising. And yet, for all its significance as a landmark of Slovak historiography, Dejinna kriiovatka continued to uphold a Marxist worldview in interpreting the SNP as an affirmation of socialist revolution as well as a manifestation of how attractive communist ideas were to the average Slovaks who formed the core of the partisan masses in the Uprising.39 A similar emphasis on the communist aims of the Uprising appeared in Husak's Svedectvo o Slovenskom narodnom povstani. To his credit, Husak addressed some previously neglected or trivialized facets of the Uprising, pointing out the contributions of the noncommunist opposition within the antifascist camp, the existence of 40 which had been all but denied in Stalinist-era scholarship. Yet Husak's motives for calling attention to this marginalized component of the resistance were also self-serving. Lauding the role of the nonCommunists in the Uprising allowed Husak to validate the strategy of cooperating with non-Communists that he and other KSS leaders had pursued. Husak's intent in writing his recollection of the Uprising seemed to be to vindicate himself, not only in terms of the 38 Falt'an, 0 Slovenskom narodnom povstani, 8, I 03. Beer and others, Dejinna kriiovatka, 125-126, 252. 40 Husak, Svedectvo o Slovenskom narodnom povstani, 36-37. 39 �78 SLOVAKIA historical record, but also in the eyes of the party. As such, Husak stuck close to the communist interpretation of the SNP as a revolt directed against the ruling Slovak and Czech bourgeoisies, while simultaneously heralding the Communist Party (a self-referential bit of praise, considering his role as a member of the wartime KSS leadership) for leading the Uprising and launching the national and democratic revolution in Slovakia. 41 Husak's book also created a sensation after it appeared in August of 1964. The responses from Slovak and Czech intellectuals and historians ranged from the fawning to the damning, but most reviews 42 emphasized its positive contributions to scholarship on the SNP. These early favorable reviews led many Slovaks to view Husak, not only as a prominent figure in the Uprising, but as Jablonicky observed years later, they also encouraged both defenders and detractors of Husak to think of him "as a promising politician possibly on the rise in Slovakia."43 Husak's account of the Uprising conferred considerable authority on him, though not all historians accepted his portrayal of the SNP without reservation. The Czech scholar Josef Domansky offered the first critical remarks on Husak's book, noting one shortcoming was its "methodological non-clarity" resulting from the blurred division between Husak the memoirist and Husak the historian. On the whole, Domansky judged the book positively, even if it had its flaw s, and he regarded it as part of the new trend in historiography that helped to clarify the importance of the Slovak question and to transcend the oversimplifications of earlier scholarship on the Uprising.44 Yet Husak's book became a cause celebre among Slovak - and Czech - intellectuals when it came under fire from on high . Antonin Novotny had little patience for Husak, since Novotny had resisted the rehabilitation of Husak and other victims of Stalinism. When KSS leaders refused to rein in Husak, Novotny commissioned a party hack, the Czech historian Vaclav Kral , to write a scathing review in 41 Ibid., 129, 133 , 139. See, for instance, Anna Stvrtecka, "O dokum entoc h a fa ktoc h," Kultiirny i ivot, 27 August I 965 ; and Jifi Doleza l, " Dvakrat o S P," Mezinarodni politika I 0, no. I 0 (October 1964): 472. 43 Jablonicky, "S lovenske narodne povstani e a tri etapy jeho hodnoteni a," 452 . 44 Josef Domansky, " Nad knihou o Slovenskem narodnim povs tani," Nova mys/ 20, no. I ( 1965): 133- 134. 42 �SLOVAKIA 79 order to discredit Husak.45 The KSC cultural weekly Kulturni tvorba published Kral 's review in February 1966, almost two years after Husak' s book appeared in print, and focused, in Kral ' s words, "on a series of theses and questions that are insufficiently or incorrectly developed in Husak's book." Yet Kral's dissection of Husak' s narrative contained thinly veiled criticism of Husak's wartime activities as a member of the KSS Central Committee that organized the • · 46 Upnsmg. Though the high-level political machinations behind Kral ' s review were not common knowledge at the time, the response from Slovak and Czech historians was irate. Anton Bencik, Vaclav Kura) and Jaromir Navratil - one Slovak and two Czech historians - published a reply to Kral in defense of Husak' s work, which stressed the importance of Svedectvo o Slovenskom narodnom povstani as a harbinger of the new developments in historiography following the KSC's renunciation of "bourgeois nationalism" in 1963 . "The publication of Husak's book was indisputably an event," they offered in their response, yet the renown Husak had achieved with this work was only possible because it corresponded to contemporary knowledge of the Uprising and had been accepted by the historical community. Indeed, Husak 's book had been vetted in several reviews, which generally judged it favorably , albeit with some criticism of individual facets . Bencik, Kura! and Navratil also found it puzzling how Kral had remained silent during the historiographical discussions of Husak 's book when it first appeared, and was only then speaking out against the work, long after the fact. The timing was peculiar, though Bencik, Kura) and Navratil did not press their • • 47 susp1c10ns. 45 Vac lav Kra l, "O os udu jedne recenze," Kulturni tvorba, 25 April 1968. Vaclav Kra l, "O Husakove svedectvi troc hu j inak," Kul!urni tvorba, 24 February 1966. 47 Anton Benci k, Vaclav Ku ra ] and Jaromir Navratil , "Jes te o Husakove svedectvi a nejen o nem," Kulturni tvorba, 3 1 March 1966. The rev iew was reprinted a week later in th e Slovak cul tura l magaz ine Predvoj. Anton Benc ik , Vac lav Ku ra ] and Jaro mir Nav ratil , "Este o Husakovom Svedectve a nielen o i\om," Predvoj , 7 April 1966. 46 �80 SLOVAKIA Toward Better Histories? On the whole, Slovak historiography of the SNP during the sixties struggled to find its way, as the competing impulses of communist orthodoxy and professional integrity pulled individual historians in opposite directions. While some scholars, like Jablonicky, or the historians who worked on the Bamabite Commission, proved relatively successful at eschewing dogma in writing new narratives more concerned with fidelity to the historical record, it proved impossible even for these more commendable histories to avoid all the cliches about the Uprising that had marked Stalinist-era scholarship. Yet historiography did not exist in a vacuum, and Slovak historians - as well as journalists, writers, politicians and other public figures addressing the theme of the SNP - also played an active role in using the history of the Uprising to reshape contemporary politics. The Slovak National Uprising was an episode from recent history, and the new vitality of scholarship on it during the midsixties ensured the Uprising remained living history for the remainder of the decade. Rewriting the history of the SNP allowed Slovak (and Czech) scholars to press for the rehabilitation of its persecuted leaders. But the new narrative of the Uprising also helped to "rehabilitate" the idea of the Slovak nation in public discourse, which in tum created an opening for politically engaged Slovaks to advance a nationalist agenda. Ultimately, this agenda would aim at a new approach to the Slovak question in the form of a federation, but in the interim, it entailed the promotion of a Slovak national consciousness firmly rooted in the new, "rehabilitated" historical image of the Uprising. � 60 SLOVAKIA RISING AGAINST STALINISM: DESTALINIZATION AND THE REINTERPRETATION OF THE SLOVAK NATIONAL UPRISING IN SLOVAK HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE 1960s Scott Brown In the morning hours of 29 August 1944, several thousand Slovak and foreign partisans took up arms against the German soldiers who entered Slovakia the previous day to crush the country's growing anti-German resistance. This armed insurrection marked the start of the Slovak National Uprising (Slovenske narodne povstanie, or SNP), a rebellion centered on the city of Banska Bystrica and directed against the German invaders and the pro-German leaders of the wartime Slovak state. Over the ensuing two months, roughly 60,000 Slovak and foreign partisans, including rebel units of the Slovak Army, fought a loosely coordinated campaign against the German incursion. Outnumbered and outgunned, the partisans steadily lost the territory they had initially controlled, and by the end of October 1944 the German units had quelled the Uprising. Yet the military shortcomings of the SNP paled in comparison to its political significance: the Slovak underground had carried out the largest resistance operation on once (and future) Czechoslovak soil during the Second World War. The Uprising bolstered the position of the Czechoslovak government in exile, which could point to the SNP as proof that Czechoslovakia had contributed militarily to its own liberation. Further-more, in the eyes of Czechs, the Uprising also helped to "redeem" Slovaks for their unilateral declaration of independence in 1939, and for the quasi-fascist government that ruled Slovakia during the war. After the war, the SNP became the centerpiece of a new, reconstructed form of Slovak nationalism that played a major role in precipitating the Czechoslovak Spring of the late 1960s. Nonetheless, Slovak nationalism remained a liability for nearly two decades after the war. The mere existence of the wartime Slovak state left Slovak nationalism suspect, since many Czechs continued �SLOVAKIA 61 to equate it with Slovak separatism and the humiliating loss of Czech independence in 1939. In addition, the persecution of Slovak "bourgeois nationalists" - many of whom had played prominent roles in the Uprising - in the political trials of the 1950s further compromised the legitimacy of Slovak nationalism in a Czechoslovak context. These problematic legacies left Slovak nationalism without a usable past until the rehabilitation of the erstwhile Slovak "bourgeois nationalists" in 1963 afforded the Slovaks a political opening to reevaluate the SNP. In tum, this reinterpretation of the Uprising's historical significance provided the foundation for a new, positive brand of nationalism Slovaks could safely assert. If nothing else, the SNP had given the lie to the notion that Slovak nationalism was incompatible with a Czechoslovak state. Gradually, many Slovak historians, intellectuals and politicians advanced a narrative of the SNP that interpreted the Uprising as the great redemptive act of the Slovak nation. In this view, Slovaks rose up as a nation against the wartime pro-Nazi regime of Jozef Tiso, sacrificing "their own" state in order to resurrect Czechoslovakia and make the new republic their own state. For champions of the Slovak national cause in the 1960s, finding their place in the restored Czechoslovakia entailed recognition of the existence of a separate Slovak nation and the enshrinement of its equality with the other titular nation through the federalization of the state. By reconstructing the history of the Uprising in this way, Slovak nationalists could then lay claim to specific rights as a nation. Like their calls for a Czechoslovak federation later in the decade, Slovak nationalists' demands for legal recognition of Slovak nationhood in the mid- to late 1960s referred directly or indirectly to the Slovak National Uprising for justification. As historians and political figures constructed a new narrative of the Uprising in the 1960s, they toned down old Stalinist and Marxist dogmas. Instead, the language they used to describe the SNP restored Slovaks - and the Slovak nation - to a central role. Important in this regard was how Slovaks writing and speaking about the Uprising during the Czechoslovak Spring began to accentuate the Slovak nation (narod) in retelling the history of the Uprising, placing new stress on the national component of the Slovak National Uprising. Thus, along with their stated desire to seek historical truth and to rectify the "errors" of Stalinism, Slovak historians writing about the �62 SLOVAKIA Uprising in the sixties also contributed to the reconstruction of Slovak nationalism by linking Slovaks' demands for national rights and a just solution to the Slovak question with the progressive and democratic traditions of the Uprising. The process of reinterpreting the Uprising and reconstructing Slovak nationalism - a process that occurred in fits and starts, with much equivocation - shows, in turn, how important Slovak developments of the mid-1960s served as antecedents to the Czechoslovak Spring that blossomed in 1968. One of the crucial, yet underappreciated, facets of this prehistory took shape in the new historiography of the SNP produced in the l 960s. Several groups of historians participated in crafting this new narrative. Younger historians, such as Jozef Jablonicky, perhaps had an advantage of personal detachment, since they had fought in neither the Uprising nor the battles over its history during the Stalinist era. 1 Other important contributors came from the historians who served on the Bamabite Commission and subsequently attempted to produce more "objective" and "factual" histories of the Uprising. 2 But veterans of the Up1 lndeed, Jab lonicky di sti ngui shed himself as arguabl y the most profess iona l and darin g histo ri an with hi s willingness to te ll the story of the significant but politically margin ali zed non-communi st "c ivilian" component of the Slovak resi stance that fought in th e NP. Yet even Jablonicky's work ex hibited an evolution in hi s willingness to challenge former taboos, since his first works from early in the decade did not go quite so far in this regard as hi s later work. See Jozef Jablon icky, Sloven- ska na prelome: Zapas o vit'azstvo narodnej a demokratickej revohicie na Slovensku (Bratislava : Yydavatel'stvo politickej literatury, 1965); and Jozef Jablonicky, Z ilegality do povstania (Kapitoly z obcianskeho odboja) (Bratislava : Epocha, 1969). 2 In Apri l 1963 , the Central Comm ittee of th e Communist Party of Czechos lovakia (Komunis ticka strana Ceskoslovenska, or KSC) convened a working gro up of Slovak and Czech party and academic "experts," popularly known as the " Bamabite Commiss ion," to investi gate th e allegations of " bourgeois nationalism" that had been leve led aga inst Ladi slav ovomesky, Gustav Husak and oth er wartime leaders of the Communist Party of Slovakia (Komunisticka strana S/o venska, or KSS) in th e major Slovak political trial s of the early 1950s. The Bamabite Commission's report, issued in August 1963 , di spro ved the Stalinist-era charges and called for the co mplete political rehabilitation of Husak, Novomesky and the oth er accused Slovak " bourgeois nationa lists." Stanis lav Sikora, " Politicky vyvoj na Slovensku v rokoch I 960- 1967 ," in Miroslav Londak, Stanis lav Sikora an d Elena Londakova, Predjarie: Politicky, ekonomicky a kul!iirny vyvoj na Slovensku v rokoch 1960- 1967 (Bratislava: Veda, 2002), 46-47 . The major schol arl y product that followed from th e work of the Barnabite Comm ission , not to mention one of the best studi es of th e Uprising from this era, was Ferdinand Beer and others, Dejinna kriiovatka: Slovenske ncirod- �SLOVAKIA 63 rising, like Gustav Husak, and older scholars like Samo Falt'an (also a former partisan) participated in this process as well, whether to exonerate themselves for their activities during the SNP, or to offer a mea culpa for their distorted publications from the Stalinist era.3 Many western studies of the Czechoslovak Spring that address the years prior to 1968 offer at best a fleeting mention of the revival of Slovak history and efforts to remove discredited cliches of the 4 Stalinist era from the historical image of the SNP. Nonetheless, the lack of scholarly attention to this important trend in Slovak historiography does a disservice to its importance in Slovak - and Czechoslovak - politics of the mid- to late 1960s. Though de-Stalinization may have begun from on high in the Czechoslovak capital, Slovak historians, writers, intellectuals, politicians and other public figures took full advantage of the chance to break old taboos and raise formerly forbidden issues, none of which was more heretical or politically pregnant than the Slovak question. As the Slovak writer Peter Karvas told Antonin J. Liehrn in 1968, Stalinist propaganda had a banalizing effect on all this; it reduced the Uprising to a historical cliche, and in the end the generation of the Uprising convinced itself that this view was somehow a more noble and correct one. Thus it is neither an accident nor an illusion that the rehabilitation of the ne povstanie - predpoklady a vysledky (Brati slava: Vydavatel's tvo po litic kej literatury, I 964). Important exampl es of these work s we re Samo Falt'an, 0 Slovenskom narodnom povstani (Bra ti slava: Osveta, 1964); a nd Gustav Husak, Svedectvo o Slovenskom narodnom povstani (Brati slava: Vydavatel'stvo po litickej literatury, 1964). Husak also published a second , slightl y rev ised editi o n of hi s memo ir cum hi story in 1969. nd Gustav Hu sak, Svedectvo o Slovensko narodnom povstani, 2 ed. (Bratislava: Epocha, 1969). 4 H. Gordon Skilling a nd V ladimir V . Ku sin each pro vide a pass in g mention of the importance of SN P hi stori ography in th e m id-sixties. See H. Gordon Skilling, Czechoslovakia ·s Interrupted Revolution (Princeto n, N .J .: Princeton Uni ve rsity Press, 1976), 50-51 ; V ladimir V. Kusin, The Intellectual Origins of the Prague 3 Spring: The Development of Reform ist Ideas in Czechoslovakia, 1956- 1967 (Ca mbridge: Ca mbrid ge Uni versity Press, 197 1), 70. �64 SLOVAKIA Uprising coincided with a wave of reawakening sweeping across all the Slovak social and intellectual life. 5 Accordingly, chronicling the "history of the history" of the Slovak National Uprising during the 1960s offers a way to challenge these conventional boundaries and interpretations of the Czechoslovak Spring. Tracing the shifts in Slovak historiography and the new brand of Slovak nationalism constructed in the process restores Slovaks to the significant role they played in this upheaval, showing how Slovakia experienced an "early spring" following the renewed effort at de-Stalinization and rehabilitation in 1963 . The Pitfalls of History (and Historiography) Pointing to the "errors" that plagued earlier histories of the Slovak National Uprising, the writer Ladislav Novomesky made a plea to Slovak and Czech historians in 1964. His appeal to the participants at a conference at Smolenice on the Uprising urged historians to pay close attention to the image of the SNP through twenty years of historiography. As part of the process of rectifying the mistakes of Stalinism and rewriting history, Novomesky proposed that historians "delineate the history of the history [emphasis in original]" of the Uprising. 6 As Novomesky's remarks indicated, the political context in which historians worked had left an indelible mark on historiography and on the history of the Slovak National Uprising. Political constraints of the Stalinist era had curtailed the research possibilities available to scholars, who could not access most of the relevant documents and other materials. But political dictates had also imposed ready-made interpretations on historians' narratives. When Novomesky made his pitch to historians to take stock of the historiography of the Uprising, he mainly had in mind the correction of the lies, distortions and half-truths that had colored histories of the Uprising 5 Antonin J. Liehm, The Politics of Culture, trans. Peter Kussi (New York : Grove Press, 1972), 351. 6 Ladislav Novomesky, "Za hi storicku pravdu o Povstani," in Slovenske narodne povstanie ro/..."U 1944 (Sbornik prispevkov z narodnooslobodzovacieho boja 19381945), eds . Cudovit Holotik and Miroslav Kropilak, (Bratislava: Vydavatel'stvo Slovenskej akademie vied, 1965), 668. �SLOVAKIA 65 since the onset of Stalinism in Czechoslovakia in the late 1940s. Revisions to these histories had become possible only with the work of the Bamabite Commission and the first concrete steps at deStalinization in 1963 . As the Slovak writer Michal Chorvath claimed on the Uprising's nineteenth anniversary in August 1963 , the "liquidation of the cult of personality" made it possible for the first time in years "to say about the Slovak National Uprising and its significance for our nation and state what the whole public has already thought for a long time." 7 De-Stalinization thus provided an important stimulus in the midI 960s for historians to attempt a more objective look at the Uprising. But while this political opening afforded scholars an opportunity to contest the older dogmatic accounts of the SNP, the historical image of the Uprising remained deeply politicized in the new narratives of the sixties. In the middle and later years of the decade, many Slovak intellectuals and politicians contested Stalinist-era views in rewriting the history of the SNP, yet the individuals driving these shifts continued to interpret the historical significance of the Uprising in a way that served their contemporary personal and political agendas. For instance, Husak claimed expertise as a historian of the Uprising based on his background as the leading Slovak Communist in the SNP. Yet Husak also traded on his stature as an "authority" on the Uprising (and as the most prominent surviving Slovak victim of the Stalinist era) to mount his political comeback, culminating in his ascent to the post of KSC first secretary in April 1969. As the Czech historian Jan Rychlik notes, the new interpretation of the Uprising formulated in the mid-sixties "had a supremely political character," since it weighed directly on the question of rehabilitation and a return to politics for Husak and Novomesky.8 Nonetheless, a "rehabilitation" of the historical image of the SNP was a necessary part of de-Stalinization in Slovakia after 1963 , because the dictates of Stalinism had skewed earlier narratives. Older histories of the Uprising painted it as the opening act of the national and democratic revolution in Czechoslovakia, depicting the SNP as little more than a stepping stone toward the Communist seizure of 7 Mi cha l Chorvath , "K metodam skum ani a SN P," Ku /uirny i ivot, 3 1 August 1963. Jan Rychlik, Ce.si a Slovaci ve 20. sto /eti: Cesko-slovenske vztahy 1945-/ 992, vo l. 2 (Bra ti slava : Academi c Electroni c Press, 1998), 206. 8 �66 SLOVAKIA power. 9 These Stalinist-era narratives forced the SNP into a doctrinaire Marxist framework. Accordingly, historiography from the 1950s and early 1960s celebrated the toiling masses of the Slovak people (l'ud) , who rejected the "clerico-fascism" of the Tiso regime and adopted an internationalist outlook in fightin g side by side with the fraternal Czech nation, aided by the heroic Soviet Union, in order to create a new Czechoslovak Republic oriented towards the international Communist movement centered in Moscow. The heavy-handed Marxist language employed in these older narratives practically wrote Slovaks out of their own Uprising as it lionized the role of the Red Army and even of Czech partisans in the SNP, treating the contributions of Slovaks as an afterthought. Writing in samizdat in 1980, Jablonicky, the leading Slovak historian of the Uprising, divided historiography of the SNP into three distinct periods. Jablonicky characterized the first period, from 1949 to 1962, as one of "deformation," a time when historians falsified the history of the SNP to suit the dogmas of Stalinism and the attack on Slovak "bourgeois nationalism," which claimed as victims many prominent communist veterans of the Slovak resistance, including Husak, Novomesky and Karol Smidke. 10 Beginning with the work of the Barnabite Commission, a second period, which Jablonicky called "rehabilitation" took shape in 1963 . Though it lasted only until the installation of the Husak regime in April 1969, this era witnessed a burst of scholarship on the Uprising distinguished by its pursuit of "historical truth," including efforts to docu9 See, for instance, Jaros lav Kubat, ed., Slovenske narodni po vstani - Vyznamna etapa narodne osvobozeneckeho boje ceskoslovenskeho lidu: Material pro lektory a propagandisty k 15. vyroci SNP (Prague: Statn i nak ladatelstvi poli ticke literatu ry, 1959) . 10 Smidke had been a member the illegal KSS Centra l Committee that orga nized the Uprising, as we ll as the co-creator of the Christmas Agreement. Du ring the early stages of the campa ign aga inst the "bourgeois nationalists," Smidke faced accusations of collaboration, along with Vladimir Clementi s, Husak and Novo mesky, and lost his party and governmenta l posts, inc ludi ng his position as chairman of the Slovak Nati onal Council. Sm idke avo ided jo ining his supposed co llaborators in the dock at the poli tical tria ls of the ea rl y fifti es only due to hi s death in an automobile acc ident in late 1952, th ough various witnesses c laimed it had been a planned murder. He was posthumously rehabilitated with the other Slovak "bourgeois nati onalists" in December 1963. Jan Pesek, " Karo l Smidke," ed. Ja n Pesek, Akteri jednej ery na Slovensku: Personiflkacia politickeho vyvoja (Presov: Vydavatel'stvo Michala Vaska, 2003), 328-330. �SLOVAKIA 67 ment the role of non-Communists in the SNP. With the onset of "normalization" in 1970, a third period commenced, bringing a return to deformations and the silencing of "inconvenient historians" a group that included Jablonicky - and lasted until the fall of the communist regime in 1989. 11 Though Jablonicky's periodization conforms to wide trends in historiography on the Uprising, his characterization of the second period oversimplifies the contours of this pivotal era. Scholarship on the SNP produced from 1963 to 1969 witnessed a new push for historical truth and objectivity, with historians drawing on previously inaccessible documents, filling in former "blank spots" and challenging earlier dogmatic interpretations of the Uprising. However, the general trend toward historical fidelity did not follow the linear trajectory Jablonicky describes. While many historians sought accuracy and improved professional practices, others held fast to old dogmas, resulting in a multiplicity of narratives and interpretations of the SNP. Moreover, the ambiguities inherent in the quest for historical truth cut through the scholarship of individual historians. In May 1963 , Jan Kfen, a Czech historian who served as one of the experts on the Bamabite Commission, explained the challenges ahead for historians after Stalinism: The battle against dogmatism is, in my opmzon, above all an internal matter of every historian, a question of his theoretical level, his ideological potential. Like all progress in science, the overcoming of dogmatism is not possible without abilities and talent. Untalented thinking is always dogmatic, stereotypical and toady ish. 12 Yet Kfen overstated the importance of professional abilities, as many talented historians struggled to discard political considerations in order to write better histories. For instance, while Jablonicky's Slovensko na prelome, published in 1965, stressed the importance of the Uprising for inaugurating a new chapter in Czech-Slovak rela11 Jozef Ja bl oni cky, Glosy o historiograjii SNP: Zneuiivanie a f alfovanie dej in SNP (Brati slava: NVK In te rn ati onal, 1994), I 0, 13. 12 Jan Kfe n, " Kult a hi stori e," Kulttirna tvorba, 23 May 1963. �68 SLOVAKIA tions, Jablonicky equivocated in repeating the best orthodox cliches about nefarious Slovak and Czech bourgeoisies and the leading role of Communists in the resistance. 13 To Jablonicky's credit, he penned perhaps the decade ' s most important historiographical contribution in 1969, Z illegality do povstania, which offered the most stunning refutation of dogmatic interpretations of the Uprising and destroyed several taboos in praising the non-communist resistance and units of the Slovak Army for their roles in the Uprising while simultaneously portraying its communist leaders in an unflattering light. In a samizdat essay from 1979, Jablonicky even offered a mea culpa for his early scholarship in which he acknowledges the shortcomings of his first works. As Jablonicky recalled, conversations with dozens of former partisans and victims of Stalinism "gradually opened my eyes" as a young historian in the 1960s, leading him to appreciate the importance of the non-communist resistance. 14 Of course, Jablonicky was not alone. At a conference of Slovak historians in June 1963, Milos Gosiorovsky presented a harsh evaluation of his own works on the Uprising from the Stalinist era, criticizing his monographs Ilegalny boj KSS and Slovenske narodne povstanie for presenting a "substantially deformed" picture of the 15 SNP. A year later, Samo Falt'an described how the dictates of editorial boards and the pressures of self-censorship had handicapped evaluations of the Uprising in the Stalinist era, preventing him from including anything critical in his book Partizanska vojna na Slovensku, published in 1959 . 16 As the confessions of Gosiorovsky and Falt'an revealed, the most prominent Slovak historians had been especially susceptible to pressures for ideological conformity, which 13 Jablonicky, Slovensko na prelome, 3 1, 148- 149. Vilem Precan, " Historik proti nas iliu - Jozef Jabloni cky," in Jozef Jablonicky, Samizdat o odboji: Stiidie a clanky, vol. 2 (Bratislava: Kalligram, 2006), 12; Jablonicky, Glosy o historiografii SNP, 6 1. 15 Frantisek Bokes, "Vaine zhromazdeni e Slovenskej hi stori ckej spolocnosti ," Historicky casopis 12, no. 4 (1963): 650; Milos Gosiorovsky, !legalny boj KSS a Slovenske narodne povstanie (Bratislava: Nakladatel'stvo Pravda, 1949); Milos Gosiorovsky, Slovenske narodne povstanie (Bra ti slava : Slovenske vydava tel'stvo politi ckej literatury, 1954). 16 Samo Falt'an, "Niektore otazky okolo hodnoteni a Slovenskeho narodneho povstania," Historicky casop is 12, no. 2 ( 1964): 161 , 164; Samo Falt'an, Partizanska vojna na Slovensku (Bratislava: Osveta, 1959). 14 �SLOVAKIA 69 seemed to spur their self-conscious push for objectivity in the more relaxed Slovak political climate of the mid-l 960s. Just as Slovak historians in the l 960s recognized the harmful effects of Stalinism on scholarship on the Uprising, scholars writing about the sixties acknowledge the importance of historiography for the larger crisis gestating in Czechoslovakia. Nonetheless, scholarship about the l 960s has pronounced limitations when it comes to historiography from the 1960s. Non-Slovak writers treat the history of the Uprising as but one issue among many new historiographical developments in Czechoslovakia, an approach characterristic of the wider tendency to trivialize the role of Slovaks and the Slovak question in the l 960s. 17 While the Slovak National Uprising was hardly the only historical theme to gamer renewed interest from historians in the mid-sixties - or even the only topic from Slovak history - it was unique in the political purposes to which prominent Slovaks put it in justifying contemporary demands for a resolution of the Slovak question in line with the ostensible aims of the Uprising. More obvious, however, was the extent to which the new historiography on the SNP from the 1960s broke with old dogmas. The doctrinaire narrative of the Uprising from the Stalinist era marginalized the role of Slovaks in the Slovak National Uprising. An instructional manual for lecturers and propagandists published in advance of the SNP's fifteenth anniversary - and, tellingly, written in Czech inflated the importance of Soviet and Czech contributions to the Uprising: In August 1944 the Slovak nation, emboldened by the heroic battle of the Soviet p eople in the Great Patriotic War, under the leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, alongside the Soviet Army advancing to victory, together with the fraternal Czech nation, rose up with weapons in 17 See, fo r instance, th e scant treatm ent prov ided in Stanl ey Z. Pec h, " Fe rment in Czec hoslova k Marxist Hi stori ograph y," Canadian Slavonic Papers l 0, no. 4 (Dece mber 1968): 502-522; Ga lia Gol an, The Czechoslovak Refo rm Movement: Communism in Crisis. 1962- / 968 ; and Skillin g, Czechoslovakia 's Interrupted Revolution. By contrast, M. Mark Stolarik observed how hi stori ans, beginning with Husak and the th eme of the SNP, increasingly reasserted Slovak nati onali sm in their th work . M. Mark Stolarik , "The Painful Birth of Slovak Histori ography in the 20 Century," Zeitschriftfiir Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung 50, no. 2 (2 00 I): 176 . �70 SLOVAKIA hand against the German occupiers and their domestic fascist supporters in order to contribute to the liberation of their own homeland - the Czechoslovak Republic. 18 Amid the rambling succession of clauses inserted to show obligatory deference to the Soviet Union and the KSC and to flatter Czechs, the propaganda manual, like the Stalinist-era interpretations of the SNP it typifies, lost sight of the Slovaks, who nearly disappeared from the history of their own Uprising. At the same time, older orthodoxy ascribed the Marxist categories of proletarian internationalism and class struggle to the Uprising. In their work on international participation in the SNP, the Czech Jii'i Dolezal and the Slovak Jozef Hroziencik credited the liberation of Czechoslovakia to the Soviet Army on the international stage, and to the working class at home. The Uprising occurred as a consequence, Dolezal and Hroziencik argued, of "the strengthening of the working class and its ideological leadership in the nation," along with the blossoming of the idea of internationalism within the proletariat. 19 Near the end of the Stalinist era, an editorial in 1962 from the KSC Central Committee daily Rude pravo made the dubious claim that, "on an ideological plane," the Uprising "aimed mainly at developing a unified economy," along with combining all other aspects of Slovak and Czech society after liberation - making the SNP appear as the first step toward amalgamating Slovaks and Czechs into a single Czechoslovak nation.2° Conventional interpretations from the Stalinist era thus reduced the Uprising to little more than the opening act in the Czechoslovak revolution and a prelude to the communist takeover in 1948.21 Such a view seemed at odds with the reality of communist electoral strength in the elections of 1946, when the party made considerable gains over its interwar showing, yet still suffered a decisive defeat at the hands of the Democratic Party. 18 Kubat, Slovenske narodni povstani, 3. Jifi Dolezal and Jozef Hroziencik, Medzinarodna solidarita v Slovenskom narodnom povstani (Bratislava: Osveta, 1959), 35, 219 20 " Rozvij ime spolecne dilo," Rude pravo, 29 August 1962. 21 Doleza l and Hroziencik, Medzinarodna solidarita , 74. 19 �SLOVAKIA 71 Coming to Terms with the Past: De-Stalinization and the Uprising Rewriting the history of the Slovak National Uprising first required important political developments to transpire, and the process drew succor from new efforts at de-Stalinization in 1963 . But the impact of the Bamabite Commission also revealed the crucial role historians played in this process. As Ferdinand Beer, Antonin Bencik, Frantisek Janacek and Jan Kfon recalled, their work on the Bamabite Commission offered historians a rare chance to play an important role in current events: ft was - as far as we know - the first time such a large group of scholars was asked to do this kind of work. This experience left its mark on their whole way of doing work and became, at least for historians, one of those rare occasions when they could not only reconstruct history, but also help to make it. 22 The recollections of these historians also spoke to the transformative effect the Bamabite Commission had on its member-scholars, which proved a formative experience for the way they approached their craft thereafter. Because it focused not only on the political trials of the early 1950s, but also on the activities of the "bourgeois nationalists" during the SNP, the Bamabite Commission employed several professional historians who consequently gained access to documents formerly off limits to researchers, including the files of the "bourgeois nationalists" and materials concerning the cases of Vladimir Clementis and others.23 A document collection on the SNP, originally planned to appear in conjunction with the twentieth anniversary of the Uprising in 1964 and intended to span 300 to 400 pages when conceived in the spring of 1963, soon ballooned to more than a thousand pages and took an extra year to produce. As Vilem Precan, the Czech editor of the volume, recounts in hi s preface, the renewed interest in the Uprising first observed during celebrations of its nineteenth anniversary, coupled with the political fallout of the 22 23 Beer and others, "Svedectvi z Barnabitek," Kulturni tvorba, 2 May 1968. Sikora, " Po liticky vyvoj na Slovensku," 38. �72 SLOVAKIA Barnabite Commission's report, created "editorial possibilities" that compelled him to broaden the scope of the project. Precan had to sift through piles of newly available documents and include as many of these materials as he could, a daunting task that kept him from completing the volume until 1965 - a full year behind schedule.24 Confronted with documentary evidence of the fabrications from the political trials, the historian-members of the Bamabite Commission were floored by the level of deceit, which exceeded their wildest imagination. Confronting such proof of the crimes of Stalinism had a galvanizing effect on Slovak and Czech historians similar to the jolt Nikita Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" had given to Soviet Communists in 1956. As a group of historians recalled in the spring of 1968, "In a certain sense, all of us inside the walls of the former Bamabite monastery went through our own 20 th Congress." 25 For these historians at least, there could be no going back to the old, dogmatic interpretations of Slovak history, especially where the Uprising was concerned. Sensing the opportunity de-Stalinization and the Barnabite Commission had created, historians took the initiative in probing sensitive issues like the Slovak question and the wartime resistance in Slovakia. As early as March of 1963, Falt'an had urged a drastic reexamination of the Uprising, one that would break out of the "black-and-white pigeonholes" of historiography from the Stalinist era to "evaluate objectively and justly" such topics as the role of (non-communist) Slovak regulars from the 1st Czechoslovak Army in the SNP. 26 Further steps in this direction came in the summer of 1963, when historians openly connected the significance of their professional work to the concurrent process of rehabilitation. Miroslav Kropilak opened the Slovak Historical Society ' s conference in June 1963 by reminding his fellow historians of their shared obligation in reassessing "wrongly interpreted" segments of their history. 27 The congress helped to engage Slovak historians in the task 24 Vilem Precan, "S lovo cita tel'ovi," in Slovenske narodne povstanie - Dokumenty, ed. Precan, 5-6. 25 Beer and others, " Svedectvi z Barnabitek. " 26 Samo Falt'an, " Histori a a dn esok," Kulturny i ivot, 23 March 1963 . 27 Kropilak's ex hortati on to eliminate th e "unscienti fic methods" of research employed in studi es of recent Slovak history marked an about fac e from his own presentation at the Fourth Congress of Slovak Histori ans a year earli er in Kosice. At Kosi- �SLOVAKIA 73 of eliminating vestiges of the "cult of personality," and it created space, as the historian Marek Havrila remarked, for the "de-ideologizing" (odideologizovanie) of history and the "academifying" (zvedectenie) of the discipline.28 Rewriting History: New (and Old) Narratives of the Uprising Historians began to rewrite the history of the Uprising in time for its twentieth anniversary in 1964, reflecting not only the opportunities created by the Bamabite Commission, but also the heightened interest in commemorating this milestone. Many historians took seriously the need for better scholarship on the Uprising and strove to make use both of newly available materials as well as the relaxation of political constraints. But other historians largely paid lip service to the tasks of writing new, post-Stalinist narratives of the SNP, hewing closely to older, more dogmatic interpretations. On the whole, the new historiography of the Uprising produced in the 1960s yielded improved histories, but it remained bound to the shifting politics of the day. A key development early in this process was an academic conference held at Smolenice on 8-10 June 1964, when several Slovak and Czech historians presented their latest research on the Uprising. The conference marked important progress on the "arduous journey" historians had traveled, as Kropilak recalled in his foreword to the published volume of conference papers, since it brought a "difficult acknowledgment of the unexamined truths, half-truths and untruths" that had characterized historiography of the Uprising from the Stalinist era.29 In a similar vein, Alexander Dubcek, who became KSS first secretary amid the political shakeup of the previous year, ce in I 962 , Kropil ak gave a paper on the anti fas ci st move ment in Eastern Slovakia th at uphe ld communist orthodoxy. He credited the party for building the resistance from the grass roots until the Upri sing, but made no mention of th e contributions of non-Co mmuni sts in the Slova k res istance. Bokes, " Va ine zhromazdenie," 650 ; "Stvrty sjazd slovenskych hi storik ov," Historicky casopis I 0, no. 4 ( 1962): 632. 28 Marek Havril a, " K ni ektory m pro blemom vyv inu slovenskej hi storiografie a slovenskej histori ckej spolocnosti pri SA V v 50. a 60. rokoch 20. storocia," Historicky casopis 55 , no. I (2007) : 28, 32. 29 Mi ros lav Kropil ak, " Uvod," in Slovenske narodne povstanie roku I 944, eds. Hol otik and Kropilak, 5. �74 SLOVAKIA opened the conference proceedings by exhorting historians to undertake "a really broad and deep critical analysis of all problems" concerning this significant chapter in recent Slovak history, and Dubcek also reminded historians that the rectification of earlier mistakes was not simply a question of the past, but also a living concern of the present and future .30 As if Dubcek's point could somehow be lost on his audience, the participation of Husak and Novomesky at Smolenice underscored the topicality of scholarship on the SNP. Indeed, Husak expressed his belief on the final day that the conference itself was a sign of the times, since a definite measure of political relaxation in Slovakia was a precondition for historians to address openly the pitfalls of Stalinist-era historiography, and to shed new light on the history of the Uprising. 31 The papers presented at Smolenice aimed mainly at debunking the myths and errors of the Stalinist-era narrative of the SNP. For instance, Falt'an directly criticized the Ninth KSS Congress for having "artificially created" a circle of "bourgeois nationalist traitors and agents of imperialism" that included Husak, Novomesky and Smidke as its leading figures. This trio of Slovak Communists had created the illegal Fifth KSS Central Committee in 1943 , following the arrest of members of the Fourth KSS Central Committee, and had played a major role in organizing the Uprising. Yet the members of the Fifth KSS Central Committee came under fire after the communist takeover of 1948 for their collaboration with nonCommunists, which provided one justification for their persecution as Slovak "bourgeois nationalists." Falt'an portrayed the Slovak Communists who had helped to orchestrate the SNP as both patriotic and communist, rendering the wartime KSS leadership as neither "bourgeois" nor "nationalist" in an effort to break with the dogmatic interpretations that had marred previous historiography.32 Another crucial component of this attempt to cast aside Stalinistera narratives was the effort historians made to address lacunae in scholarship on the Uprising. To this end, the Slovak historian Milos 30 Alexander Dubcek, "Marx isticka histori ografia a nasa revolucna minulost'," in S/ovenske narodne povstanie roku / 944, eds. Holotik and Kropil ak, I 8. 31 Gustav Husak, " K ni ektorym otazkam Slovenskeho narodn eho povstania," in S/ovenske narodne povstanie roku / 944, eds. Holotik and Kropilak, 652-653. 32 Samo Falt'an, " Slovenske narodn e povstani e a jeho problemy," in Slovenske narodne povstanie roku / 944, eds. Holotik and Kropilak, 222, 234. �SLOVAKIA 75 Tichy called attention to the contributions of non-Communists in the SNP. Though the Communists had been the only party in Slovakia that opposed the breakup of the republic and the Tiso government from the outset, Tichy emphasized how the non-communist parties could not be treated as monolithic supporters of Slovak separatism. Thus, Tichy took care to note how segments of the Social Democratic Party, along with individual members of other "bourgeois" (meaning non-communist) parties had held views similar to those of Slovak Communists with respect to the creation of a pro-German Slovak state. It was noteworthy for Tichy even to mention these nonCommunists who went on to join the wartime resistance, since, as he noted, the record of the non-communist resistance had been thoroughly trivialized and falsified in earlier historiography.33 Tichy struck one of the first important blows against the Stalinist narrative of the Uprising by virtue of recognizing the existence of noncommunist opposition to the Slovak state, though it was not until Jablonicky published Z ilegality do povstania at the end of the decade that this "civilian" segment of the wartime Slovak resistance gained the recognition it deserved. Even though historians consciously sought objectivity and historical fidelity at Smolen ice, they did not reject all elements of the Stalinist-era narrative of the SNP. Thus, while Falt'an preached the importance of historical truth in denouncing the lies that characterrized earlier histories, he sought this "truth" within a distinctly Marxist framework. Comparing the Slovak National Uprising of 1944 to the Warsaw Uprising of the same year, Falt'an placed the Slovak revolt on a qualitatively higher plane than the Polish insurrection, since the SNP had, in Falt'an 's estimation, the superior class orientation. Whereas the Polish "reactionary bourgeoisie" had "abused" popular hatred of Nazi Germany in order to serve its own "political speculations" and "anti-Soviet aims," the Slovak people had taken up arms under the leadership of "revolutionary forces" headed by the KSS .34 Marxist hermeneutics continued to color other interpretations of the Uprising advanced at Smolenice. Like Falt'an, Tichy took great 33 Milos Tic hy, " Hl avne etapy fo rmy a probl emy narodn ooslobodzo vac ieho hnuti a na Slove nsku do vzniku Povstani a," in Slovenske narodne povstanie roku / 944, eds. Ho lotik and Kropilak, 65, 7 1. 34 Fa lt'a n, "S lovens ke narodn e povstanie a jeho pro bl emy," 27 1. �76 SLOVAKIA pains to emphasize the class dimension of the Slovak people's rejection of the pre-Munich First Republic. Tichy claimed the Slovak people (l'ud) had directed their hatred not at the fraternal Czech nation, but rather against the "politics of the ruling Czech bourgeoisie." 35 Similarly, Frantisek Janacek, a Czech historian and former member of the Barnabite Commission, conceded the importance of the national element in the Uprising, yet he suggested there was less real significance to such national sentiment in and of itself than in the political objectives to which Slovak Communists could put it in the SNP. Thus, Janacek upheld a doctrinaire Marxist interpretation of national sentiment in deeming it instrumental to revolutionary ends. He argued the initiative the Communists exhibited on the Slovak question had made the KSS a vanguard force that Slovaks recognized as a "national" (narodm) party. 36 Husak also hewed closely to this orthodox narrative of the Uprising instead of accentuating the national dimension of the SNP, averring at Smolenice that "the Slovak National Uprising was above all a political conception, the political revolution of the Slovak people." 37 Even as historians embarked on a pursuit for the truth about the SNP at Smolenice, they continued to parrot old party cliches about the Uprising. Indeed, historical fidelity coexisted alongside shifting political dictates in the historiography of the SNP throughout the l 960s, demonstrating how historians' professed desire for objectivity toward the past ran aground on their inability to remain aloof from the politics of the present. In O Slovenskom narodnom povstani, published in 1964, Falt'an culled new facts and documents in a quest to tell the truth about the Uprising, albeit a truth with a clear agenda. Falt'an's book expanded on the ideas he presented at Smolenice, as he continued his efforts to vindicate the Slovak Communists who had been condemned as "bourgeois nationalists" in the 1950s. But while Falt'an made skillful use of wartime documents to present a more historically accurate picture of the Slovak resistance, the same tired cliches about international solidarity and the Soviet Union 35 Tichy, " Hlavne etapy formy a problemy narodnooslobodzovacieho hnutia na Slovensku," 68-69. 36 Frantisek Janacek, " Dve promeny slovenske otazky (Mezi Mnichovem a Slovenskym narodnim povsta nim)," in Slovenske narodne povstanie roku /944 , eds. Holotik and Kropilak, 618 , 628. 37 Husak, "K ni ektorym otazkam Slovenskeho narodneho povstania," 657. �SLOVAKIA 77 still peppered his work. He claimed the Uprising, among other things, "was the expression of great faith in the Soviet people," showing how de-Stalinization and a more relaxed political environment did not relieve Slovaks and Czechs of the duty to show deference to their Soviet allies - an obligation that remained in force even at the height of liberalization in 1968.38 Even the most groundbreaking histories of the Uprising from the mid-sixties exhibited a multiplicity of agendas. In Dejinna kriiovatka, a group of Slovak and Czech historians drew on their work on the Bamabite Commission in an attempt to "rehabilitate" the historical image of the SNP. Their work helped to expose the distortions of the Stalinist era, but it also restored the Slovak question to a prominent role in the new, post-Stalinist narrative of the Uprising. Dejinna kriiovatka appeared in a modest printing of 10,000 copies, yet it gained renown as the first attempt at a comprehensive history of the Slovak National Uprising that consciously rejected the Stalinist narrative and addressed several lacunae in scholarship on the Uprising. And yet, for all its significance as a landmark of Slovak historiography, Dejinna kriiovatka continued to uphold a Marxist worldview in interpreting the SNP as an affirmation of socialist revolution as well as a manifestation of how attractive communist ideas were to the average Slovaks who formed the core of the partisan masses in the Uprising.39 A similar emphasis on the communist aims of the Uprising appeared in Husak's Svedectvo o Slovenskom narodnom povstani. To his credit, Husak addressed some previously neglected or trivialized facets of the Uprising, pointing out the contributions of the noncommunist opposition within the antifascist camp, the existence of 40 which had been all but denied in Stalinist-era scholarship. Yet Husak's motives for calling attention to this marginalized component of the resistance were also self-serving. Lauding the role of the nonCommunists in the Uprising allowed Husak to validate the strategy of cooperating with non-Communists that he and other KSS leaders had pursued. Husak's intent in writing his recollection of the Uprising seemed to be to vindicate himself, not only in terms of the 38 Falt'an, 0 Slovenskom narodnom povstani, 8, I 03. Beer and others, Dejinna kriiovatka, 125-126, 252. 40 Husak, Svedectvo o Slovenskom narodnom povstani, 36-37. 39 �78 SLOVAKIA historical record, but also in the eyes of the party. As such, Husak stuck close to the communist interpretation of the SNP as a revolt directed against the ruling Slovak and Czech bourgeoisies, while simultaneously heralding the Communist Party (a self-referential bit of praise, considering his role as a member of the wartime KSS leadership) for leading the Uprising and launching the national and democratic revolution in Slovakia. 41 Husak's book also created a sensation after it appeared in August of 1964. The responses from Slovak and Czech intellectuals and historians ranged from the fawning to the damning, but most reviews 42 emphasized its positive contributions to scholarship on the SNP. These early favorable reviews led many Slovaks to view Husak, not only as a prominent figure in the Uprising, but as Jablonicky observed years later, they also encouraged both defenders and detractors of Husak to think of him "as a promising politician possibly on the rise in Slovakia."43 Husak's account of the Uprising conferred considerable authority on him, though not all historians accepted his portrayal of the SNP without reservation. The Czech scholar Josef Domansky offered the first critical remarks on Husak's book, noting one shortcoming was its "methodological non-clarity" resulting from the blurred division between Husak the memoirist and Husak the historian. On the whole, Domansky judged the book positively, even if it had its flaw s, and he regarded it as part of the new trend in historiography that helped to clarify the importance of the Slovak question and to transcend the oversimplifications of earlier scholarship on the Uprising.44 Yet Husak's book became a cause celebre among Slovak - and Czech - intellectuals when it came under fire from on high . Antonin Novotny had little patience for Husak, since Novotny had resisted the rehabilitation of Husak and other victims of Stalinism. When KSS leaders refused to rein in Husak, Novotny commissioned a party hack, the Czech historian Vaclav Kral , to write a scathing review in 41 Ibid., 129, 133 , 139. See, for instance, Anna Stvrtecka, "O dokum entoc h a fa ktoc h," Kultiirny i ivot, 27 August I 965 ; and Jifi Doleza l, " Dvakrat o S P," Mezinarodni politika I 0, no. I 0 (October 1964): 472. 43 Jablonicky, "S lovenske narodne povstani e a tri etapy jeho hodnoteni a," 452 . 44 Josef Domansky, " Nad knihou o Slovenskem narodnim povs tani," Nova mys/ 20, no. I ( 1965): 133- 134. 42 �SLOVAKIA 79 order to discredit Husak.45 The KSC cultural weekly Kulturni tvorba published Kral 's review in February 1966, almost two years after Husak' s book appeared in print, and focused, in Kral ' s words, "on a series of theses and questions that are insufficiently or incorrectly developed in Husak's book." Yet Kral's dissection of Husak' s narrative contained thinly veiled criticism of Husak's wartime activities as a member of the KSS Central Committee that organized the • · 46 Upnsmg. Though the high-level political machinations behind Kral ' s review were not common knowledge at the time, the response from Slovak and Czech historians was irate. Anton Bencik, Vaclav Kura) and Jaromir Navratil - one Slovak and two Czech historians - published a reply to Kral in defense of Husak' s work, which stressed the importance of Svedectvo o Slovenskom narodnom povstani as a harbinger of the new developments in historiography following the KSC's renunciation of "bourgeois nationalism" in 1963 . "The publication of Husak's book was indisputably an event," they offered in their response, yet the renown Husak had achieved with this work was only possible because it corresponded to contemporary knowledge of the Uprising and had been accepted by the historical community. Indeed, Husak 's book had been vetted in several reviews, which generally judged it favorably , albeit with some criticism of individual facets . Bencik, Kura! and Navratil also found it puzzling how Kral had remained silent during the historiographical discussions of Husak 's book when it first appeared, and was only then speaking out against the work, long after the fact. The timing was peculiar, though Bencik, Kura) and Navratil did not press their • • 47 susp1c10ns. 45 Vac lav Kra l, "O os udu jedne recenze," Kulturni tvorba, 25 April 1968. Vaclav Kra l, "O Husakove svedectvi troc hu j inak," Kul!urni tvorba, 24 February 1966. 47 Anton Benci k, Vaclav Ku ra ] and Jaromir Navratil , "Jes te o Husakove svedectvi a nejen o nem," Kulturni tvorba, 3 1 March 1966. The rev iew was reprinted a week later in th e Slovak cul tura l magaz ine Predvoj. Anton Benc ik , Vac lav Ku ra ] and Jaro mir Nav ratil , "Este o Husakovom Svedectve a nielen o i\om," Predvoj , 7 April 1966. 46 �80 SLOVAKIA Toward Better Histories? On the whole, Slovak historiography of the SNP during the sixties struggled to find its way, as the competing impulses of communist orthodoxy and professional integrity pulled individual historians in opposite directions. While some scholars, like Jablonicky, or the historians who worked on the Bamabite Commission, proved relatively successful at eschewing dogma in writing new narratives more concerned with fidelity to the historical record, it proved impossible even for these more commendable histories to avoid all the cliches about the Uprising that had marked Stalinist-era scholarship. Yet historiography did not exist in a vacuum, and Slovak historians - as well as journalists, writers, politicians and other public figures addressing the theme of the SNP - also played an active role in using the history of the Uprising to reshape contemporary politics. The Slovak National Uprising was an episode from recent history, and the new vitality of scholarship on it during the midsixties ensured the Uprising remained living history for the remainder of the decade. Rewriting the history of the SNP allowed Slovak (and Czech) scholars to press for the rehabilitation of its persecuted leaders. But the new narrative of the Uprising also helped to "rehabilitate" the idea of the Slovak nation in public discourse, which in tum created an opening for politically engaged Slovaks to advance a nationalist agenda. Ultimately, this agenda would aim at a new approach to the Slovak question in the form of a federation, but in the interim, it entailed the promotion of a Slovak national consciousness firmly rooted in the new, "rehabilitated" historical image of the Uprising. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 2010, Vol. 40 Description An account of the resource Vol. 40 (No. 74-75), 2010. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document 60 SLOVAKIA RISING AGAINST STALINISM: DESTALINIZATION AND THE REINTERPRETATION OF THE SLOVAK NATIONAL UPRISING IN SLOVAK HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE 1960s Scott Brown In the morning hours of 29 August 1944, several thousand Slovak and foreign partisans took up arms against the German soldiers who entered Slovakia the previous day to crush the country's growing anti-German resistance. This armed insurrection marked the start of the Slovak National Uprising (Slovenske narodne povstanie, or SNP), a rebellion centered on the city of Banska Bystrica and directed against the German invaders and the pro-German leaders of the wartime Slovak state. Over the ensuing two months, roughly 60,000 Slovak and foreign partisans, including rebel units of the Slovak Army, fought a loosely coordinated campaign against the German incursion. Outnumbered and outgunned, the partisans steadily lost the territory they had initially controlled, and by the end of October 1944 the German units had quelled the Uprising. Yet the military shortcomings of the SNP paled in comparison to its political significance: the Slovak underground had carried out the largest resistance operation on once (and future) Czechoslovak soil during the Second World War. The Uprising bolstered the position of the Czechoslovak government in exile, which could point to the SNP as proof that Czechoslovakia had contributed militarily to its own liberation. Further-more, in the eyes of Czechs, the Uprising also helped to "redeem" Slovaks for their unilateral declaration of independence in 1939, and for the quasi-fascist government that ruled Slovakia during the war. After the war, the SNP became the centerpiece of a new, reconstructed form of Slovak nationalism that played a major role in precipitating the Czechoslovak Spring of the late 1960s. Nonetheless, Slovak nationalism remained a liability for nearly two decades after the war. The mere existence of the wartime Slovak state left Slovak nationalism suspect, since many Czechs continued SLOVAKIA 61 to equate it with Slovak separatism and the humiliating loss of Czech independence in 1939. In addition, the persecution of Slovak "bourgeois nationalists" - many of whom had played prominent roles in the Uprising - in the political trials of the 1950s further compromised the legitimacy of Slovak nationalism in a Czechoslovak context. These problematic legacies left Slovak nationalism without a usable past until the rehabilitation of the erstwhile Slovak "bourgeois nationalists" in 1963 afforded the Slovaks a political opening to reevaluate the SNP. In tum, this reinterpretation of the Uprising's historical significance provided the foundation for a new, positive brand of nationalism Slovaks could safely assert. If nothing else, the SNP had given the lie to the notion that Slovak nationalism was incompatible with a Czechoslovak state. Gradually, many Slovak historians, intellectuals and politicians advanced a narrative of the SNP that interpreted the Uprising as the great redemptive act of the Slovak nation. In this view, Slovaks rose up as a nation against the wartime pro-Nazi regime of Jozef Tiso, sacrificing "their own" state in order to resurrect Czechoslovakia and make the new republic their own state. For champions of the Slovak national cause in the 1960s, finding their place in the restored Czechoslovakia entailed recognition of the existence of a separate Slovak nation and the enshrinement of its equality with the other titular nation through the federalization of the state. By reconstructing the history of the Uprising in this way, Slovak nationalists could then lay claim to specific rights as a nation. Like their calls for a Czechoslovak federation later in the decade, Slovak nationalists' demands for legal recognition of Slovak nationhood in the mid- to late 1960s referred directly or indirectly to the Slovak National Uprising for justification. As historians and political figures constructed a new narrative of the Uprising in the 1960s, they toned down old Stalinist and Marxist dogmas. Instead, the language they used to describe the SNP restored Slovaks - and the Slovak nation - to a central role. Important in this regard was how Slovaks writing and speaking about the Uprising during the Czechoslovak Spring began to accentuate the Slovak nation (narod) in retelling the history of the Uprising, placing new stress on the national component of the Slovak National Uprising. Thus, along with their stated desire to seek historical truth and to rectify the "errors" of Stalinism, Slovak historians writing about the 62 SLOVAKIA Uprising in the sixties also contributed to the reconstruction of Slovak nationalism by linking Slovaks' demands for national rights and a just solution to the Slovak question with the progressive and democratic traditions of the Uprising. The process of reinterpreting the Uprising and reconstructing Slovak nationalism - a process that occurred in fits and starts, with much equivocation - shows, in turn, how important Slovak developments of the mid-1960s served as antecedents to the Czechoslovak Spring that blossomed in 1968. One of the crucial, yet underappreciated, facets of this prehistory took shape in the new historiography of the SNP produced in the l 960s. Several groups of historians participated in crafting this new narrative. Younger historians, such as Jozef Jablonicky, perhaps had an advantage of personal detachment, since they had fought in neither the Uprising nor the battles over its history during the Stalinist era. 1 Other important contributors came from the historians who served on the Bamabite Commission and subsequently attempted to produce more "objective" and "factual" histories of the Uprising. 2 But veterans of the Up1 lndeed, Jab lonicky di sti ngui shed himself as arguabl y the most profess iona l and darin g histo ri an with hi s willingness to te ll the story of the significant but politically margin ali zed non-communi st "c ivilian" component of the Slovak resi stance that fought in th e NP. Yet even Jablonicky's work ex hibited an evolution in hi s willingness to challenge former taboos, since his first works from early in the decade did not go quite so far in this regard as hi s later work. See Jozef Jablon icky, Sloven- ska na prelome: Zapas o vit'azstvo narodnej a demokratickej revohicie na Slovensku (Bratislava : Yydavatel'stvo politickej literatury, 1965); and Jozef Jablonicky, Z ilegality do povstania (Kapitoly z obcianskeho odboja) (Bratislava : Epocha, 1969). 2 In Apri l 1963 , the Central Comm ittee of th e Communist Party of Czechos lovakia (Komunis ticka strana Ceskoslovenska, or KSC) convened a working gro up of Slovak and Czech party and academic "experts," popularly known as the " Bamabite Commiss ion," to investi gate th e allegations of " bourgeois nationalism" that had been leve led aga inst Ladi slav ovomesky, Gustav Husak and oth er wartime leaders of the Communist Party of Slovakia (Komunisticka strana S/o venska, or KSS) in th e major Slovak political trial s of the early 1950s. The Bamabite Commission's report, issued in August 1963 , di spro ved the Stalinist-era charges and called for the co mplete political rehabilitation of Husak, Novomesky and the oth er accused Slovak " bourgeois nationa lists." Stanis lav Sikora, " Politicky vyvoj na Slovensku v rokoch I 960- 1967 ," in Miroslav Londak, Stanis lav Sikora an d Elena Londakova, Predjarie: Politicky, ekonomicky a kul!iirny vyvoj na Slovensku v rokoch 1960- 1967 (Bratislava: Veda, 2002), 46-47 . The major schol arl y product that followed from th e work of the Barnabite Comm ission , not to mention one of the best studi es of th e Uprising from this era, was Ferdinand Beer and others, Dejinna kriiovatka: Slovenske ncirod- SLOVAKIA 63 rising, like Gustav Husak, and older scholars like Samo Falt'an (also a former partisan) participated in this process as well, whether to exonerate themselves for their activities during the SNP, or to offer a mea culpa for their distorted publications from the Stalinist era.3 Many western studies of the Czechoslovak Spring that address the years prior to 1968 offer at best a fleeting mention of the revival of Slovak history and efforts to remove discredited cliches of the 4 Stalinist era from the historical image of the SNP. Nonetheless, the lack of scholarly attention to this important trend in Slovak historiography does a disservice to its importance in Slovak - and Czechoslovak - politics of the mid- to late 1960s. Though de-Stalinization may have begun from on high in the Czechoslovak capital, Slovak historians, writers, intellectuals, politicians and other public figures took full advantage of the chance to break old taboos and raise formerly forbidden issues, none of which was more heretical or politically pregnant than the Slovak question. As the Slovak writer Peter Karvas told Antonin J. Liehrn in 1968, Stalinist propaganda had a banalizing effect on all this; it reduced the Uprising to a historical cliche, and in the end the generation of the Uprising convinced itself that this view was somehow a more noble and correct one. Thus it is neither an accident nor an illusion that the rehabilitation of the ne povstanie - predpoklady a vysledky (Brati slava: Vydavatel's tvo po litic kej literatury, I 964). Important exampl es of these work s we re Samo Falt'an, 0 Slovenskom narodnom povstani (Bra ti slava: Osveta, 1964); a nd Gustav Husak, Svedectvo o Slovenskom narodnom povstani (Brati slava: Vydavatel'stvo po litickej literatury, 1964). Husak also published a second , slightl y rev ised editi o n of hi s memo ir cum hi story in 1969. nd Gustav Hu sak, Svedectvo o Slovensko narodnom povstani, 2 ed. (Bratislava: Epocha, 1969). 4 H. Gordon Skilling a nd V ladimir V . Ku sin each pro vide a pass in g mention of the importance of SN P hi stori ography in th e m id-sixties. See H. Gordon Skilling, Czechoslovakia ·s Interrupted Revolution (Princeto n, N .J .: Princeton Uni ve rsity Press, 1976), 50-51 ; V ladimir V. Kusin, The Intellectual Origins of the Prague 3 Spring: The Development of Reform ist Ideas in Czechoslovakia, 1956- 1967 (Ca mbridge: Ca mbrid ge Uni versity Press, 197 1), 70. 64 SLOVAKIA Uprising coincided with a wave of reawakening sweeping across all the Slovak social and intellectual life. 5 Accordingly, chronicling the "history of the history" of the Slovak National Uprising during the 1960s offers a way to challenge these conventional boundaries and interpretations of the Czechoslovak Spring. Tracing the shifts in Slovak historiography and the new brand of Slovak nationalism constructed in the process restores Slovaks to the significant role they played in this upheaval, showing how Slovakia experienced an "early spring" following the renewed effort at de-Stalinization and rehabilitation in 1963 . The Pitfalls of History (and Historiography) Pointing to the "errors" that plagued earlier histories of the Slovak National Uprising, the writer Ladislav Novomesky made a plea to Slovak and Czech historians in 1964. His appeal to the participants at a conference at Smolenice on the Uprising urged historians to pay close attention to the image of the SNP through twenty years of historiography. As part of the process of rectifying the mistakes of Stalinism and rewriting history, Novomesky proposed that historians "delineate the history of the history [emphasis in original]" of the Uprising. 6 As Novomesky's remarks indicated, the political context in which historians worked had left an indelible mark on historiography and on the history of the Slovak National Uprising. Political constraints of the Stalinist era had curtailed the research possibilities available to scholars, who could not access most of the relevant documents and other materials. But political dictates had also imposed ready-made interpretations on historians' narratives. When Novomesky made his pitch to historians to take stock of the historiography of the Uprising, he mainly had in mind the correction of the lies, distortions and half-truths that had colored histories of the Uprising 5 Antonin J. Liehm, The Politics of Culture, trans. Peter Kussi (New York : Grove Press, 1972), 351. 6 Ladislav Novomesky, "Za hi storicku pravdu o Povstani," in Slovenske narodne povstanie ro/..."U 1944 (Sbornik prispevkov z narodnooslobodzovacieho boja 19381945), eds . Cudovit Holotik and Miroslav Kropilak, (Bratislava: Vydavatel'stvo Slovenskej akademie vied, 1965), 668. SLOVAKIA 65 since the onset of Stalinism in Czechoslovakia in the late 1940s. Revisions to these histories had become possible only with the work of the Bamabite Commission and the first concrete steps at deStalinization in 1963 . As the Slovak writer Michal Chorvath claimed on the Uprising's nineteenth anniversary in August 1963 , the "liquidation of the cult of personality" made it possible for the first time in years "to say about the Slovak National Uprising and its significance for our nation and state what the whole public has already thought for a long time." 7 De-Stalinization thus provided an important stimulus in the midI 960s for historians to attempt a more objective look at the Uprising. But while this political opening afforded scholars an opportunity to contest the older dogmatic accounts of the SNP, the historical image of the Uprising remained deeply politicized in the new narratives of the sixties. In the middle and later years of the decade, many Slovak intellectuals and politicians contested Stalinist-era views in rewriting the history of the SNP, yet the individuals driving these shifts continued to interpret the historical significance of the Uprising in a way that served their contemporary personal and political agendas. For instance, Husak claimed expertise as a historian of the Uprising based on his background as the leading Slovak Communist in the SNP. Yet Husak also traded on his stature as an "authority" on the Uprising (and as the most prominent surviving Slovak victim of the Stalinist era) to mount his political comeback, culminating in his ascent to the post of KSC first secretary in April 1969. As the Czech historian Jan Rychlik notes, the new interpretation of the Uprising formulated in the mid-sixties "had a supremely political character," since it weighed directly on the question of rehabilitation and a return to politics for Husak and Novomesky.8 Nonetheless, a "rehabilitation" of the historical image of the SNP was a necessary part of de-Stalinization in Slovakia after 1963 , because the dictates of Stalinism had skewed earlier narratives. Older histories of the Uprising painted it as the opening act of the national and democratic revolution in Czechoslovakia, depicting the SNP as little more than a stepping stone toward the Communist seizure of 7 Mi cha l Chorvath , "K metodam skum ani a SN P," Ku /uirny i ivot, 3 1 August 1963. Jan Rychlik, Ce.si a Slovaci ve 20. sto /eti: Cesko-slovenske vztahy 1945-/ 992, vo l. 2 (Bra ti slava : Academi c Electroni c Press, 1998), 206. 8 66 SLOVAKIA power. 9 These Stalinist-era narratives forced the SNP into a doctrinaire Marxist framework. Accordingly, historiography from the 1950s and early 1960s celebrated the toiling masses of the Slovak people (l'ud) , who rejected the "clerico-fascism" of the Tiso regime and adopted an internationalist outlook in fightin g side by side with the fraternal Czech nation, aided by the heroic Soviet Union, in order to create a new Czechoslovak Republic oriented towards the international Communist movement centered in Moscow. The heavy-handed Marxist language employed in these older narratives practically wrote Slovaks out of their own Uprising as it lionized the role of the Red Army and even of Czech partisans in the SNP, treating the contributions of Slovaks as an afterthought. Writing in samizdat in 1980, Jablonicky, the leading Slovak historian of the Uprising, divided historiography of the SNP into three distinct periods. Jablonicky characterized the first period, from 1949 to 1962, as one of "deformation," a time when historians falsified the history of the SNP to suit the dogmas of Stalinism and the attack on Slovak "bourgeois nationalism," which claimed as victims many prominent communist veterans of the Slovak resistance, including Husak, Novomesky and Karol Smidke. 10 Beginning with the work of the Barnabite Commission, a second period, which Jablonicky called "rehabilitation" took shape in 1963 . Though it lasted only until the installation of the Husak regime in April 1969, this era witnessed a burst of scholarship on the Uprising distinguished by its pursuit of "historical truth," including efforts to docu9 See, for instance, Jaros lav Kubat, ed., Slovenske narodni po vstani - Vyznamna etapa narodne osvobozeneckeho boje ceskoslovenskeho lidu: Material pro lektory a propagandisty k 15. vyroci SNP (Prague: Statn i nak ladatelstvi poli ticke literatu ry, 1959) . 10 Smidke had been a member the illegal KSS Centra l Committee that orga nized the Uprising, as we ll as the co-creator of the Christmas Agreement. Du ring the early stages of the campa ign aga inst the "bourgeois nationalists," Smidke faced accusations of collaboration, along with Vladimir Clementi s, Husak and Novo mesky, and lost his party and governmenta l posts, inc ludi ng his position as chairman of the Slovak Nati onal Council. Sm idke avo ided jo ining his supposed co llaborators in the dock at the poli tical tria ls of the ea rl y fifti es only due to hi s death in an automobile acc ident in late 1952, th ough various witnesses c laimed it had been a planned murder. He was posthumously rehabilitated with the other Slovak "bourgeois nati onalists" in December 1963. Jan Pesek, " Karo l Smidke," ed. Ja n Pesek, Akteri jednej ery na Slovensku: Personiflkacia politickeho vyvoja (Presov: Vydavatel'stvo Michala Vaska, 2003), 328-330. SLOVAKIA 67 ment the role of non-Communists in the SNP. With the onset of "normalization" in 1970, a third period commenced, bringing a return to deformations and the silencing of "inconvenient historians" a group that included Jablonicky - and lasted until the fall of the communist regime in 1989. 11 Though Jablonicky's periodization conforms to wide trends in historiography on the Uprising, his characterization of the second period oversimplifies the contours of this pivotal era. Scholarship on the SNP produced from 1963 to 1969 witnessed a new push for historical truth and objectivity, with historians drawing on previously inaccessible documents, filling in former "blank spots" and challenging earlier dogmatic interpretations of the Uprising. However, the general trend toward historical fidelity did not follow the linear trajectory Jablonicky describes. While many historians sought accuracy and improved professional practices, others held fast to old dogmas, resulting in a multiplicity of narratives and interpretations of the SNP. Moreover, the ambiguities inherent in the quest for historical truth cut through the scholarship of individual historians. In May 1963 , Jan Kfen, a Czech historian who served as one of the experts on the Bamabite Commission, explained the challenges ahead for historians after Stalinism: The battle against dogmatism is, in my opmzon, above all an internal matter of every historian, a question of his theoretical level, his ideological potential. Like all progress in science, the overcoming of dogmatism is not possible without abilities and talent. Untalented thinking is always dogmatic, stereotypical and toady ish. 12 Yet Kfen overstated the importance of professional abilities, as many talented historians struggled to discard political considerations in order to write better histories. For instance, while Jablonicky's Slovensko na prelome, published in 1965, stressed the importance of the Uprising for inaugurating a new chapter in Czech-Slovak rela11 Jozef Ja bl oni cky, Glosy o historiograjii SNP: Zneuiivanie a f alfovanie dej in SNP (Brati slava: NVK In te rn ati onal, 1994), I 0, 13. 12 Jan Kfe n, " Kult a hi stori e," Kulttirna tvorba, 23 May 1963. 68 SLOVAKIA tions, Jablonicky equivocated in repeating the best orthodox cliches about nefarious Slovak and Czech bourgeoisies and the leading role of Communists in the resistance. 13 To Jablonicky's credit, he penned perhaps the decade ' s most important historiographical contribution in 1969, Z illegality do povstania, which offered the most stunning refutation of dogmatic interpretations of the Uprising and destroyed several taboos in praising the non-communist resistance and units of the Slovak Army for their roles in the Uprising while simultaneously portraying its communist leaders in an unflattering light. In a samizdat essay from 1979, Jablonicky even offered a mea culpa for his early scholarship in which he acknowledges the shortcomings of his first works. As Jablonicky recalled, conversations with dozens of former partisans and victims of Stalinism "gradually opened my eyes" as a young historian in the 1960s, leading him to appreciate the importance of the non-communist resistance. 14 Of course, Jablonicky was not alone. At a conference of Slovak historians in June 1963, Milos Gosiorovsky presented a harsh evaluation of his own works on the Uprising from the Stalinist era, criticizing his monographs Ilegalny boj KSS and Slovenske narodne povstanie for presenting a "substantially deformed" picture of the 15 SNP. A year later, Samo Falt'an described how the dictates of editorial boards and the pressures of self-censorship had handicapped evaluations of the Uprising in the Stalinist era, preventing him from including anything critical in his book Partizanska vojna na Slovensku, published in 1959 . 16 As the confessions of Gosiorovsky and Falt'an revealed, the most prominent Slovak historians had been especially susceptible to pressures for ideological conformity, which 13 Jablonicky, Slovensko na prelome, 3 1, 148- 149. Vilem Precan, " Historik proti nas iliu - Jozef Jabloni cky," in Jozef Jablonicky, Samizdat o odboji: Stiidie a clanky, vol. 2 (Bratislava: Kalligram, 2006), 12; Jablonicky, Glosy o historiografii SNP, 6 1. 15 Frantisek Bokes, "Vaine zhromazdeni e Slovenskej hi stori ckej spolocnosti ," Historicky casopis 12, no. 4 (1963): 650; Milos Gosiorovsky, !legalny boj KSS a Slovenske narodne povstanie (Bratislava: Nakladatel'stvo Pravda, 1949); Milos Gosiorovsky, Slovenske narodne povstanie (Bra ti slava : Slovenske vydava tel'stvo politi ckej literatury, 1954). 16 Samo Falt'an, "Niektore otazky okolo hodnoteni a Slovenskeho narodneho povstania," Historicky casop is 12, no. 2 ( 1964): 161 , 164; Samo Falt'an, Partizanska vojna na Slovensku (Bratislava: Osveta, 1959). 14 SLOVAKIA 69 seemed to spur their self-conscious push for objectivity in the more relaxed Slovak political climate of the mid-l 960s. Just as Slovak historians in the l 960s recognized the harmful effects of Stalinism on scholarship on the Uprising, scholars writing about the sixties acknowledge the importance of historiography for the larger crisis gestating in Czechoslovakia. Nonetheless, scholarship about the l 960s has pronounced limitations when it comes to historiography from the 1960s. Non-Slovak writers treat the history of the Uprising as but one issue among many new historiographical developments in Czechoslovakia, an approach characterristic of the wider tendency to trivialize the role of Slovaks and the Slovak question in the l 960s. 17 While the Slovak National Uprising was hardly the only historical theme to gamer renewed interest from historians in the mid-sixties - or even the only topic from Slovak history - it was unique in the political purposes to which prominent Slovaks put it in justifying contemporary demands for a resolution of the Slovak question in line with the ostensible aims of the Uprising. More obvious, however, was the extent to which the new historiography on the SNP from the 1960s broke with old dogmas. The doctrinaire narrative of the Uprising from the Stalinist era marginalized the role of Slovaks in the Slovak National Uprising. An instructional manual for lecturers and propagandists published in advance of the SNP's fifteenth anniversary - and, tellingly, written in Czech inflated the importance of Soviet and Czech contributions to the Uprising: In August 1944 the Slovak nation, emboldened by the heroic battle of the Soviet p eople in the Great Patriotic War, under the leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, alongside the Soviet Army advancing to victory, together with the fraternal Czech nation, rose up with weapons in 17 See, fo r instance, th e scant treatm ent prov ided in Stanl ey Z. Pec h, " Fe rment in Czec hoslova k Marxist Hi stori ograph y," Canadian Slavonic Papers l 0, no. 4 (Dece mber 1968): 502-522; Ga lia Gol an, The Czechoslovak Refo rm Movement: Communism in Crisis. 1962- / 968 ; and Skillin g, Czechoslovakia 's Interrupted Revolution. By contrast, M. Mark Stolarik observed how hi stori ans, beginning with Husak and the th eme of the SNP, increasingly reasserted Slovak nati onali sm in their th work . M. Mark Stolarik , "The Painful Birth of Slovak Histori ography in the 20 Century," Zeitschriftfiir Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung 50, no. 2 (2 00 I): 176 . 70 SLOVAKIA hand against the German occupiers and their domestic fascist supporters in order to contribute to the liberation of their own homeland - the Czechoslovak Republic. 18 Amid the rambling succession of clauses inserted to show obligatory deference to the Soviet Union and the KSC and to flatter Czechs, the propaganda manual, like the Stalinist-era interpretations of the SNP it typifies, lost sight of the Slovaks, who nearly disappeared from the history of their own Uprising. At the same time, older orthodoxy ascribed the Marxist categories of proletarian internationalism and class struggle to the Uprising. In their work on international participation in the SNP, the Czech Jii'i Dolezal and the Slovak Jozef Hroziencik credited the liberation of Czechoslovakia to the Soviet Army on the international stage, and to the working class at home. The Uprising occurred as a consequence, Dolezal and Hroziencik argued, of "the strengthening of the working class and its ideological leadership in the nation," along with the blossoming of the idea of internationalism within the proletariat. 19 Near the end of the Stalinist era, an editorial in 1962 from the KSC Central Committee daily Rude pravo made the dubious claim that, "on an ideological plane," the Uprising "aimed mainly at developing a unified economy," along with combining all other aspects of Slovak and Czech society after liberation - making the SNP appear as the first step toward amalgamating Slovaks and Czechs into a single Czechoslovak nation.2° Conventional interpretations from the Stalinist era thus reduced the Uprising to little more than the opening act in the Czechoslovak revolution and a prelude to the communist takeover in 1948.21 Such a view seemed at odds with the reality of communist electoral strength in the elections of 1946, when the party made considerable gains over its interwar showing, yet still suffered a decisive defeat at the hands of the Democratic Party. 18 Kubat, Slovenske narodni povstani, 3. Jifi Dolezal and Jozef Hroziencik, Medzinarodna solidarita v Slovenskom narodnom povstani (Bratislava: Osveta, 1959), 35, 219 20 " Rozvij ime spolecne dilo," Rude pravo, 29 August 1962. 21 Doleza l and Hroziencik, Medzinarodna solidarita , 74. 19 SLOVAKIA 71 Coming to Terms with the Past: De-Stalinization and the Uprising Rewriting the history of the Slovak National Uprising first required important political developments to transpire, and the process drew succor from new efforts at de-Stalinization in 1963 . But the impact of the Bamabite Commission also revealed the crucial role historians played in this process. As Ferdinand Beer, Antonin Bencik, Frantisek Janacek and Jan Kfon recalled, their work on the Bamabite Commission offered historians a rare chance to play an important role in current events: ft was - as far as we know - the first time such a large group of scholars was asked to do this kind of work. This experience left its mark on their whole way of doing work and became, at least for historians, one of those rare occasions when they could not only reconstruct history, but also help to make it. 22 The recollections of these historians also spoke to the transformative effect the Bamabite Commission had on its member-scholars, which proved a formative experience for the way they approached their craft thereafter. Because it focused not only on the political trials of the early 1950s, but also on the activities of the "bourgeois nationalists" during the SNP, the Bamabite Commission employed several professional historians who consequently gained access to documents formerly off limits to researchers, including the files of the "bourgeois nationalists" and materials concerning the cases of Vladimir Clementis and others.23 A document collection on the SNP, originally planned to appear in conjunction with the twentieth anniversary of the Uprising in 1964 and intended to span 300 to 400 pages when conceived in the spring of 1963, soon ballooned to more than a thousand pages and took an extra year to produce. As Vilem Precan, the Czech editor of the volume, recounts in hi s preface, the renewed interest in the Uprising first observed during celebrations of its nineteenth anniversary, coupled with the political fallout of the 22 23 Beer and others, "Svedectvi z Barnabitek," Kulturni tvorba, 2 May 1968. Sikora, " Po liticky vyvoj na Slovensku," 38. 72 SLOVAKIA Barnabite Commission's report, created "editorial possibilities" that compelled him to broaden the scope of the project. Precan had to sift through piles of newly available documents and include as many of these materials as he could, a daunting task that kept him from completing the volume until 1965 - a full year behind schedule.24 Confronted with documentary evidence of the fabrications from the political trials, the historian-members of the Bamabite Commission were floored by the level of deceit, which exceeded their wildest imagination. Confronting such proof of the crimes of Stalinism had a galvanizing effect on Slovak and Czech historians similar to the jolt Nikita Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" had given to Soviet Communists in 1956. As a group of historians recalled in the spring of 1968, "In a certain sense, all of us inside the walls of the former Bamabite monastery went through our own 20 th Congress." 25 For these historians at least, there could be no going back to the old, dogmatic interpretations of Slovak history, especially where the Uprising was concerned. Sensing the opportunity de-Stalinization and the Barnabite Commission had created, historians took the initiative in probing sensitive issues like the Slovak question and the wartime resistance in Slovakia. As early as March of 1963, Falt'an had urged a drastic reexamination of the Uprising, one that would break out of the "black-and-white pigeonholes" of historiography from the Stalinist era to "evaluate objectively and justly" such topics as the role of (non-communist) Slovak regulars from the 1st Czechoslovak Army in the SNP. 26 Further steps in this direction came in the summer of 1963, when historians openly connected the significance of their professional work to the concurrent process of rehabilitation. Miroslav Kropilak opened the Slovak Historical Society ' s conference in June 1963 by reminding his fellow historians of their shared obligation in reassessing "wrongly interpreted" segments of their history. 27 The congress helped to engage Slovak historians in the task 24 Vilem Precan, "S lovo cita tel'ovi," in Slovenske narodne povstanie - Dokumenty, ed. Precan, 5-6. 25 Beer and others, " Svedectvi z Barnabitek. " 26 Samo Falt'an, " Histori a a dn esok," Kulturny i ivot, 23 March 1963 . 27 Kropilak's ex hortati on to eliminate th e "unscienti fic methods" of research employed in studi es of recent Slovak history marked an about fac e from his own presentation at the Fourth Congress of Slovak Histori ans a year earli er in Kosice. At Kosi- SLOVAKIA 73 of eliminating vestiges of the "cult of personality," and it created space, as the historian Marek Havrila remarked, for the "de-ideologizing" (odideologizovanie) of history and the "academifying" (zvedectenie) of the discipline.28 Rewriting History: New (and Old) Narratives of the Uprising Historians began to rewrite the history of the Uprising in time for its twentieth anniversary in 1964, reflecting not only the opportunities created by the Bamabite Commission, but also the heightened interest in commemorating this milestone. Many historians took seriously the need for better scholarship on the Uprising and strove to make use both of newly available materials as well as the relaxation of political constraints. But other historians largely paid lip service to the tasks of writing new, post-Stalinist narratives of the SNP, hewing closely to older, more dogmatic interpretations. On the whole, the new historiography of the Uprising produced in the 1960s yielded improved histories, but it remained bound to the shifting politics of the day. A key development early in this process was an academic conference held at Smolenice on 8-10 June 1964, when several Slovak and Czech historians presented their latest research on the Uprising. The conference marked important progress on the "arduous journey" historians had traveled, as Kropilak recalled in his foreword to the published volume of conference papers, since it brought a "difficult acknowledgment of the unexamined truths, half-truths and untruths" that had characterized historiography of the Uprising from the Stalinist era.29 In a similar vein, Alexander Dubcek, who became KSS first secretary amid the political shakeup of the previous year, ce in I 962 , Kropil ak gave a paper on the anti fas ci st move ment in Eastern Slovakia th at uphe ld communist orthodoxy. He credited the party for building the resistance from the grass roots until the Upri sing, but made no mention of th e contributions of non-Co mmuni sts in the Slova k res istance. Bokes, " Va ine zhromazdenie," 650 ; "Stvrty sjazd slovenskych hi storik ov," Historicky casopis I 0, no. 4 ( 1962): 632. 28 Marek Havril a, " K ni ektory m pro blemom vyv inu slovenskej hi storiografie a slovenskej histori ckej spolocnosti pri SA V v 50. a 60. rokoch 20. storocia," Historicky casopis 55 , no. I (2007) : 28, 32. 29 Mi ros lav Kropil ak, " Uvod," in Slovenske narodne povstanie roku I 944, eds. Hol otik and Kropilak, 5. 74 SLOVAKIA opened the conference proceedings by exhorting historians to undertake "a really broad and deep critical analysis of all problems" concerning this significant chapter in recent Slovak history, and Dubcek also reminded historians that the rectification of earlier mistakes was not simply a question of the past, but also a living concern of the present and future .30 As if Dubcek's point could somehow be lost on his audience, the participation of Husak and Novomesky at Smolenice underscored the topicality of scholarship on the SNP. Indeed, Husak expressed his belief on the final day that the conference itself was a sign of the times, since a definite measure of political relaxation in Slovakia was a precondition for historians to address openly the pitfalls of Stalinist-era historiography, and to shed new light on the history of the Uprising. 31 The papers presented at Smolenice aimed mainly at debunking the myths and errors of the Stalinist-era narrative of the SNP. For instance, Falt'an directly criticized the Ninth KSS Congress for having "artificially created" a circle of "bourgeois nationalist traitors and agents of imperialism" that included Husak, Novomesky and Smidke as its leading figures. This trio of Slovak Communists had created the illegal Fifth KSS Central Committee in 1943 , following the arrest of members of the Fourth KSS Central Committee, and had played a major role in organizing the Uprising. Yet the members of the Fifth KSS Central Committee came under fire after the communist takeover of 1948 for their collaboration with nonCommunists, which provided one justification for their persecution as Slovak "bourgeois nationalists." Falt'an portrayed the Slovak Communists who had helped to orchestrate the SNP as both patriotic and communist, rendering the wartime KSS leadership as neither "bourgeois" nor "nationalist" in an effort to break with the dogmatic interpretations that had marred previous historiography.32 Another crucial component of this attempt to cast aside Stalinistera narratives was the effort historians made to address lacunae in scholarship on the Uprising. To this end, the Slovak historian Milos 30 Alexander Dubcek, "Marx isticka histori ografia a nasa revolucna minulost'," in S/ovenske narodne povstanie roku / 944, eds. Holotik and Kropil ak, I 8. 31 Gustav Husak, " K ni ektorym otazkam Slovenskeho narodn eho povstania," in S/ovenske narodne povstanie roku / 944, eds. Holotik and Kropilak, 652-653. 32 Samo Falt'an, " Slovenske narodn e povstani e a jeho problemy," in Slovenske narodne povstanie roku / 944, eds. Holotik and Kropilak, 222, 234. SLOVAKIA 75 Tichy called attention to the contributions of non-Communists in the SNP. Though the Communists had been the only party in Slovakia that opposed the breakup of the republic and the Tiso government from the outset, Tichy emphasized how the non-communist parties could not be treated as monolithic supporters of Slovak separatism. Thus, Tichy took care to note how segments of the Social Democratic Party, along with individual members of other "bourgeois" (meaning non-communist) parties had held views similar to those of Slovak Communists with respect to the creation of a pro-German Slovak state. It was noteworthy for Tichy even to mention these nonCommunists who went on to join the wartime resistance, since, as he noted, the record of the non-communist resistance had been thoroughly trivialized and falsified in earlier historiography.33 Tichy struck one of the first important blows against the Stalinist narrative of the Uprising by virtue of recognizing the existence of noncommunist opposition to the Slovak state, though it was not until Jablonicky published Z ilegality do povstania at the end of the decade that this "civilian" segment of the wartime Slovak resistance gained the recognition it deserved. Even though historians consciously sought objectivity and historical fidelity at Smolen ice, they did not reject all elements of the Stalinist-era narrative of the SNP. Thus, while Falt'an preached the importance of historical truth in denouncing the lies that characterrized earlier histories, he sought this "truth" within a distinctly Marxist framework. Comparing the Slovak National Uprising of 1944 to the Warsaw Uprising of the same year, Falt'an placed the Slovak revolt on a qualitatively higher plane than the Polish insurrection, since the SNP had, in Falt'an 's estimation, the superior class orientation. Whereas the Polish "reactionary bourgeoisie" had "abused" popular hatred of Nazi Germany in order to serve its own "political speculations" and "anti-Soviet aims," the Slovak people had taken up arms under the leadership of "revolutionary forces" headed by the KSS .34 Marxist hermeneutics continued to color other interpretations of the Uprising advanced at Smolenice. Like Falt'an, Tichy took great 33 Milos Tic hy, " Hl avne etapy fo rmy a probl emy narodn ooslobodzo vac ieho hnuti a na Slove nsku do vzniku Povstani a," in Slovenske narodne povstanie roku / 944, eds. Ho lotik and Kropilak, 65, 7 1. 34 Fa lt'a n, "S lovens ke narodn e povstanie a jeho pro bl emy," 27 1. 76 SLOVAKIA pains to emphasize the class dimension of the Slovak people's rejection of the pre-Munich First Republic. Tichy claimed the Slovak people (l'ud) had directed their hatred not at the fraternal Czech nation, but rather against the "politics of the ruling Czech bourgeoisie." 35 Similarly, Frantisek Janacek, a Czech historian and former member of the Barnabite Commission, conceded the importance of the national element in the Uprising, yet he suggested there was less real significance to such national sentiment in and of itself than in the political objectives to which Slovak Communists could put it in the SNP. Thus, Janacek upheld a doctrinaire Marxist interpretation of national sentiment in deeming it instrumental to revolutionary ends. He argued the initiative the Communists exhibited on the Slovak question had made the KSS a vanguard force that Slovaks recognized as a "national" (narodm) party. 36 Husak also hewed closely to this orthodox narrative of the Uprising instead of accentuating the national dimension of the SNP, averring at Smolenice that "the Slovak National Uprising was above all a political conception, the political revolution of the Slovak people." 37 Even as historians embarked on a pursuit for the truth about the SNP at Smolenice, they continued to parrot old party cliches about the Uprising. Indeed, historical fidelity coexisted alongside shifting political dictates in the historiography of the SNP throughout the l 960s, demonstrating how historians' professed desire for objectivity toward the past ran aground on their inability to remain aloof from the politics of the present. In O Slovenskom narodnom povstani, published in 1964, Falt'an culled new facts and documents in a quest to tell the truth about the Uprising, albeit a truth with a clear agenda. Falt'an's book expanded on the ideas he presented at Smolenice, as he continued his efforts to vindicate the Slovak Communists who had been condemned as "bourgeois nationalists" in the 1950s. But while Falt'an made skillful use of wartime documents to present a more historically accurate picture of the Slovak resistance, the same tired cliches about international solidarity and the Soviet Union 35 Tichy, " Hlavne etapy formy a problemy narodnooslobodzovacieho hnutia na Slovensku," 68-69. 36 Frantisek Janacek, " Dve promeny slovenske otazky (Mezi Mnichovem a Slovenskym narodnim povsta nim)," in Slovenske narodne povstanie roku /944 , eds. Holotik and Kropilak, 618 , 628. 37 Husak, "K ni ektorym otazkam Slovenskeho narodneho povstania," 657. SLOVAKIA 77 still peppered his work. He claimed the Uprising, among other things, "was the expression of great faith in the Soviet people," showing how de-Stalinization and a more relaxed political environment did not relieve Slovaks and Czechs of the duty to show deference to their Soviet allies - an obligation that remained in force even at the height of liberalization in 1968.38 Even the most groundbreaking histories of the Uprising from the mid-sixties exhibited a multiplicity of agendas. In Dejinna kriiovatka, a group of Slovak and Czech historians drew on their work on the Bamabite Commission in an attempt to "rehabilitate" the historical image of the SNP. Their work helped to expose the distortions of the Stalinist era, but it also restored the Slovak question to a prominent role in the new, post-Stalinist narrative of the Uprising. Dejinna kriiovatka appeared in a modest printing of 10,000 copies, yet it gained renown as the first attempt at a comprehensive history of the Slovak National Uprising that consciously rejected the Stalinist narrative and addressed several lacunae in scholarship on the Uprising. And yet, for all its significance as a landmark of Slovak historiography, Dejinna kriiovatka continued to uphold a Marxist worldview in interpreting the SNP as an affirmation of socialist revolution as well as a manifestation of how attractive communist ideas were to the average Slovaks who formed the core of the partisan masses in the Uprising.39 A similar emphasis on the communist aims of the Uprising appeared in Husak's Svedectvo o Slovenskom narodnom povstani. To his credit, Husak addressed some previously neglected or trivialized facets of the Uprising, pointing out the contributions of the noncommunist opposition within the antifascist camp, the existence of 40 which had been all but denied in Stalinist-era scholarship. Yet Husak's motives for calling attention to this marginalized component of the resistance were also self-serving. Lauding the role of the nonCommunists in the Uprising allowed Husak to validate the strategy of cooperating with non-Communists that he and other KSS leaders had pursued. Husak's intent in writing his recollection of the Uprising seemed to be to vindicate himself, not only in terms of the 38 Falt'an, 0 Slovenskom narodnom povstani, 8, I 03. Beer and others, Dejinna kriiovatka, 125-126, 252. 40 Husak, Svedectvo o Slovenskom narodnom povstani, 36-37. 39 78 SLOVAKIA historical record, but also in the eyes of the party. As such, Husak stuck close to the communist interpretation of the SNP as a revolt directed against the ruling Slovak and Czech bourgeoisies, while simultaneously heralding the Communist Party (a self-referential bit of praise, considering his role as a member of the wartime KSS leadership) for leading the Uprising and launching the national and democratic revolution in Slovakia. 41 Husak's book also created a sensation after it appeared in August of 1964. The responses from Slovak and Czech intellectuals and historians ranged from the fawning to the damning, but most reviews 42 emphasized its positive contributions to scholarship on the SNP. These early favorable reviews led many Slovaks to view Husak, not only as a prominent figure in the Uprising, but as Jablonicky observed years later, they also encouraged both defenders and detractors of Husak to think of him "as a promising politician possibly on the rise in Slovakia."43 Husak's account of the Uprising conferred considerable authority on him, though not all historians accepted his portrayal of the SNP without reservation. The Czech scholar Josef Domansky offered the first critical remarks on Husak's book, noting one shortcoming was its "methodological non-clarity" resulting from the blurred division between Husak the memoirist and Husak the historian. On the whole, Domansky judged the book positively, even if it had its flaw s, and he regarded it as part of the new trend in historiography that helped to clarify the importance of the Slovak question and to transcend the oversimplifications of earlier scholarship on the Uprising.44 Yet Husak's book became a cause celebre among Slovak - and Czech - intellectuals when it came under fire from on high . Antonin Novotny had little patience for Husak, since Novotny had resisted the rehabilitation of Husak and other victims of Stalinism. When KSS leaders refused to rein in Husak, Novotny commissioned a party hack, the Czech historian Vaclav Kral , to write a scathing review in 41 Ibid., 129, 133 , 139. See, for instance, Anna Stvrtecka, "O dokum entoc h a fa ktoc h," Kultiirny i ivot, 27 August I 965 ; and Jifi Doleza l, " Dvakrat o S P," Mezinarodni politika I 0, no. I 0 (October 1964): 472. 43 Jablonicky, "S lovenske narodne povstani e a tri etapy jeho hodnoteni a," 452 . 44 Josef Domansky, " Nad knihou o Slovenskem narodnim povs tani," Nova mys/ 20, no. I ( 1965): 133- 134. 42 SLOVAKIA 79 order to discredit Husak.45 The KSC cultural weekly Kulturni tvorba published Kral 's review in February 1966, almost two years after Husak' s book appeared in print, and focused, in Kral ' s words, "on a series of theses and questions that are insufficiently or incorrectly developed in Husak's book." Yet Kral's dissection of Husak' s narrative contained thinly veiled criticism of Husak's wartime activities as a member of the KSS Central Committee that organized the • · 46 Upnsmg. Though the high-level political machinations behind Kral ' s review were not common knowledge at the time, the response from Slovak and Czech historians was irate. Anton Bencik, Vaclav Kura) and Jaromir Navratil - one Slovak and two Czech historians - published a reply to Kral in defense of Husak' s work, which stressed the importance of Svedectvo o Slovenskom narodnom povstani as a harbinger of the new developments in historiography following the KSC's renunciation of "bourgeois nationalism" in 1963 . "The publication of Husak's book was indisputably an event," they offered in their response, yet the renown Husak had achieved with this work was only possible because it corresponded to contemporary knowledge of the Uprising and had been accepted by the historical community. Indeed, Husak 's book had been vetted in several reviews, which generally judged it favorably , albeit with some criticism of individual facets . Bencik, Kura! and Navratil also found it puzzling how Kral had remained silent during the historiographical discussions of Husak 's book when it first appeared, and was only then speaking out against the work, long after the fact. The timing was peculiar, though Bencik, Kura) and Navratil did not press their • • 47 susp1c10ns. 45 Vac lav Kra l, "O os udu jedne recenze," Kulturni tvorba, 25 April 1968. Vaclav Kra l, "O Husakove svedectvi troc hu j inak," Kul!urni tvorba, 24 February 1966. 47 Anton Benci k, Vaclav Ku ra ] and Jaromir Navratil , "Jes te o Husakove svedectvi a nejen o nem," Kulturni tvorba, 3 1 March 1966. The rev iew was reprinted a week later in th e Slovak cul tura l magaz ine Predvoj. Anton Benc ik , Vac lav Ku ra ] and Jaro mir Nav ratil , "Este o Husakovom Svedectve a nielen o i\om," Predvoj , 7 April 1966. 46 80 SLOVAKIA Toward Better Histories? On the whole, Slovak historiography of the SNP during the sixties struggled to find its way, as the competing impulses of communist orthodoxy and professional integrity pulled individual historians in opposite directions. While some scholars, like Jablonicky, or the historians who worked on the Bamabite Commission, proved relatively successful at eschewing dogma in writing new narratives more concerned with fidelity to the historical record, it proved impossible even for these more commendable histories to avoid all the cliches about the Uprising that had marked Stalinist-era scholarship. Yet historiography did not exist in a vacuum, and Slovak historians - as well as journalists, writers, politicians and other public figures addressing the theme of the SNP - also played an active role in using the history of the Uprising to reshape contemporary politics. The Slovak National Uprising was an episode from recent history, and the new vitality of scholarship on it during the midsixties ensured the Uprising remained living history for the remainder of the decade. Rewriting the history of the SNP allowed Slovak (and Czech) scholars to press for the rehabilitation of its persecuted leaders. But the new narrative of the Uprising also helped to "rehabilitate" the idea of the Slovak nation in public discourse, which in tum created an opening for politically engaged Slovaks to advance a nationalist agenda. Ultimately, this agenda would aim at a new approach to the Slovak question in the form of a federation, but in the interim, it entailed the promotion of a Slovak national consciousness firmly rooted in the new, "rehabilitated" historical image of the Uprising.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Rising Against Stalinism: Destalinization and the Reinterpretation of the Slovak National Uprising in Slovak Historiography of the 1960s Description An account of the resource Scott Brown Slovakia, Vol. 40 (No. 74-75), 2010 pp. 60-80 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brown, Scott A., 1981- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/b6fb8863460a53f5387d2c57104cb1a9.jpg 2df17f65cd028fbc4e0ec016fb34b014 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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 Ruins of the Spiš Castle Description An account of the resource Ruins of the Spiš Castle from the western side, Spiš County, Slovakia. The fortress, built inthe 13th century, was destroyed by fire in 1780. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Source: <a href="/items/show/193">Vol. 5, No. 1 (Issue No. 14), 1955, back cover</a>. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1955 castles https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/9b607f90c3dd9a49f7fca1ce7e120b68.pdf 529bb88cf46f523dfd6737d72b749b3d PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 2019 83 RUSSOPHILES WITHOUT RUSSIA R. Vladimir Baumgarten (Dedicated to the Memory ofNikolaj Ordos) The Carpatho-Rusyns, technically a stateless people, have been dubbed the "Kurds of Central Europe." They straddle the northern and southern slopes of the Carpathian mountains in the border re1 gions of Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine and Romania. Since the 1989 revolutions and the collapse of Communism in East Central Europe, both the Slovak and Polish governments have recognized the Carpatho-Rusyns as a distinct nationality. Ukraine, where the largest number of Rusyns dwell, does not. After World War II, incoming communist governments classified the Rusyns as Ukrainians by administrative fiat for reasons of convenience, which shall be explained below. The current post-communist government of Ukraine adamantly adheres to this position. 2 Further west, across the Uz river, many Carpatho-Rusyns in eastern Slovakia have voluntari ly assimilated into the Slovak nationality, for reasons which shall likewise be explained in this essay. The first impetus for the Rusyn national awakening came from a belief that they were part of a Great Russian nation, extending "from the Poprad River [in eastern Slovakia] to the Pacific." 3 The Russophile tradition influenced Carpatho-Rusyn culture and politics for a full century. An examination of its history reveals more than a few 1 Paul Robert Magocsi , " Mapping Stateless Peoples: The East Slavs of the Carpathians," Canadian Slavonic Papers, XXIX, Nos. 3-4 ( 1997), 301-54. 2 The Ukrainophile viewpoint was exemplified by Viacheslav Chomovil ( 19371999). During the Brezhnev era, Chomovil was a dissident journalist and human rights activist. He was sent to the labor camps several times for separatist activities. In the late I 980's he was one of the leaders of the People's Movement of Ukraine (better-known as Rukh). After the Soviet Union disintegrated and Ukraine became independent, Chomovil became alarmed by the Rusyn political renaissance. He considered it separatist and urged the Prosecutor General's office in Kiev to file charges aga inst its protagonists. 3 Paul Robert Magocsi , "The Nationalist lntelligentia and the Peasantry in Twentieth Century Subcarpathian Rus "', in Magocs i, Of the Making of Nationalities Th ere is No End, Vol. I (New York, 1999), 19. �84 SLOVAKIA 2019 ironies. In retrospect, it seems remarkable that the Russophile tradition lasted as long as it did. Indeed, remnants of it exist to this day. The current essay is an attempt to explain its rise and fall. The Russophile Tradition in Habsburg Hungary, Galicia and America The homeland of the Carpatho-Rusyns has been alternatively referred to as Ruthenia, Podkarpatska Rus' (Subcarpathian Rus '), Transcarpathia and Carpatho-Ukraine. For reasons of convenience, this author shall refer to it as Podkarpatska Rus' . It was part of the Kingdom of Hungary for about 900 years. Much of Podkarpatska Rus' was a game preserve for the Hungarian nobility. Its Eastern Slav peasants, shepherds and lumberjacks were forbidden to hunt the deer, even when the latter devoured the people's meagre cabbage plots. Starvation was common. The Rusyns were the most impoverished and illiterate ethnic group in the Hungarian kingdom. Originally a bastion of the Russian Orthodox Church, the homeland of the Carpatho-Rusyns was a battleground and passageway in the ongoing struggle between the Austrian Habsburgs and the Transylvanian princes. In order to wean these people away from any allegiance to the Transylvanian princes, most of whom were Calvinists, the Habsburgs decided to incorporate them into the Roman Catholic Church. They accomplished this by creating a Slavonic/Greek Rite of the church. At the Union of Uzhorod (April 24, 1646), 63 Orthodox priests pledged to recognize the primacy of the pope and the sanctity of Roman Catholic doctrine in exchange for keeping the Slavonic liturgy and a married clergy.4 These clergymen were exempted from the feudal burdens of serfdom, received an income from their parishioners, and could send their sons to seminaries in the Habsburg Monarchy for higher education. Despite this favorable concession from the Imperial House, the Rusyns remained generally loyal to their Magyar lords. This was especially the case of the Kuruc (Crusader) uprising and freedom war of Ferenc Rakoczi II ( 1703-1711 ). 4 For the most comprehensive study of this event, see Michal Lacko, "The Union of Uzhorod," Slovak Studies, VI ( 1966), 7-190. �SLOVAK.IA 2019 85 The contribution of the Rusyns was sufficiently valorous for them to receive the title gens fidelissima ("the most faithful people").5 In the first half of the nineteenth century, when the various Slavic nationalities of the Habsburg Monarchy-Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs and Croats-launched their own national revivals, the Rusyns were slow to respond. No Rusyns attended the Slav Congress during the revolutionary year 1948. On the contrary, Greek Catholic seminarians in Uzhorod abandoned their intended vocations in order to volunteer for the Hungarian honveds (National Guard) during Hungary' s 1848-1849 war of independence.6 A few educated Rusyns were aware of a certain kinship with Russia. In 1791 Ivan Orlai ( 1771-1829) emigrated to Russia. A schoolteacher, he had been denied advancement in the Austrian system of education. In St. Petersburg he studied medicine and ultimately became court surgeon, actively working in the reorganization of the Russian medical profession. He advised the Ministry of Education to invite other educated Rusyns "since they usually know Church Slavonic thoroughly." 7 Orlai served as Mentor to Nikolaj Gogol, author of Taras Bulba, the Russified Ukrainian who ultimately became one of the literary giants of nineteenth-century Russia. Orlai encouraged other Russian scholars to take an interest in their kinsmen on the other side of the Carpathians. Meanwhile, a Greek Catholic eparchy was established in Presov, eastern Slovakia, in 1818. Its eparch (bishop), Hrihory Tarkovych, was an active pioneer of Russian culture. In expanding his library, he imported the complete works of the eighteenth-century Russian intellectual and scientist Mikhail Lomonosov.8 5 The Rusyns gained this title as a result of a battle fought near Trencin castle in western Slovakia on August 4, 1708. During the fi ghting Rakoczi vaulted across a ravine on horseback. He was thrown forward , striking his head and losing consciousness. His Carpatho-Rusyn peasant infantry held its ground long enough for him to be carried from the fi eld. Outnumbered and outgunned by the Imperial regulars, these Rusyns were subsequently massacred. 6 Paul Robert Magocsi, The Shaping of a National Identity: Subcarpathian Rus: / 848-1 948 (Cambridge, MA: 1978), 43. 7 Elaine Rusinko, Straddling Borders: Literature and Identity in Subcarpathian Rus ' (Toronto, 2008), 99. 8 Athanasius Pekar, The History of the Church in Carpathian Rus' (New York, 1992), 89. �86 SLOVAKIA 2019 The first real impetus for the Carpatho-Rusyn awakening came as a result of the Russian military intervention against the Hungarian war of independence in 1849. It was not undertaken to liberate the Slavs of Hungary who were in a state of revolt against Magyar tyranny. Tsar Nicholas I of Russia employed far more autocratic powers than did the House of Habsburg and regarded the stamping out of the fires of revolution, which had swept Europe since the previous year, as a self-evident duty. Polish revolutionary veterans were serving on the Hungarian side and he feared the spread of revolution to his Polish possessions. Nicholas was no Pan-Slav. Two years earlier a nest of such agitators had been discovered in Kiev. It called itself "The Brotherhood of Sts . Cyril and Methodius," and, according to Nicholas, its adherents had invented some monstrosity called the Ukrainian nationality. One of its leading members was not only Ukraine's best poet, but its best painter as well. His people sought ties with the Czechs and Slovaks. Nicholas saw to it that several of them were jailed and he had Taras Schevcenko drafted into the Russian army for ten years, during which time he was forbidden to write or sketch. 9 A number of Russian Pan-Slav politically conservative individuals sympathized with the Slovak people. Tsar Nicholas admonished the Slavophile journalist Ivan Aksakov ( 1823-1886) that, under the guise of a general Slav alliance, subversive elements in the Kingdom of Hungary wished to create a struggle which was not in the name of 0 God, but in a spirit of mutiny, which was dangerous to Russia. ' The Russian military commanders carefully studied the earlier conflicts between the Habsburgs and the Transylvanian princes . They observed that The Austrians had traditionally moved against Transylvania by starting from Kosice in eastern Slovakia. It was considered safer to cross the Hornad and Tisa rivers in the Carpathian 11 foothills than to assault Transylvania from the Hungarian plain. On June 9, the main Russian army commanded by Field Marshal Ivan Paskievitch, consisting of 70,890 soldiers and 240 cannon poured into Slovakia through the Dukla Pass from partitioned Po9 Pav lo Zaitsev, Taras Shevchenko. A Life (Toronto, 1989), 139-57. °Cudovit Holotik, "The Slovaks: An Integrating or Disintegrating Force?" Austrian 1 Histo ry Yearbook, III , Part 2 ( 1967): 2. 11 William Stiles, Austria in 1848-50, II (New York, 1850), 294. Stiles was the American charge d'affaires in Vienna during the revolutionary events of 1848-49. �SLOVAKIA 2019 87 land. The Russians captured Presov on June 20 and took Kosice five days later. To supply their army, the Russians stockpiled large amounts of foodstuffs at the northern end of the Dukla Pass. However, the military bureaucracy of Tsar Nicholas was inefficient. Provisions were made to transport the artillery but not the food . Austrian quartermasters, who also had a supply of food , and were allied with the Russians, had fled the area. The Russian soldiers, hungry and exasperated, turned to plunder. Don Cossacks looted a number of Slovak villages so thoroughly that the inhabitants fled into the for12 ests . The Russian intervention in this area would be remembered with ill-feelings by Magyars and non-Magyars alike. There were Slovak Pan-Slavs who were willing to overlook Russian misconduct. They convinced themselves that Grand Duke Konstantin was preparing to transfer his headquarters from Warsaw to Kosice, where he would proclaim a new Slav state. Slovak leaders appealed to the Russian embassy and military mission in Vienna for recognition. They requested that Slovak advisors and regional administrators be attached to the Russian military in eastern Slovakia. Tsar Nicholas replied to one such request "I received the same thing yesterday from Danilevsky [the Russian consul in Belgrade]. I have no time for such matters." 13 On the other hand, the reception of Russian military intervention was not universally negative. Rusyn peasants in the highlands witnessed a mighty Slav army in their region for the first time. They were awed. They gave fruits and nuts to the invaders. Aleksander Dukhnovych, soon to become an awakener among the Rusyns, later wrote, "One thing really gave me joy in life, and that was in 1849 when I first saw the glorious Rus sian army .. .I can't describe the feeling of gladness at seeing the first Cossacks on the streets of Presov. I danced and cried with delight. .. It was truly the first, perhaps the last, joy of my life." 14 Aleksander Dukhnovych (1803-1865) was born in the village of Topol 'a in the Humenne region of eastern Slovakia. He was descended from Greek Catholic priests and was consequently educated 12 John Shelton Curtis, The Russian Army under Nicholas I, 1925-/ 854 (Durham, NC, 1865), 298 . 13 Holotik, 383. 14 Quoted in Magocsi, The Shaping of a National Identity, 45. �88 SLOVAKIA 2019 at the Theological Seminary in Uzhorod. After ordination as a priest in 1827, he was assigned to the bishop 's chancellery in Presov. His relatively progressive views clashed with those of the more conservative Tarkovych, who then assigned him to a relatively remote rural parish. Dukhnovych regarded his assignment as a godsend. In Uzhorod he had received a Hungarian education, which influenced his early writings. In the rural parish he discovered, or re-discovered, "the people." He was influenced by the Slovak National Awakening and applied its precepts to the awakening of his own Rusyn people. After the death of Tarkovych, Dukhnovych was reassigned to Presov and appointed eparchical canon in 1843 . He remained closely associated with the city-considered a Rusyn cultural center in spite of its Slovak majority- for the rest of his life. In 1850, after the suppression of the Hungarian revolution, Dukhnovych established the first Rusyn cultural association, the Presov Literary Society. His own literary contribution was considerable. In 1851 he composed the poem "Vruchanie," whose opening lines "I was, am, and will remain a Rusyn" became the motif for the unofficial anthem of the Carpatho-Rusyn people. He researched and wrote extensively on the Rusyn people. His monumental achievement was the play "Virtue is More Important than Riches," which is still performed regularly in regional theatres in eastern Slovakia and western Ukraine. 15 The ethical values expressed in this play mirror Dukhnovych 's role as a social reformer. He campaigned vigorously against illiteracy, alcoholism, and the lingering pagan superstitions which persisted among his people. The literary language employed-indeed, invented by Dukhnovych-was peculiar. It was a blend of Old Church Slavonic, standard Russian and the native dialect. His later disciples called it "the traditional Carpatho-Rusyn langage," while his critics derrided it as "jazychije" (macaronic jargon). 16 Indeed, while Dukhnovych was the greatest of the Rusyn awakeners, he inhibited the establishment of a distinctive Rusyn identity by his unequivocal adherence to the Great Russian idea. 15 For an English-language translation, see Aleksander Duchnovych, Virtue is More Important than Riches, ed. by Elai ne Rusinko (New York, 1994). 16 See the entry "Dukhnovych, Aleksander," in Paul Robert Magocs i and Robert Popp, eds. , Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture (Toronto, 2005), I06. �SLOVAKIA 2019 89 If Dukhnovych was the unquestioned giant among the Rusyns in the realm of culture, then Adolf Dobrian' skyi ( 1817-1901) fulfilled this function in the realm of politics. Dobrian'skyi was born in Rudl'ov, Zemplin county, Slovakia, the son of a Greek Catholic priest. He attended secondary schools in Levoca, Roznava and Misko le, and then studied philosophy in Kos ice ( 1833 ), law in Eger (1834-36) and mining at the Academy of Mines and Forests in Banska Stiavnica, central Slovakia. He was fluent in several foreign languages, including Magyar, German, French, English and Italian. He visited Bohemia, where he was influenced by Frantisek Palacky, Karel Havlicek and other Czech national awakeners. Dobrian'skyi initially welcomed Hungary' s 1848 Revolution for the liberal reforms that it promised. But when the Slovak district of Banska Bystrica elected him as its representative to the Hungarian Diet, the Hungarian government rejected his mandate on the grounds of Pan-Slavism. Dobrian'skyi then indeed became a Pan-Slav. He moved to Presov, where he built a following which advocated a political union of the Rusyns of Hungary with those of Austrian Galicia. When the Russians prepared to invade Hungary, the Austrian government appointed him as its liason with Paskievitch. Dobrian 'skyi then served as advisor to the Russian military. After the defeat of revolutionary Hungary, the Austrian government imposed a centralist bureaucratic regime. Dobrian' skyi then became advisor to the Uzhorod Civil District, which encompassed four counties. He regarded the civil district as a prelude to the establishment of an autonomous Rusyn state under the Emperor of Austria. 17 Defeated in the Austro-Sardinian war of 1859, The Habsburg Monarchy was substantially weakened. It was forced to retreat from bureaucratic centralism and make concessions to the Magyars. Dobrian' skyi was recalled , and the old nobles began to reoccupy county positions. In 1866 Austria suffered another defeat, this time at the hands of Prussia, and resigned itself in 1867 to accepting the Magyar nobility as equal partners in the renamed Dual Monarchy of AustriaHungary. Emperor Franz-Josef allowed himself to be crowned King of Hungary in Budapest and the Hungarian nobles were granted complete self-government in internal affairs. By now their obsession 17 See the entry " Dobrian' skyi, Adolf," in Magocsi and Popp, eds., Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture, 93. �90 SLOVAK.IA 2019 with Pan-Slavism reached paranoid proportions . They viewed the magyarization of Hungary's Slavic minorities as imperative. Persecution of Slovak and Carpatho-Rusyn educational and cultural institutions became the order of the day. A similar course evolved in Galicia, the Austrian province of partitioned Poland. Shortly after the 1867 Compromise with Hungary came into effect, Empreor Franz-Josef appointed his trusted Polish confidant Count Agenor Goluchowski as Viceroy of Galicia. Goluchowski gained for his Polish nobles a degree of autonomy that mirrored that of the Magyars. The education system was polonized. This posed a direct threat to the advancement of the Rusyns. Educated Rusyns became politically divided. The Ukrainian movement gained the greatest strength . However, there were still Rusyns who adhered to the traditions of old Rus' .They stubbornly continued to write in Old Church Slavonic and isolated themselves from the people. Cultureally, these Old Ruthenians identified with Russia, but professed allegiance to the Austrian Emperor. Such a dual allegiance became more difficult to maintain as the nineteenth-century ran its course. Austria and Russia were no longer allies, and were in fact competing for hegemony in the Balkans. Similarly, the Rusyns of Galicia found themselves cast in the role of a political football in the rivalry of the two empires. A case in point was the career of Ivan Naumovych (1826-1891), who was born Galicia in 1836. In his youth he was strongly influenced by the Polish national movement. However, he experienced a turning point during the revolutionary year of 1848, when there was a brief uprising in the city of Lviv. Naumovych was observing the fighting from a hillside when imperial soldiers spotted him and assumed he was a Polish rebel. They arrested him, but Naumovych persuaded them to release him by convincing the Austrians that he was a Russian. 18 Being Russian, Naumovych decided, carried certain privileges. After 1850, when Naumovych was ordained a Greek Catholic priest, he became staunchly Russophile in cultural orientation. He organized opposition to a campaign organized by the Roman Catholic Polish clergy to latinize the liturgy of the Greek rite. In this ca18 Keith Dyrud, The Quest fo r th e Rusyn Soul: The Politics of Religion and Culture in Eastern Europ e and America, 1890-World War I (Philadelphia, 1992), 28. �SLOVAKIA 2019 91 pacity he sought Russian support. At this point, Naumovych did not convert to Orthodoxy . He still regarded the Greek Catholic (Uniate) church as a potential bridge between Eastern and Western Christendom. Nontheless, inspired by his activism, an entire village in eastern Galicia converted to Orthodoxy in May of 1877. More conversions followed in the next three years. The Galician authorities charged Naumovych with treason. In their view his activity was not religious but political. Naumovych had indeed maintained contact with Russian Pan-Slav agents. 19In July of 1882 he was finally convicted and sentenced to eight months in jail. Other Rusyns who converted to Orthodoxy likewise found themselves hauled into court, although, surprisingly, a Polish jury acquitted them. Both the Austrian government and Polish patriots understood the necessity of not pushing the Old Ruthenians to the point of open subversion. The Ukrainophile movement predominated in Galicia, but the Russophile tradition was not going to go away. Galicia, unlike Russian Ukraine, was not a particularly productive agricultural region. Much of the countryside is hilly and the soil is poor. A bad harvest usually resulted in famine , and this happened at the beginning of the twentieth century. Russian Pan-Slavs responded by founding the Galician-Russian Benevolent Association in St. Petersburg on February 9, 1903. At the opening meeting acertain Father Petrov delivered the inaugural address. American historian Keith Dyrud described the subsequent address as follows: He likened the world to an artist's palette or a musician 's instrument. God was that artist or musician. The nationalities of the world were like colors on the palette or strings on the instrument. If some of the colors or strings are missing, the painting or music will be incomplete and this is a crime against the spirit. This crime against the spirit occurs when a culture allows itself to become divided. The separation of the people of Galicia and Carpatho-Russia (Subcarpathia) from the Russian nation was just such a crime . It is the obligation of a national culture to unite its people into a united nation. In other words, the orator was suggesting that it was 19 Ibid ., 28 . �92 SLOVAK.IA 2019 the obligation of Russia to unite in a single nation all people with a Russian culture. He included the Galicians and Subcarpathians 20 among the people with a Russian culture. Under the leadership of Count Vladimir Bobrinski , the GalicianRussian Benevolent Association extended financia l relief to famine victims of Galicia. Tsarist Russia, the most despotic and reactionary among the Great Powers, could appear benevolent while working to expand its influence. Bobrinski likewise dispatched agents to Podparkarpatska Rus ' , where starvation was an everyday occurrence, rather than a momentous event. The Hungarian government was less hesitant than its Austrian counterpart to prosecute Rusyns for conversion to the Orthodox faith. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the first converts to the Orthodox faith in Podkarpatska Rus ' materialized in the vi llage of Iza. They were simple peasants who disliked their pastor, a magyarized Rusyn, who replaced their language with Magyar in the parish school. Led by the cantor-teacher Andry Vladymir, they appealed to the Serbian patriarch, who had nominal authority over all Orthodox subjects of the Habsburg Monarchy, to send them an Orthodox priest. Greek Catholic priest and historian Athanasius Pekar, himself a Ukrainophile, later admitted: "All that needed to be done to liquidate the so-called 'Orthodox movement' in Iza was to appoint a new village pastor and reopen the parish school." 2 1 Instead, the Hungarian government arrested the participants late in 1903 for alleged ties with Russia, and in the following year placed them on trial in Marmaros. All the defendants were found gui lty of treason. The Maramaros trial made a deep impression on the mind of a simple woodcutter of Iasnyia named Aleksander Kabaliu (18771947). He had just been released from the army, where he had been persecuted by Hungarian officers for his Pan-Slav inclinations. Kabuliak had a pronounced inclination towards a monastic life . He made religious pilgrimages to Russia, Jerusalem and Mount Athos in Greece. At a Russian monastery in the last-named location, he was received into the Orthodox fold . He turned his home in Iasnyia into a veritable Russian museum, collecting and displaying icons. Fearing 20 21 Ibid. , 49-50. Pekar, I 05 . �SLOVAKIA 2019 93 persecution by Hungarian authorities, Kabaliuk emigrated to the Russian Empire, where he was tonsured as a monk in 1910. The Russian Orthodox Church initially intended that Kabaliuk wou ld go to America and assume custody of a modest parish in Pittsburgh.22 Instead, he decided to return to Hungary to share in the martyrdom of the villagers of Iza. The Hungarian authorities were happy to oblige him. At the end of 1913 there was a second Maramaros trial, in which Kabaliuk and 94 peasants were the defendants. The Hungarians were hopeful that the trial would expose the activities of Count Bobrinskii and his associates. All it achieved was international condemnation of Magyar policies . Nonetheless, Kabaliuk was sentenced to four and a half years in jail, while 32 others were sentenced to one or two years and various fines. The rest were dismissed for lack of evidence. It was also at the tum of the century that many Rusyns followed the example of their Slovak kinsmen and neighbors in emigrating to America. Although members of both groups originated in the dirtpoor hill country of the eastern Carpathians, they tended to gravitate towards industrial centers in the United States. Surprisingly, America provided both stimulus for the Russophile tradition and a resurgence of the Russian Orthodox faith. Dyrud writes: The majority of the Rusyn immigrants came to the United States as illiterate peasants and had not participated in the intellectual and cultural conflicts that were raging in the old country. Thus it was in this country that Rusyn peasants from Galicia and Subcarpathia first lived together and found that they did not have as much in common as it first seemed. And it was in the United States that many of them first heard of the Ukrainian movement. And it was there that the Rusyns from Subcarpathia felt free to express national sentiments without the pressures of magyarization. It was in the United States that most of the Rusyn immigrants were told for the first time by the Russian Orthodox mission that they were really Russians. 23 22 See the entry "Kabaliuk, Aleksander," in Magocsi and Popp, eds., Encyclopedia o[ Ru syn History and Culture, 223. 2 Dyrud, 58 . �94 SLOVAK.IA 2019 Ironically, the Russian cause was indirectly aided by a most unlikely element: Irish American Catholic priests. Many of the latter resented the fact that Greek Catholic candidates for the priesthood were permitted to marry while they were not. Most outstanding was Archbishop John Ireland of Minneapolis-St. Paul. On December 19, 1889, he was visited by a Greek Catholic priest named Alexis Toth. Toth had been dispatched by the Presov eparchy to assume the pastorship of St. Mary ' s, a modest church recently constructed by the Rusyn community of Minneapolis. When Father Toth presented his credentials, Archbishop Ireland became greatly agitated. He informed Toth that he did not consider him to be a genuine Catholic, and denied him permission to administer the sacraments. 24 After consultation with the parishioners of St. Mary's, Toth conferred with Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Vladimir of San Francisco. The latter was eager and willing to accept the parish of St. Mary's into the Orthodox fold. Aside from Alaska, which Russia had sold to the United States earlier, there were up to the 1870s only three Orthodox churches in the United States. In addition to San Francisco, there was a Russian parish in New York City and a Greek Orthodox church in New Orleans. Native converts in America were exclusively Alaskan Aleuts and Eskimos . Now, however, the wave of Carpatho-Rusyn immigrants indicated a potential source of growth. Since nearly all Rusyn immigrants were in the eastern half of the United States, New York rather than San Francisco was delegated as an episcopal seat. In 1890 the construction of St. Nicholas Cathedral was completed in New York. Tsar Nicholas II personally donated 5,000 roubles to this project. His government subsidized the construction of other churches and supported activities of the Orthodox Missionary Society founded in Moscow. In Minneapolis, Father Toth founded the Russian Mutual Aid Society. These prosletization efforts exceeded all expectations. By the time of the outbreak of World War I in 1914, over one-third of all Rusyn immigrants in the United States had converted to Orthodoxy. 25 They served as enthusiastic supporters of the Russian cause in the Great War. World War I brought with it the culmination of the historic struggle for the Carpathians, and caused great suffering among the 24 25 Ibid 65-6 Ibid: 65 . • �SLOVAK.IA 2019 95 Rusyns of Galicia, eastern Slovakia and Podkarpatska Rus' . By early September 1914 Russian armies had overrun much of eastern Galicia. Count Georgii Bobrinskii, brother of Count Vladimir, was made governor-general, and started a campaign to eradicate the Ukrainian movement. All Ukrainian cultural organizations, cooperatives and journals were shut down. The Russian language replaced Ukrainian in the school system. Hundreds of Greek Catholic priests were deported into the depths of Russia. There was admittedly some dissent in Russian governmental circles. Noted statesman Pavel Miliukov described Russian conduct in Galicia as a European scandal. Yet Foreign Minister Sergei Sazanov stated unequivocally: "Now is exactly the right moment to rid ourselves of the Ukrainian movement once and for all." 26 The Ukrainophiles had a measure of revenge when the AustroHungarian military reoccupied the province in the following year. They denounced their Russophile neighbors for alleged collaboration with the invaders. Hungarian troops carried out mass hangings. At the same time, Polish nobles spread rumors that the Ukrainophiles were covertly pro-Russian, so as to reassert their own authority in Galicia. In truth, thousands of Russophiles and Ukrainophiles alike suffered internment in Austrian concentration camps. The most notorious of these camps was Talerhof, near Graz. Sanitary conditions were deplorable, and an estimated 1,767 persons died of typhus and 27 other diseases. Austria's parliament was scandalized, and Emperor Karl ordered Talerhof closed early in 1917. Early in 1915, for the second of three occasions in the course of a century, the Russian military crossed through the Dukla Pass. This move came as a result of the seige of Przemysl, Austria-Hungary's principal fortress in Galicia. Russian troops occupied the Carpathian mountain passes to the south to prevent the Austro-Hungarian military from sending reinforcements to break the siege. Casualties on both sides of the winter war of 1914-15 were appalling. It is likely that more soldiers succumbed to the "White Death" (hypothermia) than were killed by enemy bullets. 28 Ultimately, the Austrian side 26 Orest Subtelny, Ukraine: A History (Toronto, Buffalo and London, 2009), 343. See the entry "Talerhof," in Magocsi and Pop, eds,. Encyclopedia of Rusy n History and Culture, 488 . 28 For rhe most recent account of the winter campaign, see Traydon A. Tumstell, Blood on the Snow: The Carpathian Winter War of I 9 I 5 (Lawrence, KD, 20 I 0). 27 �96 SLOVAKIA 2019 gave way first. Russian soldiers under General Lavrl' Kornilov pushed through the southern end of Dukla Pass and advanced as far as the village of Lodomirova, just north of the town of Svidnik. Here they established a military cemetery for their dead. Lodomirova eventually became the site of a Russian cultural center in northeastern Slovakia, which shall be discussed in due course. The Russians did not remain in occupation of this toehold in Slovakia for long. Germany, Austria-Hungary's senior partner, launched a counteroffensive eastward across Poland, albeit at the cost of having enough troops to capture Paris. Russian troops painfully withdrew north of the Carpathians. They were now demoralized and ripe for revolution. Mass mutinies forced Tsar Nicholas II to abdicate on March 15, 1917. The reign of the Romanov dynasty had ended. Tsarist Russia was destroyed. Politically speaking, the Russophi-le orientation was now a dead letter. Culturally, its future was now an openended question . At this point Russophiles among the Rusyns looked with growing interest at the now ascendant Czechoslovak independence movement. The Rusyns in Interwar Czechoslovakia and Poland The Czechoslovak independence movement was a curious article. For almost a century, there existed an intellectual tradition which maintained that Czechs and Slovaks were two branches of the same nationality. Yet the concept of a politically united Czechoslovak state was largely the invention to Tomas Garrigue Masaryk ( 18501937), a Czech philosophy professor and notorious defender of unpopular causes. Perceiving that World War I would result in AustriaHungary coming increasingly under the domination of Kaiser Wilhelm ' s Germany, Masaryk decided to lobby among the opposing Western powers for Czecho-Slovak independence. In Geneva, in neutral Switzerland, he was joined by his protege, the sociology professor Edvard Benes. Together they proceeded to Paris, where they were joined by Milan Rastislav Stefanik, a young Slovak serving as an officer in the French Air Force. This triumvirate formed a Czech Action Committee Abroad, which was eventually expanded and renamed the Czechoslovak National Council. Given his position on this body, the French eventually gave Stefanik genera l' s rank. He raised a Czechoslovak Legion from prisoners of war and deserters �SLOVAKIA 2019 97 from the Austro-Hungarian Army. The Czechoslovak Legion distinguished itself on the Western, Eastern and eventually Italian fronts, and gained increased Allied favor in the struggle for the recognition of the independence movement. 29 In 1918 Masaryk visited the United States, not only to gain official American recognition, but also a mandate from the Slovak community in America, since Slovakia itself was politically gagged. In October of 1915 the Bohemian National Alliance and the Slovak League of America had already concluded a preliminary agreement for cooperation in Cleveland. Masaryk proceeded to Pittsburgh to conclude a more formal agreement for a Czecho-Slovak merger. Masaryk's visit to the Mecca of the American Slovaks was greeted by a large manifestation of support which included South Slavs as well as Czechs and Slovaks. Yet the negotiations undertaken at Moose Hall on May 29-31 were not without controversy. Masaryk pledged Slovakia an administration, a school system and linguistic rights, but not its own parliament, as specified by the earlier Cleveland Agreement. Here Jozef Husek of the Slovak Catholic Jednota raised strenuous objections. Albert Mamatey, president of the Slovak League, impressed Masaryk with the seriousness of losing the support of the largest single Slovak organization. The delegates were evenly divided, and Masaryk finally broke the deadlock by signing a revised draft with all the proposals. 30 The steel towns of the greater Pittsburgh area were also heavily populated by Rusyns from Hungary. Following the lead of the Slovaks, many joined fraternal organizations, which not only provided 29 The Czechoslovak Legion in Russia was the most instrumental military force in attaining Allied recognition of the independence movement. With Russia withdrawing from the war in 1918, Czechoslovak legionnaires wished to be evacuated and sent to France, where a German offensive to capture Paris was anticipated. Attempts by the Bolsheviks to disarm them resu lted in their capture of the Trans-Siberian Railway and a legendary odyssey to the Pacific coast. It also gave the Western Allies a pretext to intervene in the Russian Civil War. The experience of the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia boats of a sizable amount of literature. The best Englishlanguage studies are authored by Victor M. Fie, The Revolutionary War for Independence and the Russian Question: The Czechoslovak Army in Russia 1914-191 8 (New Delhi, 1977) and The Bolsheviks and the Czechoslovak Legion. The Origins of Their Armed Conflict: March to May 1918 (New Delhi , 1978). 30 See Marian Mark Stolarik, "The Role of American Slovaks in the Creation of Czecho-Slovakia" Slo vak Studies, VIII ( 1968), 48-5 1 �98 SLOVAKIA 2019 benefits to workers but published newspapers as well. Its members had acquired a measure of political awareness. One such organization was the Greek Catholic Union, headquartered in the HomesteadMunhall district. Another was the United Societies of America, which contained both Greek Catholic and Orthodox members, based in McKeesport. At the time of Masaryk's pilgrimage to Pittsburgh, the Czech independence leader was approached by Nicholas Pachuta, editor of the Greek Catholic Union's newspaper Rus 'kii Viestnik. Pachuta had recently converted to Orthodoxy. Up until this point he had advocated the incorporation of Podkarpatska Rus' into the Russian Empire. Now that there was no more Russian Empire, Pachuta approached Masaryk with the idea of union with a Czecho-Slovak state. He was soon afterwards expelled from the Greek Catholic Union. 3 1 Overall, the Greek Catholic clergy wished their homeland to remain part of Hungary. Many laymen wanted union with Galicia but insisted Galicia was Russian rather than Ukrainian. The end to the Great War was approaching, and territorial changes could be anticipated. One of President Woodrow Wilson's celebrated Fourteen Points for peace was "self-determination for the peoples of AustriaHungary." It was necessary to have a common program. Members of both organizations met in Homestead on July 23, 1918 to form the American National Council of Uhro-Rusyns. The subsequent Homestead Resolution read as follows: If the pre-war boundaries remain, Rusyns, as the most loyal people-gens fidelissima-deserve that Hungary provide [them} with autonomy. If new boundaries are made, they should be made according to nationality; thus, Uhro-Rusyns can belong nowhere else than to their nearest brothers by blood, language and faith, to the Galician and Bukovinian Rusyns. But if we are divided by foreign aspirations from Ukrainians and Old-Russians [Galician Russophiles}, the National Council demands in this case autonomy for Uhro-Rusyns so they can pre32 serve their national character. 31 Magocsi, Th e Shaping of a National Identity, 81. The original text of the Homestead Resolution appears under the heading " Do Vpukh Vhro-Rusynov zhivlych v Soed" in Prosvita, August 8, 1918 32 �SLOVAKIA 2019 99 The Rusyns commissioned a young Pittsburgh lawyer named Gregory Zsatkovich ( 1886-1967) to represent their interests to the United States government. Pennsylvania congressman Guy Campbell arranged a meeting between Zsatkovich and President Wilson on October 21. Wilson thought it unfeasible to grant full independence to so small a nation in a geopolitically sensitive region, and consequently recommended that Zsatkovich seek autonomy in a larger state. He referred Zsatkovich to Masaryk, whose independence movement had been recently recognized by the U.S. State Department, Zsatkovich met with Masaryk in Philadelphia, where the latter hosted a congress called the Mid-European Democratic Union on October 23-26. According to Zsatkovich's memoir afterwards, Masaryk assured him: "If the Rusyns decide to join the Czechoslovak Republic, they shall constitute a fully autonomous state." 33 There remained a sticky issue. Rusyn territorial claims included several counties in eastern Slovakia. Here there were numerous Rusyns in the northern mountain districts whereas elsewhere the population consisted of either Slovaks or Rusyns who had already voluntarily assimilated into the Slovak nationality. Masaryk was further alleged to declare on this point: "The frontiers will be so determined that the 34 Rusyns will be satisfied." On November 12, at a meeting of the National Council of UhroRusyns in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the Czechoslovak option was provisionally adopted, albeit including the demand for the counties of eastern Slovakia. A subsequent plebiscite among the American Rusyn fraternals provided Zsatkovich with the desired results: out of 1,102 votes submitted, 732 (67 percent) were for union with Czechoslovakia and 310 (28 percent) for union with Ukraine. Additionally, there were 27 votes for complete independence, 10 votes for union with Russia, and 9 votes for remaining part ofHungary. 35 Back in the Old Country, the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in October of 1918 led to a power vacuum in many areas of the Carpathians. Several different national councils were organized by Rusyns, each of which had its own program for the fu- 33 Gregory Zsatkovich, Otkryhote-Expose bydaltelho gubernatori Podkarpatskoj Rusi (Homestead, PA , 1921 ), 5. 34 Ibid 5 35 Ma~o~si , Th e Shaping of a National Identity, 85. �100 SLOVAK.IA 2019 ture affiliation of the people. A Russophile group in eastern Slovakia, based in Stara Cubovna, initially wanted a merger with Galicia. Dissenters among them, led by the lawyer Antonii Beskyd ( 1855-1933), considered such a move impractical. They reconvened in Presov and declared themselves for union with Czechoslovakia instead. A new revolutionary government in Hungary pledged to grant the Rusyns territorial autonomy. A group of Greek Catholic priests in Uzhorod declared themselves in favor of this option. Another pro-Hungarian group met in Khust, but its speakers were shouted down by Pro-Ukrainian elements led by the lawyer Iulii Braschaiko (1879-1955). The Ukrainophle orientation had at last taken hold in Podkarpatska Rus ', and would grow progressively stronger. Most dramatic of all were events in the easternmost Hutsul region, centered around Iasnyia. Here the populace favored union with Ukraine, but, pending further developments, took matters into their own hands. In the early morning of January 7, 1919, a group of demobilized Rusyn soldiers, aided by troops sent by the West Ukrainian Republic, drove out the Hungarian garrison of 250 militiamen. On February 5 the victorious Rusyns proclaimed their own "Hutsul Republic," with a 42-member elected council and a four-man government. This little state existed until June 11, when the area was occupied by advancing Romanian troops.36 Late in 1918, Czechoslovak legionnaires returning from the Italian Front had begun a military occupation of Slovakia, and advanced across the Uz River. Uzhorod was occupied on January 10, 1919. The Czechoslovak position was strengthened as a result of a Bolshevik government assuming power in Hungary, much to the alarm of the Western powers. This Hungarian government wished to build upon the "Ruska Kraina" declared by its predecessor, the Karolyi regime. It went to extremes attempting to implement communist rule, threatening the death penalty for even the smallest commercial transactions. This decree became impossible to enforce, since the commissars were themselves profiteering. 37 Podkarpatska Rus' was soon engulfed in counterrevolution. 36 See Paul Robert Magocsi, "The Rusyn Decision to Unite With Czechoslovakia" in Magocsi, Of the Making of Natio nalities, 134. 37 Ibid, 140-42 �SLOVAKIA 2019 101 Even before the establishment of the Bolshevik regime, members of the Uzhorod Council began experiencing doubts concerning the viability of remaining part of Hungary. A leading member of the Council, Reverend Avhustyn Voloshyn (1874-1945), began negotiating with Slovak leader Milan Hodza. Voloshyn was joined by supporters of both Beskid and Brashchaiko. The Russophiles realized that the Russia they had loved and believed in was unlikely to return from the dead. The Ukrainophiles realized that an independent Ukraine was unlikely to survive the turmoil of the Russian Civil War. Members of both orientations were willing to form a single body representing their mutual interests. It was in this spirit that the Central Russian National Council was formed in Uzhorod on May 8, 1919. Zsatkovich arrived with the text of the Scranton Resolution, which was endorsed unanimously. It remained to the Western peacemakers gathered in Paris to give sanction to Podkarpatska Rus' being granted to Czechoslovakia. Yet, contrary to later Hungarian revisionist claims, the victorious Western Allies did not arbitrarily hand the region over to the Czechs. The decision to unite with Czechoslovakia was that of the Rusyn people themselves .38 The realities of being part of the Czechoslovakia disappointed the expectations of many educated Rusyns. Autonomy was not forthcoming. They could send representatives to parliament in Prague, but did not have their own regional parliament. Prague apparently decided that the Rusyns, like the Slovaks, were not ready for autonomy. Zsatkovich became the first provincial governor, but the actual administration lay in the hands of a centralized Czech bureaucracy. Zsatkovich eventually resigned in disgust and returned to America. The disputed counties in eastern Slovakia remained under Slovak administration. To complicate matters further, there was now a group of Rusyns who considered themselves their own nationality, in addition to the existing Russophile and Ukrainophile orientations. Politically, on the local level, Prague would support one and then another orientation, depending upon its convenience at a particular moment. The Czechoslovak administration made great strides in education, virtually eliminating illiteracy in twenty years . The government poured tremendous amounts of money into Podkarpatska Rus ', and liberally funded cultural activities of all three orientations. 38 Ibid, 146. �102 SLOVAKIA 2019 On April 29, 1920, there was a meeting of local leaders in Uzhorod, headed by Iulii Brashchaiko. Its purpose was to establish a cultural organization encompassing all Podkarpatska Rus '. Nothing resulted from this meeting since Russophiles led by Anthonii Beskyd raised angry objections to the Ukrainophile cultural orientation of Brashchaiko ' s group. On May 9 Brashchaiko's fol lowers established the Prosvita Society, modeled along the lines of the Ukrainian society of the same name in Galicia. Its task was to publish all kinds of popular and scholarly books "written in the national tongue and accessible to every Subcarpathian Ru syn." 39 The Czechoslovak Pros vita was reinforced by many educated Ga li cian Ukrainians who found Polish rul e objectionable. On th e May 23 , 1923, those Russophiles who boycotted the Prosvita met in Uzhorod to establish their own organization, which was called the Dukhnovych Society. Its stated goals were to foster "the cultural deve lopment of the Ru ssian people living within Czechoslovakia, and most importantly to educate them in a moral , patriotic and Ru ssian spirit, exclusive of al l political activity." 40 The contrast between the two rival societies was visib le. The old tricolor Ru ssian flag flew over the reading rooms of the Dukhnovych Society, whereas Prosvita reading rooms displayed the blue and ye llow Ukrainian national colors. In terms of literature, the new Dukhnovych Society championed the great Russian masters : Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, etc. The Prosvita Society advanced the writings of Shevchenko and other less known Ukrainian awakeners. Both Russophiles and Ukrainophiles expanded their activities from literature to theater. The Ru ssophiles tended to produce hi storical dramas, whereas the Ukrainophi les focused on folk songs and ballads. The latter used standard Ukrainian as the language of performance, whereas the Russophiles had to translate their productions into a Rusyn dia lect. It must be frankly admitted that the Ukrainophile orientation gained the upper hand in popularity during the course of the kulturkampf for Podkarpatska Rus' in the First Czechoslovak Republic. Avtustyn Voloshyn had become a convert to the Ukrainophile orien39 Statul tova,ystva 'Prosvita • Podkarpatska Rus ·, (Uzhorod, 1920), 6. Usta v Rusakogo ku/'turna-prosvete/'noga obshchturni Aleksandra Duchnovychovicha , (Uzhorod, 1923), 40 �SLOVAK.IA 2019 103 tation. He and his associates were astute and learned men-teachers and scholars who kept closely in touch with Rusyn cultural life. By contrast, the Dukhnovych Society fell increasingly under the influence of Stefan Fentsik ( 1892-1946), a local politician who used the organization as a platform to propagate a his own views, his political ties with Poland and Hungary-which shall be di scussed in due course-became common knowledge by 1937, and did much to compromise the Dukhnovych Society. 41 Russian culture survived more comfortably in eastern Slovakia, since 1928 elevated to the official status of a province. In large measure this direction was due to the efforts of Iulii Lazho (18671929), a native of Svidnik and senator for the Social Democratic Party in the Czechoslovak parliament. Earlier, Lazho had emigrated to America, where he converted to Orthodoxy and also rose in the construction industry. He returned home to start his own construction firm, and also to seek revenge against his former Greek Catholic pastor. As mayor of Ladomirova, where the Russian military cemetery was located, Lazho invited Vital ii Maksimenko ( 1873-1960), former archimandrite of the monastery at Pochaiev (in Polish Volhynia), to establish a missionary headquarters there. Lazho also procured a Cyrillic alphabet printing press which Czechoslovak legionnaires in Russia had appropriated, shipped all the way to Vladivostok on the Pacific coast, and which made its way to Prague. During two decades of activity the Ladomirova mission published over I 00 Orthodox church books, the newspaper Pravoslavnaia Karpatskaje Rus ' (1928-1944), the journal for young people Diestvo I ivnost Khristi ( 1935-1941 ), a scholarly journal Pravoslavny put' ( 1938-1940) and the annual almanac Pravnoslavny ruskii/Ruskii narodnyi kalendar ( 1924-1944). The Russian monks also worked to inculcate Russian culture among the native Rusyns, hosting such events as an annual Russian Day in the summers and the tree-lighting ceremony for Orthodox Christmas. 42 In approaching the causes of the Orthodox revival in interwar Czechoslovakia, it is necessary to understand the world view of the 41 Magocsi, "Nationalist Intelligentsia and the Peasantry" in Of th e Making of Nationalities, 200. 42 See the entry "Ladomirova Monastery" in Magocsi and Pop, eds. , En cyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture, 266 . �104 SLOVAKIA 2019 national-state's founding father. T.G. Masaryk was a complex individual. As one biographer expressed it: "This man wanted to emancipate workers without embracing Marxism, liberate women without promoting feminism, and educate the young without celebrating youth. " 43 He was considered in the West to be an expert on Russia. He had written extensively on the great writer Dostoevsky, whom he regarded as the classic representative of Russian thought. There were elements of the Russian national psychology which Masaryk found disturbing. Like Havlicek before him, he felt that the Western Slavs, especially the Czechs, should follow a different path . As a proponent of Westeren humanism, Masaryk disparaged the mystical tradition of the Eastern Orthodox faith .44 Yet Masaryk reserved even greater hostility for the Roman Catholi c Church. He drew inspiration from Jan Hus, the great Bohemian religious reformer who was burned at the stake for heresy in 1415 . In 1905, while celebrating the anniversary of Hus ' death, Masaryk coined the slogan "Away from Rome! " Politics in the first years of the Czechoslovak Republic had a distinctly anti-Catholic flavor. His government favored the appointment of Lutherans for administration in Slovakia at the expense of the Catholic majority. In Podkarpatska Rus ', where there were virtua lly no Protestants, such a policy was impossible. Here Czechoslovak authorities fostered a revival of Orthodoxy. One Czech mini ster assessed the impact as follows: It seemed to some Russophile politicians, both in Prague and in Ruthenia ... that the right time had come to convert the Rutheni an peasant back to the Greek Orthodox religion. This opinion was shared by many Russian emigres who flocked to Czechoslovak ia ... after 1919. A drive for 'Orthodoxy ' was started in Rutheni a ... It is a question of how much of this movement was spontaneous and due to the pro-Russian feeling of the population and to its di slike for the purely magyarized Uniate clergy, and how much of its strength it owed to the propaganda and preaching of the Russian Orthodox emigres and clergy and to the support of some Czech political circles. 43 Bruce Garver, "Masaryk and Czech Politics 1900-1914" in Stanley B. Winters, ed. , T G. Masaryk (1850- 193 7) Vo lum e I Thinker and Politician (London, 1990), 22 . 44 See Paul 1. Tresky, " Masaryk and Dostoyevsky" in Harry Hanak, ed., T G. Masa1y k (/ 850- 193 7) Volum e II/ Statesman and Cultural Force (London, 1990), 161-77. �SLOVAKIA 2019 105 However, it certainly added one more element to the confusion reigning in Ruthenia and led to animosities which, in the end, turned against the Prague Government itself.45 Reverend Voloshyn bitterly remonstrated against the situation in Prague in 1929: The agitation usually began in the local tavern, where the agitator met the most notorious brawlers in the village. After a short talk, emboldened by 'noisy' arguments and vodka, the peasants would begin to shout abuse against the village pastor. In a matter of two or three days a ' committee' made up of the pastor's 'opponents ' would be formed. The committee did not immediately begin advocating Orthodoxy; instead, it showered the bishop with complaints and delegations, demanding that there be an investigation against the pastor or that he be removed outright. Then followed other forms of harassment, demonstrations, threats against the pastor, intimidation of church curators, and such . The committee would send the pastor letters demanding that he leave the vi llage. As time went on, the committee made increasingly bolder threats that the pastor get out ' or else!' .. .. If, despite such harassment, the priest remained in his parish, the threats escalated. Someone would break his windows, shoot into his windows, poison hi s well , set fire to his grain or stables, and in some cases even the parish house, assault and beat the priest, etc. The government remained indifferent to all this under the pretext of ' Freedom of conscience! Freedom ofreligion!' 46 This state of affairs could not permitted to go on indefinitely. Czechoslovakia was, after all, a republic governed by law. The Vatican made its own contribution to improved church-state relations by transferring Bishop Antonii Papp of Mukachevo to Hungary and replacing him with canon Petro Gebej on July 16, 1924. At the same time, in response to forthcoming parliamentary elections, President Masaryk cryptically declared that "the Catholics will get as many rights as they win." 47 Rusyn voters supported Czech Catho lic political parties which gained an increased measure of strength in parliament. The rights accorded to Greek Catholics by the constitution in 45 Frantisek Nemec and Vladimir Modry, Th e Soviet Seizure of Subcarpathian Ruthenia (Toronto, 1955), 38-9. 46 Avhustyn Voloshyn, " Relihijni vidnozny na Podkarpats ' kyi" in Acta Conventia Pragensis pro Studii Orentalibus n. 1919, (Olomouc, 1930), 218-9. 47 Pekar, 11 8. �106 SLOVAKIA 2019 any case were now enforced. Violence and vandalism were now prosecuted and soon ceased. In some instances church property was restored. Bishop Gebej led a religious revival which resulted in priests maintaining closer contact with their parishioners. A number of converts to Orthodoxy returned to the Greek Catholic faith. The Orthodox revival was one of the sources of survival for the Russophile orientation. Another source was, ironically, Hungarian funding . The fall of Bela Kun's communist regime in August of 1919 was followed by the restoration of the nobility in Hungary. Counterrevolutionary White terror now followed Red terror. Right wing elements who rallied under Admiral Miklos Horthy, soon elevated to the position of regent of Hungary, wanted to regain Slovakia and Podkarpatska Rus' but had to go about it covertly.48 The victorious Western powers would not recognize any government in Hungary which would not accept their peace tenns . On June 4, 1920, Hungary was compelled to sign the Treaty of Trianon, which ceded Slovakia and Podkarpatska Rus' to Czechoslovakia, Transylvania to Romania, and Croatia and the Voivodina to what became known as Yugoslavia. Trianon psychologically scarred Hungarian society for a full generation. France offered to soften the blow by extending to Hungary financial credits, particularly in the area of railway development, in exchange for compliance. Hungarian Prime Minister Istvan Bethlen cheerfully accepted the financial aid and outwardly complied with Trianon. Yet his government covertly subsidized elements in Slovakia and Podkarpatska Rus' who were disgruntled with Czechoslovak centrali sm. Having previously denied these peoples autonomy, the Hungarians now championed their right to selfdetern1ination as a first step toward regaining them. One of the recipients of Hungarian financial aid was Stefan Fentsik. Another was Andrei Brodii ( 1895-1946), a journalist, teacher and chairman of the Autonomous Agricultural Union/Autonomyi Zenled'skij Sojuz (AZS). Fentsik yielded leadership of the Russophile movement to Brodii during the 1930s. Ukrainophile historian Peter Stercho later maintained that Brodii, Fentsik and other select 48 As a precedent to future collaboration in this matter, Poland allowed itself to be used as a staging ground for Hungarian subversion of Czechos lovak administration . A "Magyar-S lovak League" was established in Krakow, and dispatched armed vo lunteers across the border into Slovakia. �SLOVAKIA 2019 107 Russophile leaders had to conceal their ties with Hungary from their followers, since even the latter were opposed to territorial revision. 49 Polish policy towards the Rusyns of Galicia followed a similar pattern. In the area directly north of the Dukla Pass lived people belonging to a branch of the Rusyns known as the Lemkos. They can be geographically divided by the San River. The Ukrainian movement penetrated the area east of the San early in the twentieth century and accounted for numerous followers. In November 1918 Lemkos from about 30 villages gathered in the village of Komancza (Komancha in Rusyn) to form their own little republic. This Komancha Republic was viewed as a transitional state, pending merger with a greater Ukraine. West of the San the Lemkos still adhered to the traditions of old Rus'. In autumn 1918 they wanted union with Russia. Since this was obviously never going to happen, the Polish government could afford to humor these Lemkos, The Poles were preoccupied with the West Ukrainian Republic which was proclaimed in Lviv on November 1, 1918, and event which plunged Galicia into an ethnic civil war. On December 5, some 500 Lemko Rusyns representing 130 vi1lages and towns of western Lemkovyna met in Florynka (in Grybow district) to form a government. While the Polish military crushed the Komancha Republic in January 1919, it tended to view the Florynka Lemko Rusyn Republic as a potential ally against the Ukrainians. Polish officials who were present offered the former town hall of Grybow as a political headquarters, while the Polish Army provided arms for a Lemko national guard. Schools and cooperatives were soon organized. Amazingly, the Lemko Rusyn Republic survived a full sixteen months. It was governed by an executive council headed by Reverend Mykhal Iurchakevych and a central national council headed by the lawyer Iaroslaw Kachmarchyk. The Poles were disappointed with the results. The Lemkos were happy to accept whatever aid the Polish government and military were willing to offer but nonetheless were unwilling to take up arms against their errant brethren to the east. Additionally, Kachmarchyk's government rejected the notion of union with a Bolshevik Russia, and began looking at the example of 49 Peter Stercho, Diplomacy of Double Morality: Europe's Crossroads in CarpathoUkraine /9/9-/939(NewYork , 1971), 171. �108 SLOVAKIA 2019 their brethren of the south side of the Carpathians. A union with Czechoslovakia now seemed a viable option. Unfortunately, in 1920 relations between Poland and Czechoslovakia were at a particularly low point, owing to border disputes concerning Tesin in Silesia and Orava-Spis in Slovakia. Before the end of March the Poles arrested Kachmarchyk and members of his government. They were tried on June 10, 1921. A Polish jury acquitted them, which was only reasonable insofar as the Poles had encouraged their activities in the first place. But the event marked the death knell of Lemko statehood. 50 Yet the Poles still had use for the Lernkos in the interwar period. The Greek Catholic Church was strongly identified with the Ukrainian national movement. The leadership of the Polish military, overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, encouraged the movement to convert the Lemkos to Orthodoxy, and thus express a Russian character at the expense of the Ukrainian .51 It was a classic case of Divide and Rule. Elsewhere, in Volhynia, adherents of the Ukrainian national movement were Orthodox. Here militant Polish nationalists attacked and vandalized Orthodox monasteries and schools. At the same time, for reasons of security, Poland wished to have a common border with Hungary. For this reason the Polish government supported Hungarian efforts to regain Podkarpatska Rus' . The events which accompanied the international crisis in 1938 are well-known. The present author shall limit himself to summarizing key particulars. The Munich "diktat" of September 1938 resulted in Czechoslovakia being forced to yield the Gennan populated Sudetenland to Nazi Germany. Deprived of her most vital border defenses, Czechoslovakia was now rendered militarily defenseless. Hostile neighbors, Poland and Hungary, were now encouraged to make their own territorial claims. Moreover, the Prague government could no longer resist demands for autonomy on the part of Slovakia and Podkarpatska Rus ' . 50 See Paul Robert Magocsi, "The Lemko Rusyn Republic ( 1918-1920) and Political Thought in Western Rus' -Ukraine" in Magocsi, Of the Making of Nationalities, 303315. 51 See Mykola Kucherpa, "The Nationality Policy of Poland towards Ukrainians before World War II" in Paul Berst and Jaroslav Mokolak, eds., Th e Lemko Region 1939-1947, War, Occupation and Deportation (New Haven and Krakow, 2002), 3949. �SLOVAKIA 2019 109 In the case of Podkarpatska Rus', a cabinet was formed on October 11 which consisted of both Russophiles and Ukrainophiles. Russophiles predominated, with Brodii as prime minister and Fentsik as deputy prime minister. Brodii was convinced that, if a plebiscite was held, the majority of Rusyns would vote for reunion with Hungary. Brodii 's ministry lasted only fifteen days. An alarmed central government summoned Brodii and Fentsik to Prague. There Brodii was arrested, while Fentsik found asylum in the Polish embassy. 52 Prague authorized Voloshyn, who was a member of the cabinet, to form a new government. Voloshyn proclaimed the province as an autonomous nation with the new name of Carpatho-Ukraine on November 3. The victory of the Ukrainophiles was at last complete. Autonomous Carpatho-Ukraine got off to a rough start. Hungary was prepared to re-annex the region, although conservative circles of the Hungarian government confined their claims to areas which were predominantly Magyar. Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy opted to appear in the role of peacemakers in this territorial dispute between Czechoslovakia and Hungary. They arbitrated a compromise settlement in Vienna on November 2, 1938. By terms of the First Vienna Award, Kosice, in southern Slovakia, and Uzhorod and Mukachevo, the two leading cities of Carpatho-Ukraine, were restored to Hungary. The government of Carpatho-Ukraine was forced to relocate to Khust, which was little more than an oversized village. Militant Hungarian nationalists regarded the First Vienna Award as a temporary expedient, and worked for the complete annexation of CarpathoUkraine. Under the auspices of the Ministry of Defense, a covert paramilitary group known as the "Ragged Guard" was organized to infiltrate Carpatho-Ukraine and conduct terrorist acts designed to destabilize the regime. Poland likewise dispatched paramilitary units for the same purpose. If the credible research of Ukrainophile historian Stercho is to be believed, the Polish paramilitary units outpaced their Hungarian counterparts in acts of terrorism. 53 Carpatho-Ukraine was in need of allies, and these were forthcoming. Militant Ukrainian nationalists from Poland crossed the mountains to organize the Riflemen of the Carpathian Sich. It has been argued by Russophile opponents that the Riflemen of the Car52 53 Magocs i, The Shaping of a National Identity, 238. Stercho, 302. �110 SLOVAKIA 2019 pathian Sich inaugurated the reign of "Ukrainian terror." It is true that they focu sed more on the Russophile domestic opposition than they did on Polish or Hungarian infiltrators. A detention camp was established for dissident Russophiles and Rusynophiles at Dumen . Yet conditions of internment were relaxed. Political differences extended to the family leve l, and prisoners under guard where permitted to attend social events in neighboring Rakhiv.54 There was a conflict of interest between the Carpathian Sich and the Voloshyn regime. Sich rifl emen viewed Carpatho-Ukraine as the cornerstore of a future greater Ukraine, and counted on the support of Nazi Germany. Voloshyn , by contrast, decided that adherence to Czecho-Slovakia (now officially spelled with a hyphen) was a necessary expedient. In March of 1939 there were clashes between the Carpathian Sich and the regular Czechoslovak military. This confl ict was abruptly terminated when German leader Adolf Hitler moved to eliminate what remained of Czecho-Slovakia . As he prepared to militarily occupy Prague, he disappointed Ukrainophi les by giving his consent for Hungary to annex the province. Under German pressure, Slovakia declared its independence on March 14. CarpathoUkraine was now cut off from the Czech lands. With Hungarian troops already crossing the border, Voloshyn symbo li cally proclaimed Carpatho-Ukraine's independence on March 15 . Carpatho-Ukraine existed as an independent state for all of a day . On the 16 th , Hungarian military units were fighting for Khust. The Riflemen of the Carpathian Sich resisted with admirab le resolve , but its units were scattered and no match for the Hungarian army. They later regrouped in the mountains or were pushed across the border to Eastern Slovakia, thus encouraging Hungary to invade the latter as well. 55 Hungarian troops reached the Polish border by the end of the I 61\ and were eagerly embraced by their opposite numbers. The region was renamed Subcarpathia and governed directly from Budapest. There was some vague talk in the Hungarian parliament about according autonomy to the most recently annexed portion , but not to Uzhorod or Mukachevo, which were now considered 54 Paul Robert Magocsi , "The Nationality Problem in Subcarpathian Rus ' I 9381939: A Reappraisal" in Magocsi , Of th e Making of Nationalities, 228 . 55 This invasion of Eastern Slovakia resulted in portions of the disputed counties likewise being annexed by Hungary. It also resulted in the Slovak Republic placing itself under the military protection of Nazi Germany. �SLOVAKIA 2019 111 directly part of Hungary. Autonomy was del ayed indefinitely. As World War II progressed, the Hungarian military vehemently opposed autonomy for security reaso ns . The Ukrainophiles were particularly singled out for political persecution, while the Russophiles were more or less set aside. Interestingly, the Hungarian government began cultivating the idea that the Rusyns were their own separate nationality, an idea which ultimately became the wave of the future. 56 The resto ration of Hungarian rule dis illusioned the Russophil es. It stood to reason that, once Hungary went down to defeat with Nazi Germany, Andrei Brodii would come to a bad end . He did not attempt to flee when Soviet forces reached the area in the autumn of 1944, but attempted to negotiate with them. He was arrested by the Soviet counterintelligence unit SMERSH, charged as a fascist co ll aborator, and executed on November 7, 1946. A similar fate awa ited Stefan Fentsik: he was shot in the courtyard of the Uzhorod prison on March 30, 1946. Their Ukrainophile rival Voloshyn fared no better. Having taken up res idence in Prague during the war years, he taught at the Ukrainian Free University. In June 1945 he was arrested by SMERSH and transported to Moscow. He died in Lefortovo prison on July 19, undoubtedl y murdered. An ironic footnote of hi story is worth mentioning. Both Brodii and Fentsik were posthumously rehabilitated after the breakup of the Soviet Union. No such rehabilitation has been granted to Voloshyn. World War II and Ukrainiazation If the Russophiles in Podkarpatska Rus' were fatally compromised by collaboration with the Hungarians, then in Eastern Slovakia they earned acclamation for their role in an anti-fascist struggle. A leading force in the resistance to the pro-German regime of president-priest Jozef Ti so was the Slovak Communist Party. George Kennan , at that time charge d 'affa ires to the U.S. embassy in Prague, assessed the pro-communist sentiment in Eastern Slovakia as being a "bird of a different color [which] in former circumstances would have little chance of success." He added, however, that owing to 56 Magocs i, The Shaping of a National Identity, 248-9 . �112 SLOVAKIA 2019 guidance from Moscow, the Communists could become the most formidable resistance group of all. 57 Kennan's prognosis was largely accurate, though certain qualifying feature s must be noted. The Communists did not have a monopoly on the resistance movement. In prewar Czechoslovakia they were strongest in Podkarpatska Rus ', but in Eastern Slovakia they were never ab le to muster more than seven percent of the vote among the Ru syns in the interwar period. Not wishing to be isolated from other Rusyns in organized resistance to the Tiso regime, local Communi sts opted to join the Carpatho-Russian Council for National Liberation (KRASNO), which shall be introduced shortly. The view of the autonomous and later independent Slovak state on the Rusyns was that the latter were "S lovaks of the Greek Catholic faith ." This view was exemp li fied by Andrej Dudas, who in 1940 was appointed regional administrator of Eastern Slovakia. He was convinced that the idea of a Rusyn nationality was created by the Hungarians, a position he maintained a full three decades later as an emigre in Argentina.58 In early 1939, the Rusyn Nationa l Committee and the Carpatho-Russian Nationa l Counci l were banned by the Slovak government, and the activity of the Dukhnovych Society was restricted. The Ukrainian movement among the Rusyns was particularly loathed by the Slovak nationalist leadership. Slovak police reports up until November 1938 indicate that Rusyns in the Presov Region supported union with their brethren east of the Uz Ri ver. Yet, in November, the same police reports indicate a significant change. The Ukrainian movement was even more alien to the Presov Region Rusyns than was Slovak nationalism, and they were henceforth opposed to a revision of borders which was favorable to CarpathoUkraine. 59 Rusyns shared in the economic prosperity of the Slovak Republic which characterized the first half of World War II. Workers in Germany sent money home to their families, whi le locally a number 57 Report written about May I, 1939 on conditions in Slovakia in George Ken nan, From Prague After Munich. Diplomatic Papers 1938-1 940 (Princeton, 1968), 139140. 58 Andrej Dudas, Rusinska otazka ajej uzadie (B uenos Aires, 1971), 25 . 59 See the entry " Carpatho-Russian Autonomous Counci l for National Liberation/Karpatorusskii avtonomyi sovet natsional'nmyi osvonodenyi (KRASNO)" in Magocsi and Pop, eds ., Encyclopedia of Rusy n Histo1y and Culture, 58. �SLOVAKIA 2019 113 of Rusyns profited from the expropriation of Jewish property. Yet once it became obvious that the Slovak Republic was on the losing side of the war, a number of Rusyns began to organize, The Carpatho-Russian Autonomous Council for National Liberation (Karpatorusskii avtonomyi sovet national'nogo obsvobzhdenii-KRASNO) was founded in Presov in September 1943. Its goals were to aid escaped Soviet prisoners of war and partisans and to cooperate with other underground elements opposed to what it considered a clericofascist regime. Its members envisioned a restored Czechoslovakia in which Rusyns would be equal partners with Czechs and Slovaks. Although its orientation was pro-Soviet and decidedly leftist, KRASNO was not a communist front organization. It was founded by civic and cultural leaders of varied political orientation. Vasyl' Karaman ( 1903-1961) was born in the village of Nagov, in Slovakia. After completing his education at the Commercial Academy in Mukachevo (1924-1927), be returned to eastern Slovakia, where he worked as a civil servant in Presov from 1927 to 1933 , and then served in various towns as secretary for the pro-government Agrarian Republican Party. When Czecho-Slovakia was being partitioned in the fall of 1938, he opposed the pro-Ukrainian orientation of the Voloshyn government. He was elected as chairman of a newly re-established Central Russian National Council. Its members included both Russophiles and Rusynophiles who wished to retain ties with what remained of Czecho-Slovakia, unlike the followers of Brodii and Fentsik. Unable to realize his objectives, he returned to the Presov Region. Here he joined a Committee of Rusyns which tried to reach an accommodation with the Slovak government. This was not possible, since Slovak nationalist officials distrusted his Russophile orientation. After Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June of 1941, Karaman was arrested. He spent a year and a half in jail, and after his release made contact with the Zhydovs'kyi brothers, Ivan and Petro. Together the three men were among the founders of KRASNO. 60 Ivan Zhydovs'kyi (1897-1982) was born in the village of Sarisske Jastrabie. His secondary school education at the Piarist gymnasium in Sabinov was interrupted in 1915, when he was drafted 60 See the entry " Karaman, Vasyl"' in Magocsi and Pop, eds., Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture, 228. �114 SLOVAKIA 2019 into the Austro-Hungarian Army. A year later he was captured on the Eastern Front. Like many prisoners of War, he embraced the Bolshevik cause during the Russian Revolution. During the Russian Civil War Zhydovs ' kyi served as a political commissar in the 216 th International Communist Brigade. When he returned home, he discontinued the role of agitator and became at least outwardly conformist. He completed his secondary education in 1919, and then studied law at the Comenius University in Bratislava, obtaining a degree in 1924. He worked for a time as a tax inspector in Uzhorod. By the I 930s he had a law practice in Uzhorod and he was director of the Presov branch of the Uzhorod-based Subcarpathia Bank. As a Russophile, Zhydovs ' kyi was prominent in the Central Russian National Council and in the Dukhnovych Society. Although opposed to the separatist Slovak government, he kept a lower profile then Kamman and was never arrested. He operated a law practice in Giraltovce prior to his invol ve ment with KRASNO .61 His older brother Petro Zhydovs'kyi (1890-1947) was likewise born in Sarisske Jastrabie. As a teenager Petro emigrated to America in 1905 . Although he acquired little formal education, he returned home on the eve of World War I detern1ined to work for the advancement of the Rusyn people. Drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army, he deserted, then was captured and sentenced to prison. After the establishment of Czechoslovakia, he joined the Agrarian Republican Party and served as deputy to parliament from 1935 to 1938 . During the crisis of 1938 Zhydovs'kyi joined with Ivan P' ieshchak in submitting a memorandum to the British envoy Lord Runciman, calling for the unification of the Presov Region with an autonomous Podkarpatska Rus' .62 Ivan P' ieshchak ( 1904-1972) was born in the village of Vel'ky Lipnik. After graduating from the gymnasium of Mukachevo and the Presov Greek Catholic Teachers' Co llege, he taught in the regional elementary school s. P ' ieshchak was active in the Union of Rusyn Teachers in Slovakia and helped organize the Union of Rusyn Youth in Slovakia (1933). At the same time he studied law, and attained a 61 See the entry "Zhydovs'kyi, Ivan" in Magocsi and Pop, eds., Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture, 55 l. 62 See the entry "Zhydovs' kyi , Petro" in Magocsi and Pop, eds., Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture, 551-2. �SLOVA.KIA 2019 115 doctoral degree from Charles University in Prague in the same year. By the mid 1930s P 'ieshchak was a prominent figure on the Rusyn political and cultural scene. He joined Andrei Brodii's Autonomous Agricultural Union and served as its representative in parliament. Interestingly, at this time he also worked closely with Andrej Hlinka's Slovak People's Party in the parliament's autonomist bloc . When Podkarpatska Rus' attained autonomy, P'ieshchak served as state secretary in Brodii 's brief-lived cabinet. After Brodii 's demise, he returned to Slovakia, where he maintained a law practice prior to his involvement with KRASNO .63 KRASNO rapidly expanded its network. By the summer of 1944 it controlled 3 7 villages in a sort of "partisan republic" between Medzilaborce and Stropkov. Intensification of partisan activityreinforced by Soviet partisans parachuted across the Carpathiansled to German military intervention in Slovakia at the end of August 1944. The clandestine military center of dissident Slovak Army officers , headquartered in Banska Bystrica, was already in touch with the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile in London. Its members had to proclaim the Slovak Nationa l Uprising under premature circumstances on August 29. 64 The Slovak National Uprising was a highly complex affair, which goes well beyond the limits of this study. It is sufficient to note here that it was dependent upon Soviet military support. Contrary to allegations by later critics, the Soviets did not deliberately betray the uprising. Their military capacity to cross the Carpathians was severely limited, particularly after the Germans occupied the Dukla pass. Yet the Soviets did not wish to forfeit the political influence they expected to enjoy in postwar Czechoslovakia, and rendered military assistance. In this capacity the Russian military 63 See the entry "P'ieshchak, Ivan" in Magocsi and Pop, eds., Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture, 384-5 . 64 Slovak soldiers, under the influence of Captain Piotr Alekseyevitch Velitchko intercepted members of a German military mission passing through Slovakia in the vicinity of Turciansky Sviity Martin. The Slovak soldiers escorted the Germans to the local barracks. It was Velitchko 's intention that the Germans would be disarmed there and that they would be sent to Ukrainian Partisan Headquarters in Kiev. But when the Germans attempted to depart, they were massacred by the Slovaks. Berlin then decided on a complete military occupation of Slovakia. At this point Lieutenant-Colonel Golian in Banska Bystrica issued the order to start the uprising. �116 SLOVAK.IA 2019 crossed through the Dukla pass for a third time in a military campaign that has been immortalized by local historiography. The Carpatho-Dukla operation, initiated on September 8, was undertaken by the 38 1h Soviet Army, led by General Kyril Moskalenko, supported by the 1s i Czechoslovak Army Corps, led by General Ludvik Svoboda. Many of the troops of the Is 1 Army Corps were Rusyns. In the autumn of 1939, as a result of the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, the Soviets had annexed eastern Galicia and merged it with the Ukrainian S.S.R. An estimated 30,000 Rusyns who were disgruntled with Hungarian rule crossed the mountains into eastern Galicia, expecting to be cordially received by their Slavic brethren. Instead, every single one of them was arrested by the NKVD (Soviet State Security) and received an eight to ten year sentence for the illegal border crossing. A full sixty percent of them perished in the Gulag by the time Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June of 1941. The survivors were released to join the I s i Czechoslovak Army Corps . Any Pan-Slav feeling- Russophile or Ukrainophi le alikewhich the Rusyn s may have had earlier had been beaten out of them in the Gulag. They merely wished to return home. In the autumn of 1944 it appeared that they would be the vanguard in the liberation of their homeland. Instead, they were committed to the meat-grinder of the Dukla Pass, where their casualties exceeded sixty percent. 65 The storming of the Duk la Pass was finally completed on October 6th. In the fighting which followed, the monastery community of Ladomirova was severely damaged. Most of the buildings, including the print shop but not the church, were destroyed. Now, too , the NKVD began rounding up Russian emigres in Slovakia. The monks fled to Bratislava, and from there fourteen of them emigrated to the United States. They entered the recently established Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, in upstate New York, where Archbishop Maksimenko now served as archimandrite. They built a church that was a replica of its predecessor in Ladomirova. A young Rusyn novitiate from the village, Vasyl' Shkurla (born 1928), ultimately became Archbishop Lavrl' , one of the leading figures of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. By the 1980s Holy Trinity had become a major 65 See Vladimir Baumgarten, "Fifty Years Later: An Inquiry into Soviet Military Policy During the Slovak Uprising" in Lewis White, ed., On All Fronts: Czechoslovaks During World War ff Part 2 (Washington , 1995), 2 19-28. �SLOVAKIA 2019 117 cultural center for Russian emigres. When the cello virtuoso Mstislav Rostropovich defected to the United States, he chose to settle in Jordanville in order to be near Holy Trinity. 66 The Germans torched large areas in eastern Slovakia as they were forced to retreat, including the town of Svidnik. General Svoboda was nonetheless hailed as a hero and liberator when he entered it on October 28 .67 After the liberation of Svidnik, the Allies temporarily went on the defensive. KRASNO partisans continued fighting in the hills north of Presov. In October their adherents welcomed a declaration by the Slovak National Council that a resurrected Czechoslovakia would consist of three equal nations- Czechs, Slovaks and Rusyns. It must be understood that Rusyns did not fight in partisan units exclusively of their own nationality. Jozef Rodak, longtime director of the East Slovak Military Museum in Svidnik, asserted that most partisan groups in the region had a mixed composition of Slovaks and Rusyns.68 To this day many people in eastern Slovakia have a dual sense of identity : they consider themselves Rusyns by heritage and Slovaks by citizenship. The realities of liberation at the end of World War II disappointed the aspirations of many Rusyns, particularly Russophiles. It undoubtedly di sconcerted them to discover that Moscow now considered them to be Ukrainians. There was already a precedent for thi s aspect of Soviet policy . In 1923 the delegation of Rusyn Communists attended a Party Congress in Soviet Ukraine and declared their acceptance of Ukrainian nationality. It was altogether practical for Soviet authorities to reaffirm acceptance of this principle at the end of 66 See the entry " Ladomirova Monastery" in Magocsi and Pop, eds., Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture, 266. 67 General Svoboda was designated as an honorary citizen of Svidnik. As president of Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring of 1968, Svoboda gave the town its first hospital. In I 979, the year of the old man's death, a statue of him was erected in Svidnik. Owing to the damage of autumn 1944, Svidnik is a modem town . Most of the buildings are constructed in the so-called "social realist" style. Svoboda ' s statue looks strangely at home among the imposing, unattractive concrete structures. 68 As a graduate student of Safarik University in Prefov who specialized in the history of his region during World War 11 , Rodak was frequently delegated to carry the briefcases of Soviet military visitors. He remained outwardly conformist throughout the Soviet era. After the 1989 revolution and the coll apse of the communist system, Rodak wrote a series of articles for newspapers in eastern Slovakia and southeas tern Poland in which he exonerated partisans who had fallen into disfa vor. �118 SLOVAKIA 2019 World War II. Throughout the war, the Soviets had pledged themselves to the recognition of Czechoslovakia' prewar frontiers . Yet now Moscow infom1ed the Czechoslovak government that it could not ignore "the will of the people." In the wake of the Red Army's occupation of Podkarpatska Rus ' , various National Committees were established to vote in favor of the province being merged with the Ukrainian S.S.R. In all fairness to these communities, they overall enjoyed popular support. 69 The region was officially ceded at the end of June, 1945. Across the Uz River, in the Presov Region , the Russophile leaders of the defunct KRASNO drew the politically correct conclusion. Now, they too, considered themselves Ukrainian. They reorganized themselves as the Ukrainian National Council of the Presov Region. They envisioned that the long disputed counties of eastern Slovakia would be included in the territorial transfer. Indeed, even before the war ended, Vasyl' Karaman and the Zhysov ' skyi brothers planned to stage a meeting in Presov in February 1945 calling for the merger. A Soviet military major explained to them that such a meeting would be inopportune. The war was still on, and the Soviet Union intended to honor its obligations to Czechoslovakia.70 With eastern Slovakia excluded from the territorial settlement, the Ukrainian National Council of the Presov Region now called for the resurrected Czechoslovakia to consist of three equal nations: Czechs, Slovaks and Ukrainians. The Slovak National Council had already expressed itself in favor of autonomy for the Rusyns. Now, in light of Ukrainian irredentism, it declared its Ukrainian counter• 1·d 11 part as mva 1 . Even after the Rusyns were officially classified as Ukrainian, the Russophile tradition not only persisted but predominated in the Presov Region . It must be noted that the Soviet 3gth Army was composed of elite Guards regiments, the cream of the Soviet military. Its soldiers conducted themselves in a correct and disciplined manner in 69 Yaroslav Pylynsky, Rising Ethnic Self-Awareness. Carpatho-Rusyns- Birth of a New Nation or a Political Game? (Copenhagen, 1998), 20. 70 Memorandum on the Ukrainian movement in Eastern Slovakia. Kosice. February 16, 1945 , in Nemec and Modry, Th e Soviet Seizure of Ruthenia, Document no.77 , 359-60 71 Magocsi , "National Assimilation: The Case of the Rusyn-Ukrainians of Czechoslovakia" in Of the Making of Nationalities, 262 . �SLOVAKIA 2019 119 their interactions with the locals after forcing their way through the Dukla Pass. This was in striking contrast with the soldiers of the 4 th Ukrainian Front, who penetrated Slovakia from the south, and who engaged in rape and widespread looting. This author can personally attest to the fact that citizens of the Svidnik area remember the Russians fondly as having assisted them through a bitter winter, and afterwards helped the locals plant their spring crops. Historian Mykola Musynka, himself a Ukrainophi le, summarizes the local attitudes as follows: The culmination of Russophilism in the cultural life of the Rusyns of the Prefo v Region occurred in the years just after World War II, when due to the Red Army's defeat of German fascism, th e Soviet Union enjoyed considerable authority among Rusyn-Ukrainians as well as Czechs and Slovaks. Everything "Soviet" was perceived as "Russian." Political propaganda attempted to portray the Soviet Union as an ideal country in which all peoples were united around the "Great Russian people. " The Russian language, Russian culture, the Russian individual, and the "Russian Soul " all symbolized the acme ofp e,:fection. 72 Russian Elementary and secondary schools proliferated after World War II, in addition to the Russian gymnasium in Presov, an additional Russian gymnasium was established in Medzilaborce on February 23, 1945, and trade schoo ls were opened in which Russian was the language of instruction. According to official statistics for the 1948-49 school year, there were 43 kindergartens, 276 elementary schools, 38 incomplete and 6 complete secondary schools with instruction in the Russian language, totaling 23, 11 2 pupils.73 After the Ukrainian National Council of the Presov Region was abolished, it was replaced by a new organization, the cultural Union of Ukrainian Workers (Kul'tumy sojuz'ukrajans'kyi trudjascychKSUT), which was staunchly supportive of the Communist Party. KSUT initiated numerous publications in the Ukrainian language. 72 Mykola Musynka, "The Postwar Development of the Regional Culture of the Rusyn-Ukrainians of Czechoslovakia' in Paul Robert Magocsi, ed., The Persistence of Regional Cultures: Rusyns and Ukrainians in the Carpathian Hom eland and Abroad (New York, 1993), 55. 73 Ibid, 56. �120 SLOVAKIA 2019 Beginning on June 28, 1952, by decree of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Slovakia, the language of instruction in all Russian elementary and secondary schools of Eastern Slovakia was changed to Ukrainian . The change in the school system was torturous for all parties. It was implemented too quickly. Instructors who had never studied literary Ukrainian were assigned to take month-long courses, after which they were expected to teach in that language. The vast majority of teachers detested it. There was a shortage of textbooks, dictionaries and other printed materials. Ukrainiazation nonetheless made significant strides in popular culture . In January 1953 , KSUT sponsored the first professional song and dance ensemble in Medzilaborce under the artistic direction of Jurij Kostjik. It was eventually reorganized as the Dukla Ukrainian Folk Ensemble. In September of that year, a Department of Ukrainian Language and Literature was established at the Presov Pedagogical Institute, which in 1959 became the Philosophical Faculty of Safarik University, under the direction of Petro Bungansyn. Literary works by Rusyns in the Presov Region reached an unprecedented level of publication in the course of a decade in the Ukrainian language. After 1959, the Ukrainian division of the Slovak Pedagogical Publishing House had a monopoly on the release of Ukrainian books in the Presov Region. During a thirty-year period it published 373 literary and scholarly works. Not all of them withstood the test of time. Many employed the so-called "socialist realist" style, reflecting a Marxist-Leninist ideological bent which conformed to Party dogma. Yet the Presov Region has produced works which have assumed a permanent place in the history of literature. 74 A number of former Russophiles moved with the times and adopted Ukrainian literary norms. Those Russophiles who remained outside the Communist Party could not expect a triumphal finish . Such was the case of Vasyl' Karaman, who, after the abolition of the body he had chaired, was accused of being a "Ukrainian bourgeois nationalist." The allegation was blatantly absurd: Karaman steadfactly believed that the future of the Rusyns was closely bound to the Soviet Union . He was nonetheless removed from political and cultural life in the Presov Region. Similarily, Ivan P'ieshchak was ac74 Ibid, 65 . �SLOVAKIA 2019 121 cused of bourgeois nationalism, driven from his home in 1952, and forbidden to practice law for nearly a decade. Ironically, some of the greatest beneficiaries of the new socialist order were those Rusyns of the 1st Czechoslovak Anny Corps who had survived the ordeal of the Dukla Pass. In spite of their suffering in the Gulag, they had fought bravely and well under General Svoboda, in fact becoming his favorite soldiers. 75 The treaty transferring Podkarpatska Rus ' to Soviet Ukraine contained a certain "exemption" clause. Those Rusyns with a record of service in the Czechoslovak Army could retain Czechoslovak citizenship. About half of them chose to do so, relocating west of the Uz. Svoboda redressed the balance for them as much as humanly possible, obtaining jobs for them in the military and especially in the security services. One might suppose that, after their experience in the Gulag, they would have been averse to serving as agents of repression. Instead, thanks to Svoboda' s generous patronage, they became overrepresented in the secret police, not only in eastern Slovakia but in Prague and Bratislava as well. This role fueled the hostility of their fellow citizens. Animosities smoldered beneath the surface for a full generation. During the Prague spring of 1968, the Slovak press suddenly became articulate in its denunciations: " ... this 15 year anti-Slovak movement in eastern ... Slovakia must be liquidated." 76 Slovak nationalists in particular resented the fact that the city of Presov served as a bastion of Ukrainophile activity. Slogans appeared on a number of buildings: "Presov was and will be only- and only- a Slovak city" and "Ukrainians, get out of Presov! " 77 The Slovak element of eastern Slovakia was not the only one which opposed the Ukrainian movement. Passive opposition was expressed by many Rusyns themselves . If they could not be themselves, the Rusyns opted for the closest thing, and voluntarily assimilated into the Slovak nationality. 78 The local dialect spoken was not foreign to them, unlike that of the Ukrainian textbooks imported from Kiev. Whenever local citizens were questioned by the police, they declared themselves as Slo75 Magocsi, "Magyars and Carpatho-Rusyns in Czechoslovakia" in Of the Making of Nationalities, 175. 76 Cited in Kulturny zivot (Bratislava) April 15, 1968 and Vychod (Kosice) November 29, 1968. 77 Magocsi, "National Assimilation", 283. 78 fbid, 264-70. �122 SLOVAKIA 2019 vak, fearing deportation to the Soviet Union. Finally, the relatively more advanced Slovak economy drew many to the industrial valleys farther south, where the process was completed. For those Rusyns who continued to consider themselves Ukrainian , yet another shock awaited in the following generation. After the 1989 revolutions and the collapse of communism in East Central Europe, first the Slovak and then the Polish government recognized the Carpatho-Rusyns as a distinct nationality. Many young Rusyns eagerly embraced the new orientation. 79 Conclusion. Unrepentant Russophiles: Yurkovsky, Kabuliak, Sidor and Karabelesh The demise of the Russophile orientation among the CarpathoRusyn people was undoubtedly, to employ a Marxist cliche, historically inevitable. An interesting story revealing the pathetic depths to which it had descended by World War II is provided by Marian Zgomiak, later a professor at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow , Poland. At the outbreak of World War II, Zgomiak was a 15 year-old Polish youth. When Poland was militarily crushed by Nazi Germany in September of 1939, Poli sh Army veterans hoped to escape to the West to fight again. Since most of the Polish soldiers fleeing abroad were between the ages of 17 and 30, two groups of people played disproportionately large roles in the domestic resistance movement organized by the Polish Home Army (Armija Krajowa- AK). One of them was Polish teenagers, who acted as couriers escorting the fugitive s to the border with Slovakia. Another was the Lemkos, who acted as guides. 79 The rejection of Ukrainian identity is by no means unanimous. On November 17, 1990, at the First Congress of the Ru syn Renaissance Society in Medzilaborce, spokesman Mychal Turok-Heter stressed that "while it is vital to preserve national pride, it is wrong to attack the Ukrai nians and the Ukrainian language . Gradually, the Ru syns will write and advance toward the common path which will lead them to fulfilling thei r mi ssive of peace for us all." See Myslenka, 75. Frequently, on the local level , there ex ists a certa in pluralism. In Svidnik, the Museu m of UkrainianRus'Culture acknowledges kinship with the former while stressing the regional identity of the latter. See the entry " Museum of Ukrainian Rus' Culture in Svidnik" in Magocsi and Pop, eds., Encyclopedia of Rusy n Histo1y and Cu lture, 337. �SLOVAK.IA 2019 123 Young Zgorniak was active in these border expeditions. On July 2, 1942, he and his father were arrested by the Gestapo. After the usual beatings and interrogation in the basement of the Gestapo headquarters in Gorlice, Zgorniak was transferred to the prison in Jaslo. Here he bonded with a Lemko prisoner named Yurkovsky. This Yurkovsky was an unrepentant Russophile. During World War I he and his father were hauled off to internment in Talerhof. Yurkovsky senior died there during the typhus epidemic. Yurkovsky junior returned to the mountain districts of Lemkovyna to serve as a teacher in the interwar years. He did not consider himself a Rusyn or even a Lemko, but a Russian. He was not receptive to Polish efforts to sponsor a separate Lemko identity. After the invasion of the Soviet Union in June of I 941 , the Nazi Government General (to which Lemkos west of the San River where subject) rounded up Lemkos known for their pro-Russian sentiments. In this manner Yurkovsky found himself in the prison of Jaslo. Both the quality and quantity of food in the prison of Jaslo left much to be desired. In September of 1942 German authorities loosened the regime to the point where Lemkos (but not Poles) could receive food packages. Arrangements were made for Zgomiak's mother to send food to Yurkovsky, who shared it with her son. Working together in the hospital section of the prison, they had the opportunity to engage in intellectual discussions. Zgorniak records the following: During one of the discussions I asked whether or how he could coordinate the Carpatho-Rusyn orientation on the Russia ruled by the Tsar with an orientation on a Russia ruled by the Bolsheviks who had overthrown and murdered the Tsar and his family. He said he could do so because "after the death a/father in Talerhof I had the dream . In it my father appeared and said 'the cause for which both are fighting shall be successful! ' That dream I keep in mind and I believe it will prove to be true. "80 80 Marian Zgomiak, " Meeting with Lemko leaders who had been arrested by the Gestapo and who were in prison in Jaslo 1942" in Best and Moklak, eds ., The Lemko Region, /939-194 7, 129. �124 SLOVAKIA 2019 Zgomiak asserts that he was convinced Yurkovsky and other Lemkos could have been released had they declared themselves Ukrainians. They declined to do so. Eventually, Yurkovsky was transferred to a concentration camp in Pruszkow, from which he was liberated before the end of the war. Yurkovsky then became sold on the plan jointly agreed upon by the Polish and Soviet governments to encourage Lemkos to emigrate to the east. Those whose villages had been destroyed during the Carpatho-Dukla operation went willingly. Others followed Yurkovsky across the border. They were by no means satisfied with living conditions in Soviet Ukraine, and turned on Yurkovsky for encouraging them to leave in the first place. He suffered something akin to a nervous breakdown and developed heart disease. Zgomiak concluded: "I remember him as an intelligent fellow who despite hi s various interests was fatally attracted to the idea for which he fought." 81 In light of its ignominious end in the realm of politics, what remains of the Russophile tradition among the Carpatho-Rusyns in the realm of culture? Here the author wishes to turn to the areas of religion and literature. In the area of reli gion, the Orthodox faith has provided a certain legacy. It must be understood that the majority of Rusyns professing any religious belief adhere to the Greek Catholic rather than the Orthodox Church . Yet the Orthodox revival of the early twentieth century made an enduring impact which was embraced by the communist regimes after World War II. Its most enthusiastic protagonist was Aleksander Kabuliak. At the end of World War I he was released from prison and became a major figure of the Orthodox revival in Czechoslovakia. There was a sc hi sm within the Orthodox Church in the 1920s. Its adherents were subject to the Serbian patriarchate, whereas Czech converts to Orthodoxy wanted their own autocephalous Orthodox Church. They appealed to the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople. On March 4, 1923 he consecrated the archimandrite Savritij as bishop. Bi shop Savritij 's leadership was contested by Bishop Gorazd, the Serbian patriarch 's representative. Kabuliak sided with the Serbian patriarchate in this di spute. With the Orthodox Church temporarily paralyzed and depri ved of an acting bishop, Kabuliak assumed the role of administrator. The Hungar81 Ibid, 129. �SLOVAKIA 2019 125 ians did not molest him during World War II, nor did he do anything to provoke them. But on November 18, 1944, on behalf of the Orthodox believers of Podkarpatska Rus ', Kabuliak wrote a letter to no less a personage than Soviet leader J. V. Stalin. He recommended the establishment of a Carpatho-Russian Soviet Republic encompassing territory extending "from Iasnyia to Poprad and from Uzhok Pass to Debrecen." 82 Since Moscow was already planning to incorporate Podkarpatska Rus' into the Ukrainian S.S.R., this was not an option. Yet in the following month Kabuliak led a delegation to Moscow requesting the transfer of episcopal jurisdiction from the Serbian to the Moscow patriarchate. Here his efforts were crowned with success. In posthumous recognition of his achievement, in 200 I the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow patriarchate) canonized Kabuliak as the first Carpatho-Rusyn saint. Eastern Galicia, like Podkarpatska Rus ', was ceded to Soviet Ukraine at the end of the war. In both areas incoming communist regimes declared the Greek Catholic Church abolished and transferred its parishes to the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church. In Galicia most of the clergy accepted the formal change and retained their old parishes. The Ukrainian character of the church consequently survived . In Transcarpathia the Greek Catholic clergy was more resistant to Orthodoxy and it was imposed more forcefully. Bishop Teodor Romza of Mukachevo was brutally murdered, while lesser clergymen were arrested and deported.83 They were replaced by Russian priests di spatched from Moscow. The Orthodox Church here acquired an expressively Russian character. From the standpoint of Rusyn culture, inclusion into the Russian Orthodox Church was a double-edged sword. In America, Reverend Alexis Toth had sought to convince his flock that the best way to preserve their rite, tradition and identity was through conversion to Orthodoxy. Yet St. Alexis (He too was canonized) had a great love for the variety of liturgical music known as Carpathian plainchant. 82 See the entry "Kabuliak, Aleksander" in Magocsi and Pop, eds. , Encyclopedia of Rusyn Hist01:y and Culture, 223 . 83 Pekar, 151 -4. �126 SLOVAK.IA 2019 This and another native aspects of worship were submerged by Russian liturgical tradition .84 In Czechoslovakia the legal status of the Greek Catholic Church was restored as a result of the liberal reforms of the Prague spring of 1968. Yet it lost its Rusyn character and became a force for slovakization. Much church property has been restored since the collapse of the communist system in 1989. Yet there remain adherents of the Orthodox faith in northeastern Slovakia. This author has an endearing memory of a visit to an Orthodox church in Svidnik. It was a modest, prefabricated structure, erected in the L990s. The morning was cold. There was only room inside the church for elderly parishioners. Yet a sizable crowd of young people remained standing outside. They displayed enough reverence to refrain from smoking throughout the Divine Liturgy. If the Rusyns can no longer be considered Great Russians, then the Russian government, and especially the Orthodox Church, wishes to retain whatever bonds still exist. While seminarians of the autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church have received their education in Ukraine, those who adhere to the Moscow patriarchate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have been educated in Russia. Such was the case of Dmitri Sidor, born March 29, 1955, currently rector of the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross in Uzhorod. Reverend Sidor heads a movement demanding autonomy for Rusyns of Ukraine. He stresses the religious character of his people, and the similarity of their language with Old Church Slavonic. On December 19, 2008 , the Rusyn issue was raised at an international conference held on the Don, southern Russia. The conference was entitled "Genocide and Cultural Ethnocide of the Rusyns of Carpathian Rus' [from the end of the nineteenth to the beginning of the twenty first century]." A resolution was adopted. It stated that, alongside the Armenians, the Rusyns were the first victims of genocide in the twentieth century, thi s in reference to the policy of the Austro-Hungarian military during the First World War. Today, the resolution continued, Kiev engaged in a "policy of cultural ethno- 84 Paul Robert Magocsi, "Adaptati on Wi thout Assimilati on: The Genius of the Greek Catholic Church of Mukachevo" in Of the Making of Nationalities, Volume 11 , 202. �SLOVAKIA 2019 127 cide." It pointed out that the Rusyns were recognized as a distinct nationality by numerous countries, but not Ukraine. 85 The Ukrainophile orientation responded to the Rostov conference. One articulate response may be found in the working paper "Political and Ethno-Cultural Aspects of the Rusyns' Problem: A Ukrainian Perspective," by Natalya Belitzer of the Py lip Orlyk Institute for Democracy in Kiev. She outlines the tortutous, complex evolution of the history of a region which has been subject to numerous rulers. She echoes her colleague M. Lanchuk in asserting that the main issue at stake has not been the ethno-cultural identity of the Rusyns but rather what has been termed "political Ruthenianism," which many Ukrainians perceive as a threat. 86 According to Belitzer, the disintegration of the Soviet Union was accompanied by an artificial politicization of the Rusyn question. Belitzer is not opposed to Ru syn autonomy in principle. Yet, as a Ukrainophile, she considers the Rusyn tongue as a mere dialect of the Ukrainian language. Belitzer makes a particularly revealing admission when she states that "Ukrainian democracy is ... quite benevolent to the ideas and practices of the restoration of minorities ' own identity, but at the same time strongly denies Rusyn identity as being separate from the Ukrainian.,,s1 Therein lies the rub. If the Rusyn tongue is a dialect of the Ukrainian language, why is its use not permitted in schools? Rusyn schoolchildren speak one way at home but are required to speak another way at school. Such practices are grist to Dmitri Sidor's mill. Aside from the fact that Ukraine has an army and the Rusyns do not, Father Dmitri's movement faces two serious obstacles. For one, he is an Orthodox priest, whereas the majority of Rusyns still profess (or have resumed professing) the Greek Catholic faith. Secondly, while a majority of the Rusyns in the Presov Region and Lemkovyna 85 Resolution of the International conference "Genocide and Cultural Ethnocide of Ru syns in Carpathian Rus' [from the end of the nineteenth to the beginning of the twenty first century] Rostov on the Don, Russia. December 2 1, 2008 www.podkar~atskarus.eu 6 M. Panchuk, " Political Rutheni ani sm" in Demons of Peace and Messengers of War(Kiev, 1997), 323. 87 Natalya Belitzer, "Political and Ethno-Cultural Aspects of the Rusyns' Problem : A Ukrainian Perspective". Research paper prepared within the framework of the Programme on European Security (PROGRES) sponsored by the Center for European Security Studies and the University of Gronigen (Netherlands). Undated, 12. �128 SLOVAKIA 2019 consider themselves their own nationality, a majority of them in Transcarpathia consider themselves Ukrainian. Yet the movement has a growing popular appeal. In a state where bureaucratic centralism has had a constipating effect, autonomy can be a powerful laxative. Moreover, the Rusyns now possess a certain bargaining chip . A full eighty percent of all Russian petroleum and natural gas which is sold to Europe passes through pipelines in the area of Uzhorod. If the Rusyns were to succeed in establishing an independent state, they would be eligible to receive billions of dollars of gas transit profits from Kiev.88 In the realm of literature, the Russophile tradition has likewise established an enduring legacy. This is especially exemplified by the writings of Andrii Karabelesh ( 1906-1964). Karabelesh was born in the Transcarpathian village of Tibala, near Mukachevo. When he first attended the gymnasium in Mukachevo the language of instruction was still Magyar. This changed due to the arrival in Podkarpatska Rus ' of many Russian emigres fleeing the revolution. Karabelesh adapted to the russification of the school system so enthusiastically that he became the first secular writer among Rusyn Russophi les. He went on to study at the Theological Seminary in Uzhorod ( 1925-1928). While still a student he published- in Russian- two collections of poetry, lzbrany e stikhovtvorenia (1928) and V buchalh rassvieta ( 1929). These works have been characterized as "dominated by mysticism, a pessimistic outlook on life, and a love of Russian culture." 89 He did not complete his studies at the Theological Seminary because he converted to Orthodoxy. His conversion was less for religious than for cultural reasons. As literary historian Elaine Rusinko writes: "Karabelesh ' s deity is not the conventional God of the Greek Catholic catechism, but an amorphous, spiritual force that provides metaphysical potential and philosophical substance for the poet." 9 Karabelesh went on to Prague, where he obtained a degree in philosophy from Charles University in 1934. ° 88 See " Ukraine Laun ches Moderni zation of Urengog-Ponary-U zhorod Pipeline," Ukra inian News Agency, Jul y 19, 2011 . 89 See the entry " Karabelesh, Andrii " in Magocsi and Pop, eds., Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture, 223. 90 Ru sinko, 350. �SLOVAKIA 2019 129 Karabelesh continued writing exclusively in standard Russian. Unlike earlier Russophiles, he did not look towards Russia for the deliverance of the Rusyn people. In his estimation, it was no longer a matter of what Holy Mother Russia could do for Podkarpatska Rus'. It was a matter of what Carpathian-Rus' could do for Holy Mother Russia. In his enthusiasm for the great Russian literary giants, Karabelesh exhibited a tendency towards plagiarism, using some of their phrases directly in his own poetry. Karabelesh 's special favorite was Mikhail Lennontov, who merits attention here. Like his predecessor, the great Russian Romantic Alexander Pushkin, Lermontov wrote passionately, lived wildly and was killed in a duel. Unlike Pushkin, Lermontov created a literary genre in which the psychology of the protagonist played a leading role. This served as a precedent for the great novels of Dostoyevsky later in the century.91 In his poem "Nevdol'strie" (Dissatisfaction), Karabelesh quotes Lermontov's Pechorin: "I was not born for happiness. " 92 Anyone who studies the course of Karabelesh 's life would probably agree. He taught secondary school for a time in Podkarpatska Rus ', but when the Hungarians reoccupied the region he fled to Bohemia. Karabelesh participated in the Czech Resistance against the Nazis, heading a small underground group in Litamsyl. In this capacity he was arrested by the Gestapo in 1942. He passed the remainder of the war in the concentration camps of Mauthausen and Buchenwald. After the war he remained for a time in western Czechoslovakia, serving as principal of the gymnasium of Svitavy (19451953). Then he moved to the Presov Region, where he taught Russian language and literature at Safarik University. Although a member of the Ukrainian section of the Slovak Writers Union, he continued to write exclusively in Russian. It was not simply a case of Karabelesh being unwilling to move with the times. The red banner of the October Revolution replaced the grey skies in "V karpatikh osin" (Autumn in the Carpathians ). 93 Yet the apolitical, pessimistic tone of Karabelesh 's poetry became increasingly an object of attack by communist ideologues. In 1956, when the Soviet Communist Party was 91 See Semyon Eks hut, " Pushkin 's Heir" Russian Life, 42 , No, 6 (October/November 1999), 20-32. 92 Rusinko, 353. 93 Ibid, 362. �130 SLOVAKIA 2019 in a state of ideological crisis in the aftermath of Stalin's death , Karabelesh raised his voice in criticism of the imposed ukrainization of the Rusyn people. He was subsequently expelled from the Slovak Writers Union and returned to Bohemia. In the homeland, literary hi storian and defender of the "social realist" genre Iurii Bolega opened an ideological offensive against Karabelesh ' s work, condemning it as having a Russian chauvinist and anti-social character. One may ask why Karabelesh would wish to return home under such circumstances. Yet the years he spent in concentration camps had undennined hi s health, and Karabelesh was of the opinion "Where you are born, there you should die! " 94 Terminally ill, Karabelesh finally returned home in 1964. He died in Mukachevo on September 4 . In the post-communist era his poetry has experienced a revival of popularity. The Eastern Carpathians constitute an area of scenic beauty, but also in many places one of the depressing poverty. In his poem " Moi Narod" (My Nation), Karabelesh focuses on "fences and of abandoned gardens," "dried out grape vines," "bars of broken down churches," "unplowed fields," and so on. His writing reflects the mixture of beauty and melancholia that is essential to the brooding Slavic soul. If the Russophile tradition never reached the level of popularity that the Ukrainophile orientation attained, it nonetheless remains an essential part of the cultural landscape. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author wishes to thank and express his deep appreciation to Bob Broedel , president of the Tallahassee-Krasnodar Sister City Program, for hi s technical assistance in accessing material published in Russia and Ukraine. 94 Ibid, 359. � SLOVAKIA 2019 83 RUSSOPHILES WITHOUT RUSSIA R. Vladimir Baumgarten (Dedicated to the Memory ofNikolaj Ordos) The Carpatho-Rusyns, technically a stateless people, have been dubbed the "Kurds of Central Europe." They straddle the northern and southern slopes of the Carpathian mountains in the border re1 gions of Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine and Romania. Since the 1989 revolutions and the collapse of Communism in East Central Europe, both the Slovak and Polish governments have recognized the Carpatho-Rusyns as a distinct nationality. Ukraine, where the largest number of Rusyns dwell, does not. After World War II, incoming communist governments classified the Rusyns as Ukrainians by administrative fiat for reasons of convenience, which shall be explained below. The current post-communist government of Ukraine adamantly adheres to this position. 2 Further west, across the Uz river, many Carpatho-Rusyns in eastern Slovakia have voluntari ly assimilated into the Slovak nationality, for reasons which shall likewise be explained in this essay. The first impetus for the Rusyn national awakening came from a belief that they were part of a Great Russian nation, extending "from the Poprad River [in eastern Slovakia] to the Pacific." 3 The Russophile tradition influenced Carpatho-Rusyn culture and politics for a full century. An examination of its history reveals more than a few 1 Paul Robert Magocsi , " Mapping Stateless Peoples: The East Slavs of the Carpathians," Canadian Slavonic Papers, XXIX, Nos. 3-4 ( 1997), 301-54. 2 The Ukrainophile viewpoint was exemplified by Viacheslav Chomovil ( 19371999). During the Brezhnev era, Chomovil was a dissident journalist and human rights activist. He was sent to the labor camps several times for separatist activities. In the late I 980's he was one of the leaders of the People's Movement of Ukraine (better-known as Rukh). After the Soviet Union disintegrated and Ukraine became independent, Chomovil became alarmed by the Rusyn political renaissance. He considered it separatist and urged the Prosecutor General's office in Kiev to file charges aga inst its protagonists. 3 Paul Robert Magocsi , "The Nationalist lntelligentia and the Peasantry in Twentieth Century Subcarpathian Rus "', in Magocs i, Of the Making of Nationalities Th ere is No End, Vol. I (New York, 1999), 19. �84 SLOVAKIA 2019 ironies. In retrospect, it seems remarkable that the Russophile tradition lasted as long as it did. Indeed, remnants of it exist to this day. The current essay is an attempt to explain its rise and fall. The Russophile Tradition in Habsburg Hungary, Galicia and America The homeland of the Carpatho-Rusyns has been alternatively referred to as Ruthenia, Podkarpatska Rus' (Subcarpathian Rus '), Transcarpathia and Carpatho-Ukraine. For reasons of convenience, this author shall refer to it as Podkarpatska Rus' . It was part of the Kingdom of Hungary for about 900 years. Much of Podkarpatska Rus' was a game preserve for the Hungarian nobility. Its Eastern Slav peasants, shepherds and lumberjacks were forbidden to hunt the deer, even when the latter devoured the people's meagre cabbage plots. Starvation was common. The Rusyns were the most impoverished and illiterate ethnic group in the Hungarian kingdom. Originally a bastion of the Russian Orthodox Church, the homeland of the Carpatho-Rusyns was a battleground and passageway in the ongoing struggle between the Austrian Habsburgs and the Transylvanian princes. In order to wean these people away from any allegiance to the Transylvanian princes, most of whom were Calvinists, the Habsburgs decided to incorporate them into the Roman Catholic Church. They accomplished this by creating a Slavonic/Greek Rite of the church. At the Union of Uzhorod (April 24, 1646), 63 Orthodox priests pledged to recognize the primacy of the pope and the sanctity of Roman Catholic doctrine in exchange for keeping the Slavonic liturgy and a married clergy.4 These clergymen were exempted from the feudal burdens of serfdom, received an income from their parishioners, and could send their sons to seminaries in the Habsburg Monarchy for higher education. Despite this favorable concession from the Imperial House, the Rusyns remained generally loyal to their Magyar lords. This was especially the case of the Kuruc (Crusader) uprising and freedom war of Ferenc Rakoczi II ( 1703-1711 ). 4 For the most comprehensive study of this event, see Michal Lacko, "The Union of Uzhorod," Slovak Studies, VI ( 1966), 7-190. �SLOVAK.IA 2019 85 The contribution of the Rusyns was sufficiently valorous for them to receive the title gens fidelissima ("the most faithful people").5 In the first half of the nineteenth century, when the various Slavic nationalities of the Habsburg Monarchy-Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs and Croats-launched their own national revivals, the Rusyns were slow to respond. No Rusyns attended the Slav Congress during the revolutionary year 1948. On the contrary, Greek Catholic seminarians in Uzhorod abandoned their intended vocations in order to volunteer for the Hungarian honveds (National Guard) during Hungary' s 1848-1849 war of independence.6 A few educated Rusyns were aware of a certain kinship with Russia. In 1791 Ivan Orlai ( 1771-1829) emigrated to Russia. A schoolteacher, he had been denied advancement in the Austrian system of education. In St. Petersburg he studied medicine and ultimately became court surgeon, actively working in the reorganization of the Russian medical profession. He advised the Ministry of Education to invite other educated Rusyns "since they usually know Church Slavonic thoroughly." 7 Orlai served as Mentor to Nikolaj Gogol, author of Taras Bulba, the Russified Ukrainian who ultimately became one of the literary giants of nineteenth-century Russia. Orlai encouraged other Russian scholars to take an interest in their kinsmen on the other side of the Carpathians. Meanwhile, a Greek Catholic eparchy was established in Presov, eastern Slovakia, in 1818. Its eparch (bishop), Hrihory Tarkovych, was an active pioneer of Russian culture. In expanding his library, he imported the complete works of the eighteenth-century Russian intellectual and scientist Mikhail Lomonosov.8 5 The Rusyns gained this title as a result of a battle fought near Trencin castle in western Slovakia on August 4, 1708. During the fi ghting Rakoczi vaulted across a ravine on horseback. He was thrown forward , striking his head and losing consciousness. His Carpatho-Rusyn peasant infantry held its ground long enough for him to be carried from the fi eld. Outnumbered and outgunned by the Imperial regulars, these Rusyns were subsequently massacred. 6 Paul Robert Magocsi, The Shaping of a National Identity: Subcarpathian Rus: / 848-1 948 (Cambridge, MA: 1978), 43. 7 Elaine Rusinko, Straddling Borders: Literature and Identity in Subcarpathian Rus ' (Toronto, 2008), 99. 8 Athanasius Pekar, The History of the Church in Carpathian Rus' (New York, 1992), 89. �86 SLOVAKIA 2019 The first real impetus for the Carpatho-Rusyn awakening came as a result of the Russian military intervention against the Hungarian war of independence in 1849. It was not undertaken to liberate the Slavs of Hungary who were in a state of revolt against Magyar tyranny. Tsar Nicholas I of Russia employed far more autocratic powers than did the House of Habsburg and regarded the stamping out of the fires of revolution, which had swept Europe since the previous year, as a self-evident duty. Polish revolutionary veterans were serving on the Hungarian side and he feared the spread of revolution to his Polish possessions. Nicholas was no Pan-Slav. Two years earlier a nest of such agitators had been discovered in Kiev. It called itself "The Brotherhood of Sts . Cyril and Methodius," and, according to Nicholas, its adherents had invented some monstrosity called the Ukrainian nationality. One of its leading members was not only Ukraine's best poet, but its best painter as well. His people sought ties with the Czechs and Slovaks. Nicholas saw to it that several of them were jailed and he had Taras Schevcenko drafted into the Russian army for ten years, during which time he was forbidden to write or sketch. 9 A number of Russian Pan-Slav politically conservative individuals sympathized with the Slovak people. Tsar Nicholas admonished the Slavophile journalist Ivan Aksakov ( 1823-1886) that, under the guise of a general Slav alliance, subversive elements in the Kingdom of Hungary wished to create a struggle which was not in the name of 0 God, but in a spirit of mutiny, which was dangerous to Russia. ' The Russian military commanders carefully studied the earlier conflicts between the Habsburgs and the Transylvanian princes . They observed that The Austrians had traditionally moved against Transylvania by starting from Kosice in eastern Slovakia. It was considered safer to cross the Hornad and Tisa rivers in the Carpathian 11 foothills than to assault Transylvania from the Hungarian plain. On June 9, the main Russian army commanded by Field Marshal Ivan Paskievitch, consisting of 70,890 soldiers and 240 cannon poured into Slovakia through the Dukla Pass from partitioned Po9 Pav lo Zaitsev, Taras Shevchenko. A Life (Toronto, 1989), 139-57. °Cudovit Holotik, "The Slovaks: An Integrating or Disintegrating Force?" Austrian 1 Histo ry Yearbook, III , Part 2 ( 1967): 2. 11 William Stiles, Austria in 1848-50, II (New York, 1850), 294. Stiles was the American charge d'affaires in Vienna during the revolutionary events of 1848-49. �SLOVAKIA 2019 87 land. The Russians captured Presov on June 20 and took Kosice five days later. To supply their army, the Russians stockpiled large amounts of foodstuffs at the northern end of the Dukla Pass. However, the military bureaucracy of Tsar Nicholas was inefficient. Provisions were made to transport the artillery but not the food . Austrian quartermasters, who also had a supply of food , and were allied with the Russians, had fled the area. The Russian soldiers, hungry and exasperated, turned to plunder. Don Cossacks looted a number of Slovak villages so thoroughly that the inhabitants fled into the for12 ests . The Russian intervention in this area would be remembered with ill-feelings by Magyars and non-Magyars alike. There were Slovak Pan-Slavs who were willing to overlook Russian misconduct. They convinced themselves that Grand Duke Konstantin was preparing to transfer his headquarters from Warsaw to Kosice, where he would proclaim a new Slav state. Slovak leaders appealed to the Russian embassy and military mission in Vienna for recognition. They requested that Slovak advisors and regional administrators be attached to the Russian military in eastern Slovakia. Tsar Nicholas replied to one such request "I received the same thing yesterday from Danilevsky [the Russian consul in Belgrade]. I have no time for such matters." 13 On the other hand, the reception of Russian military intervention was not universally negative. Rusyn peasants in the highlands witnessed a mighty Slav army in their region for the first time. They were awed. They gave fruits and nuts to the invaders. Aleksander Dukhnovych, soon to become an awakener among the Rusyns, later wrote, "One thing really gave me joy in life, and that was in 1849 when I first saw the glorious Rus sian army .. .I can't describe the feeling of gladness at seeing the first Cossacks on the streets of Presov. I danced and cried with delight. .. It was truly the first, perhaps the last, joy of my life." 14 Aleksander Dukhnovych (1803-1865) was born in the village of Topol 'a in the Humenne region of eastern Slovakia. He was descended from Greek Catholic priests and was consequently educated 12 John Shelton Curtis, The Russian Army under Nicholas I, 1925-/ 854 (Durham, NC, 1865), 298 . 13 Holotik, 383. 14 Quoted in Magocsi, The Shaping of a National Identity, 45. �88 SLOVAKIA 2019 at the Theological Seminary in Uzhorod. After ordination as a priest in 1827, he was assigned to the bishop 's chancellery in Presov. His relatively progressive views clashed with those of the more conservative Tarkovych, who then assigned him to a relatively remote rural parish. Dukhnovych regarded his assignment as a godsend. In Uzhorod he had received a Hungarian education, which influenced his early writings. In the rural parish he discovered, or re-discovered, "the people." He was influenced by the Slovak National Awakening and applied its precepts to the awakening of his own Rusyn people. After the death of Tarkovych, Dukhnovych was reassigned to Presov and appointed eparchical canon in 1843 . He remained closely associated with the city-considered a Rusyn cultural center in spite of its Slovak majority- for the rest of his life. In 1850, after the suppression of the Hungarian revolution, Dukhnovych established the first Rusyn cultural association, the Presov Literary Society. His own literary contribution was considerable. In 1851 he composed the poem "Vruchanie," whose opening lines "I was, am, and will remain a Rusyn" became the motif for the unofficial anthem of the Carpatho-Rusyn people. He researched and wrote extensively on the Rusyn people. His monumental achievement was the play "Virtue is More Important than Riches," which is still performed regularly in regional theatres in eastern Slovakia and western Ukraine. 15 The ethical values expressed in this play mirror Dukhnovych 's role as a social reformer. He campaigned vigorously against illiteracy, alcoholism, and the lingering pagan superstitions which persisted among his people. The literary language employed-indeed, invented by Dukhnovych-was peculiar. It was a blend of Old Church Slavonic, standard Russian and the native dialect. His later disciples called it "the traditional Carpatho-Rusyn langage," while his critics derrided it as "jazychije" (macaronic jargon). 16 Indeed, while Dukhnovych was the greatest of the Rusyn awakeners, he inhibited the establishment of a distinctive Rusyn identity by his unequivocal adherence to the Great Russian idea. 15 For an English-language translation, see Aleksander Duchnovych, Virtue is More Important than Riches, ed. by Elai ne Rusinko (New York, 1994). 16 See the entry "Dukhnovych, Aleksander," in Paul Robert Magocs i and Robert Popp, eds. , Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture (Toronto, 2005), I06. �SLOVAKIA 2019 89 If Dukhnovych was the unquestioned giant among the Rusyns in the realm of culture, then Adolf Dobrian' skyi ( 1817-1901) fulfilled this function in the realm of politics. Dobrian'skyi was born in Rudl'ov, Zemplin county, Slovakia, the son of a Greek Catholic priest. He attended secondary schools in Levoca, Roznava and Misko le, and then studied philosophy in Kos ice ( 1833 ), law in Eger (1834-36) and mining at the Academy of Mines and Forests in Banska Stiavnica, central Slovakia. He was fluent in several foreign languages, including Magyar, German, French, English and Italian. He visited Bohemia, where he was influenced by Frantisek Palacky, Karel Havlicek and other Czech national awakeners. Dobrian'skyi initially welcomed Hungary' s 1848 Revolution for the liberal reforms that it promised. But when the Slovak district of Banska Bystrica elected him as its representative to the Hungarian Diet, the Hungarian government rejected his mandate on the grounds of Pan-Slavism. Dobrian'skyi then indeed became a Pan-Slav. He moved to Presov, where he built a following which advocated a political union of the Rusyns of Hungary with those of Austrian Galicia. When the Russians prepared to invade Hungary, the Austrian government appointed him as its liason with Paskievitch. Dobrian 'skyi then served as advisor to the Russian military. After the defeat of revolutionary Hungary, the Austrian government imposed a centralist bureaucratic regime. Dobrian' skyi then became advisor to the Uzhorod Civil District, which encompassed four counties. He regarded the civil district as a prelude to the establishment of an autonomous Rusyn state under the Emperor of Austria. 17 Defeated in the Austro-Sardinian war of 1859, The Habsburg Monarchy was substantially weakened. It was forced to retreat from bureaucratic centralism and make concessions to the Magyars. Dobrian' skyi was recalled , and the old nobles began to reoccupy county positions. In 1866 Austria suffered another defeat, this time at the hands of Prussia, and resigned itself in 1867 to accepting the Magyar nobility as equal partners in the renamed Dual Monarchy of AustriaHungary. Emperor Franz-Josef allowed himself to be crowned King of Hungary in Budapest and the Hungarian nobles were granted complete self-government in internal affairs. By now their obsession 17 See the entry " Dobrian' skyi, Adolf," in Magocsi and Popp, eds., Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture, 93. �90 SLOVAK.IA 2019 with Pan-Slavism reached paranoid proportions . They viewed the magyarization of Hungary's Slavic minorities as imperative. Persecution of Slovak and Carpatho-Rusyn educational and cultural institutions became the order of the day. A similar course evolved in Galicia, the Austrian province of partitioned Poland. Shortly after the 1867 Compromise with Hungary came into effect, Empreor Franz-Josef appointed his trusted Polish confidant Count Agenor Goluchowski as Viceroy of Galicia. Goluchowski gained for his Polish nobles a degree of autonomy that mirrored that of the Magyars. The education system was polonized. This posed a direct threat to the advancement of the Rusyns. Educated Rusyns became politically divided. The Ukrainian movement gained the greatest strength . However, there were still Rusyns who adhered to the traditions of old Rus' .They stubbornly continued to write in Old Church Slavonic and isolated themselves from the people. Cultureally, these Old Ruthenians identified with Russia, but professed allegiance to the Austrian Emperor. Such a dual allegiance became more difficult to maintain as the nineteenth-century ran its course. Austria and Russia were no longer allies, and were in fact competing for hegemony in the Balkans. Similarly, the Rusyns of Galicia found themselves cast in the role of a political football in the rivalry of the two empires. A case in point was the career of Ivan Naumovych (1826-1891), who was born Galicia in 1836. In his youth he was strongly influenced by the Polish national movement. However, he experienced a turning point during the revolutionary year of 1848, when there was a brief uprising in the city of Lviv. Naumovych was observing the fighting from a hillside when imperial soldiers spotted him and assumed he was a Polish rebel. They arrested him, but Naumovych persuaded them to release him by convincing the Austrians that he was a Russian. 18 Being Russian, Naumovych decided, carried certain privileges. After 1850, when Naumovych was ordained a Greek Catholic priest, he became staunchly Russophile in cultural orientation. He organized opposition to a campaign organized by the Roman Catholic Polish clergy to latinize the liturgy of the Greek rite. In this ca18 Keith Dyrud, The Quest fo r th e Rusyn Soul: The Politics of Religion and Culture in Eastern Europ e and America, 1890-World War I (Philadelphia, 1992), 28. �SLOVAKIA 2019 91 pacity he sought Russian support. At this point, Naumovych did not convert to Orthodoxy . He still regarded the Greek Catholic (Uniate) church as a potential bridge between Eastern and Western Christendom. Nontheless, inspired by his activism, an entire village in eastern Galicia converted to Orthodoxy in May of 1877. More conversions followed in the next three years. The Galician authorities charged Naumovych with treason. In their view his activity was not religious but political. Naumovych had indeed maintained contact with Russian Pan-Slav agents. 19In July of 1882 he was finally convicted and sentenced to eight months in jail. Other Rusyns who converted to Orthodoxy likewise found themselves hauled into court, although, surprisingly, a Polish jury acquitted them. Both the Austrian government and Polish patriots understood the necessity of not pushing the Old Ruthenians to the point of open subversion. The Ukrainophile movement predominated in Galicia, but the Russophile tradition was not going to go away. Galicia, unlike Russian Ukraine, was not a particularly productive agricultural region. Much of the countryside is hilly and the soil is poor. A bad harvest usually resulted in famine , and this happened at the beginning of the twentieth century. Russian Pan-Slavs responded by founding the Galician-Russian Benevolent Association in St. Petersburg on February 9, 1903. At the opening meeting acertain Father Petrov delivered the inaugural address. American historian Keith Dyrud described the subsequent address as follows: He likened the world to an artist's palette or a musician 's instrument. God was that artist or musician. The nationalities of the world were like colors on the palette or strings on the instrument. If some of the colors or strings are missing, the painting or music will be incomplete and this is a crime against the spirit. This crime against the spirit occurs when a culture allows itself to become divided. The separation of the people of Galicia and Carpatho-Russia (Subcarpathia) from the Russian nation was just such a crime . It is the obligation of a national culture to unite its people into a united nation. In other words, the orator was suggesting that it was 19 Ibid ., 28 . �92 SLOVAK.IA 2019 the obligation of Russia to unite in a single nation all people with a Russian culture. He included the Galicians and Subcarpathians 20 among the people with a Russian culture. Under the leadership of Count Vladimir Bobrinski , the GalicianRussian Benevolent Association extended financia l relief to famine victims of Galicia. Tsarist Russia, the most despotic and reactionary among the Great Powers, could appear benevolent while working to expand its influence. Bobrinski likewise dispatched agents to Podparkarpatska Rus ' , where starvation was an everyday occurrence, rather than a momentous event. The Hungarian government was less hesitant than its Austrian counterpart to prosecute Rusyns for conversion to the Orthodox faith. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the first converts to the Orthodox faith in Podkarpatska Rus ' materialized in the vi llage of Iza. They were simple peasants who disliked their pastor, a magyarized Rusyn, who replaced their language with Magyar in the parish school. Led by the cantor-teacher Andry Vladymir, they appealed to the Serbian patriarch, who had nominal authority over all Orthodox subjects of the Habsburg Monarchy, to send them an Orthodox priest. Greek Catholic priest and historian Athanasius Pekar, himself a Ukrainophile, later admitted: "All that needed to be done to liquidate the so-called 'Orthodox movement' in Iza was to appoint a new village pastor and reopen the parish school." 2 1 Instead, the Hungarian government arrested the participants late in 1903 for alleged ties with Russia, and in the following year placed them on trial in Marmaros. All the defendants were found gui lty of treason. The Maramaros trial made a deep impression on the mind of a simple woodcutter of Iasnyia named Aleksander Kabaliu (18771947). He had just been released from the army, where he had been persecuted by Hungarian officers for his Pan-Slav inclinations. Kabuliak had a pronounced inclination towards a monastic life . He made religious pilgrimages to Russia, Jerusalem and Mount Athos in Greece. At a Russian monastery in the last-named location, he was received into the Orthodox fold . He turned his home in Iasnyia into a veritable Russian museum, collecting and displaying icons. Fearing 20 21 Ibid. , 49-50. Pekar, I 05 . �SLOVAKIA 2019 93 persecution by Hungarian authorities, Kabaliuk emigrated to the Russian Empire, where he was tonsured as a monk in 1910. The Russian Orthodox Church initially intended that Kabaliuk wou ld go to America and assume custody of a modest parish in Pittsburgh.22 Instead, he decided to return to Hungary to share in the martyrdom of the villagers of Iza. The Hungarian authorities were happy to oblige him. At the end of 1913 there was a second Maramaros trial, in which Kabaliuk and 94 peasants were the defendants. The Hungarians were hopeful that the trial would expose the activities of Count Bobrinskii and his associates. All it achieved was international condemnation of Magyar policies . Nonetheless, Kabaliuk was sentenced to four and a half years in jail, while 32 others were sentenced to one or two years and various fines. The rest were dismissed for lack of evidence. It was also at the tum of the century that many Rusyns followed the example of their Slovak kinsmen and neighbors in emigrating to America. Although members of both groups originated in the dirtpoor hill country of the eastern Carpathians, they tended to gravitate towards industrial centers in the United States. Surprisingly, America provided both stimulus for the Russophile tradition and a resurgence of the Russian Orthodox faith. Dyrud writes: The majority of the Rusyn immigrants came to the United States as illiterate peasants and had not participated in the intellectual and cultural conflicts that were raging in the old country. Thus it was in this country that Rusyn peasants from Galicia and Subcarpathia first lived together and found that they did not have as much in common as it first seemed. And it was in the United States that many of them first heard of the Ukrainian movement. And it was there that the Rusyns from Subcarpathia felt free to express national sentiments without the pressures of magyarization. It was in the United States that most of the Rusyn immigrants were told for the first time by the Russian Orthodox mission that they were really Russians. 23 22 See the entry "Kabaliuk, Aleksander," in Magocsi and Popp, eds., Encyclopedia o[ Ru syn History and Culture, 223. 2 Dyrud, 58 . �94 SLOVAK.IA 2019 Ironically, the Russian cause was indirectly aided by a most unlikely element: Irish American Catholic priests. Many of the latter resented the fact that Greek Catholic candidates for the priesthood were permitted to marry while they were not. Most outstanding was Archbishop John Ireland of Minneapolis-St. Paul. On December 19, 1889, he was visited by a Greek Catholic priest named Alexis Toth. Toth had been dispatched by the Presov eparchy to assume the pastorship of St. Mary ' s, a modest church recently constructed by the Rusyn community of Minneapolis. When Father Toth presented his credentials, Archbishop Ireland became greatly agitated. He informed Toth that he did not consider him to be a genuine Catholic, and denied him permission to administer the sacraments. 24 After consultation with the parishioners of St. Mary's, Toth conferred with Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Vladimir of San Francisco. The latter was eager and willing to accept the parish of St. Mary's into the Orthodox fold. Aside from Alaska, which Russia had sold to the United States earlier, there were up to the 1870s only three Orthodox churches in the United States. In addition to San Francisco, there was a Russian parish in New York City and a Greek Orthodox church in New Orleans. Native converts in America were exclusively Alaskan Aleuts and Eskimos . Now, however, the wave of Carpatho-Rusyn immigrants indicated a potential source of growth. Since nearly all Rusyn immigrants were in the eastern half of the United States, New York rather than San Francisco was delegated as an episcopal seat. In 1890 the construction of St. Nicholas Cathedral was completed in New York. Tsar Nicholas II personally donated 5,000 roubles to this project. His government subsidized the construction of other churches and supported activities of the Orthodox Missionary Society founded in Moscow. In Minneapolis, Father Toth founded the Russian Mutual Aid Society. These prosletization efforts exceeded all expectations. By the time of the outbreak of World War I in 1914, over one-third of all Rusyn immigrants in the United States had converted to Orthodoxy. 25 They served as enthusiastic supporters of the Russian cause in the Great War. World War I brought with it the culmination of the historic struggle for the Carpathians, and caused great suffering among the 24 25 Ibid 65-6 Ibid: 65 . • �SLOVAK.IA 2019 95 Rusyns of Galicia, eastern Slovakia and Podkarpatska Rus' . By early September 1914 Russian armies had overrun much of eastern Galicia. Count Georgii Bobrinskii, brother of Count Vladimir, was made governor-general, and started a campaign to eradicate the Ukrainian movement. All Ukrainian cultural organizations, cooperatives and journals were shut down. The Russian language replaced Ukrainian in the school system. Hundreds of Greek Catholic priests were deported into the depths of Russia. There was admittedly some dissent in Russian governmental circles. Noted statesman Pavel Miliukov described Russian conduct in Galicia as a European scandal. Yet Foreign Minister Sergei Sazanov stated unequivocally: "Now is exactly the right moment to rid ourselves of the Ukrainian movement once and for all." 26 The Ukrainophiles had a measure of revenge when the AustroHungarian military reoccupied the province in the following year. They denounced their Russophile neighbors for alleged collaboration with the invaders. Hungarian troops carried out mass hangings. At the same time, Polish nobles spread rumors that the Ukrainophiles were covertly pro-Russian, so as to reassert their own authority in Galicia. In truth, thousands of Russophiles and Ukrainophiles alike suffered internment in Austrian concentration camps. The most notorious of these camps was Talerhof, near Graz. Sanitary conditions were deplorable, and an estimated 1,767 persons died of typhus and 27 other diseases. Austria's parliament was scandalized, and Emperor Karl ordered Talerhof closed early in 1917. Early in 1915, for the second of three occasions in the course of a century, the Russian military crossed through the Dukla Pass. This move came as a result of the seige of Przemysl, Austria-Hungary's principal fortress in Galicia. Russian troops occupied the Carpathian mountain passes to the south to prevent the Austro-Hungarian military from sending reinforcements to break the siege. Casualties on both sides of the winter war of 1914-15 were appalling. It is likely that more soldiers succumbed to the "White Death" (hypothermia) than were killed by enemy bullets. 28 Ultimately, the Austrian side 26 Orest Subtelny, Ukraine: A History (Toronto, Buffalo and London, 2009), 343. See the entry "Talerhof," in Magocsi and Pop, eds,. Encyclopedia of Rusy n History and Culture, 488 . 28 For rhe most recent account of the winter campaign, see Traydon A. Tumstell, Blood on the Snow: The Carpathian Winter War of I 9 I 5 (Lawrence, KD, 20 I 0). 27 �96 SLOVAKIA 2019 gave way first. Russian soldiers under General Lavrl' Kornilov pushed through the southern end of Dukla Pass and advanced as far as the village of Lodomirova, just north of the town of Svidnik. Here they established a military cemetery for their dead. Lodomirova eventually became the site of a Russian cultural center in northeastern Slovakia, which shall be discussed in due course. The Russians did not remain in occupation of this toehold in Slovakia for long. Germany, Austria-Hungary's senior partner, launched a counteroffensive eastward across Poland, albeit at the cost of having enough troops to capture Paris. Russian troops painfully withdrew north of the Carpathians. They were now demoralized and ripe for revolution. Mass mutinies forced Tsar Nicholas II to abdicate on March 15, 1917. The reign of the Romanov dynasty had ended. Tsarist Russia was destroyed. Politically speaking, the Russophi-le orientation was now a dead letter. Culturally, its future was now an openended question . At this point Russophiles among the Rusyns looked with growing interest at the now ascendant Czechoslovak independence movement. The Rusyns in Interwar Czechoslovakia and Poland The Czechoslovak independence movement was a curious article. For almost a century, there existed an intellectual tradition which maintained that Czechs and Slovaks were two branches of the same nationality. Yet the concept of a politically united Czechoslovak state was largely the invention to Tomas Garrigue Masaryk ( 18501937), a Czech philosophy professor and notorious defender of unpopular causes. Perceiving that World War I would result in AustriaHungary coming increasingly under the domination of Kaiser Wilhelm ' s Germany, Masaryk decided to lobby among the opposing Western powers for Czecho-Slovak independence. In Geneva, in neutral Switzerland, he was joined by his protege, the sociology professor Edvard Benes. Together they proceeded to Paris, where they were joined by Milan Rastislav Stefanik, a young Slovak serving as an officer in the French Air Force. This triumvirate formed a Czech Action Committee Abroad, which was eventually expanded and renamed the Czechoslovak National Council. Given his position on this body, the French eventually gave Stefanik genera l' s rank. He raised a Czechoslovak Legion from prisoners of war and deserters �SLOVAKIA 2019 97 from the Austro-Hungarian Army. The Czechoslovak Legion distinguished itself on the Western, Eastern and eventually Italian fronts, and gained increased Allied favor in the struggle for the recognition of the independence movement. 29 In 1918 Masaryk visited the United States, not only to gain official American recognition, but also a mandate from the Slovak community in America, since Slovakia itself was politically gagged. In October of 1915 the Bohemian National Alliance and the Slovak League of America had already concluded a preliminary agreement for cooperation in Cleveland. Masaryk proceeded to Pittsburgh to conclude a more formal agreement for a Czecho-Slovak merger. Masaryk's visit to the Mecca of the American Slovaks was greeted by a large manifestation of support which included South Slavs as well as Czechs and Slovaks. Yet the negotiations undertaken at Moose Hall on May 29-31 were not without controversy. Masaryk pledged Slovakia an administration, a school system and linguistic rights, but not its own parliament, as specified by the earlier Cleveland Agreement. Here Jozef Husek of the Slovak Catholic Jednota raised strenuous objections. Albert Mamatey, president of the Slovak League, impressed Masaryk with the seriousness of losing the support of the largest single Slovak organization. The delegates were evenly divided, and Masaryk finally broke the deadlock by signing a revised draft with all the proposals. 30 The steel towns of the greater Pittsburgh area were also heavily populated by Rusyns from Hungary. Following the lead of the Slovaks, many joined fraternal organizations, which not only provided 29 The Czechoslovak Legion in Russia was the most instrumental military force in attaining Allied recognition of the independence movement. With Russia withdrawing from the war in 1918, Czechoslovak legionnaires wished to be evacuated and sent to France, where a German offensive to capture Paris was anticipated. Attempts by the Bolsheviks to disarm them resu lted in their capture of the Trans-Siberian Railway and a legendary odyssey to the Pacific coast. It also gave the Western Allies a pretext to intervene in the Russian Civil War. The experience of the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia boats of a sizable amount of literature. The best Englishlanguage studies are authored by Victor M. Fie, The Revolutionary War for Independence and the Russian Question: The Czechoslovak Army in Russia 1914-191 8 (New Delhi, 1977) and The Bolsheviks and the Czechoslovak Legion. The Origins of Their Armed Conflict: March to May 1918 (New Delhi , 1978). 30 See Marian Mark Stolarik, "The Role of American Slovaks in the Creation of Czecho-Slovakia" Slo vak Studies, VIII ( 1968), 48-5 1 �98 SLOVAKIA 2019 benefits to workers but published newspapers as well. Its members had acquired a measure of political awareness. One such organization was the Greek Catholic Union, headquartered in the HomesteadMunhall district. Another was the United Societies of America, which contained both Greek Catholic and Orthodox members, based in McKeesport. At the time of Masaryk's pilgrimage to Pittsburgh, the Czech independence leader was approached by Nicholas Pachuta, editor of the Greek Catholic Union's newspaper Rus 'kii Viestnik. Pachuta had recently converted to Orthodoxy. Up until this point he had advocated the incorporation of Podkarpatska Rus' into the Russian Empire. Now that there was no more Russian Empire, Pachuta approached Masaryk with the idea of union with a Czecho-Slovak state. He was soon afterwards expelled from the Greek Catholic Union. 3 1 Overall, the Greek Catholic clergy wished their homeland to remain part of Hungary. Many laymen wanted union with Galicia but insisted Galicia was Russian rather than Ukrainian. The end to the Great War was approaching, and territorial changes could be anticipated. One of President Woodrow Wilson's celebrated Fourteen Points for peace was "self-determination for the peoples of AustriaHungary." It was necessary to have a common program. Members of both organizations met in Homestead on July 23, 1918 to form the American National Council of Uhro-Rusyns. The subsequent Homestead Resolution read as follows: If the pre-war boundaries remain, Rusyns, as the most loyal people-gens fidelissima-deserve that Hungary provide [them} with autonomy. If new boundaries are made, they should be made according to nationality; thus, Uhro-Rusyns can belong nowhere else than to their nearest brothers by blood, language and faith, to the Galician and Bukovinian Rusyns. But if we are divided by foreign aspirations from Ukrainians and Old-Russians [Galician Russophiles}, the National Council demands in this case autonomy for Uhro-Rusyns so they can pre32 serve their national character. 31 Magocsi, Th e Shaping of a National Identity, 81. The original text of the Homestead Resolution appears under the heading " Do Vpukh Vhro-Rusynov zhivlych v Soed" in Prosvita, August 8, 1918 32 �SLOVAKIA 2019 99 The Rusyns commissioned a young Pittsburgh lawyer named Gregory Zsatkovich ( 1886-1967) to represent their interests to the United States government. Pennsylvania congressman Guy Campbell arranged a meeting between Zsatkovich and President Wilson on October 21. Wilson thought it unfeasible to grant full independence to so small a nation in a geopolitically sensitive region, and consequently recommended that Zsatkovich seek autonomy in a larger state. He referred Zsatkovich to Masaryk, whose independence movement had been recently recognized by the U.S. State Department, Zsatkovich met with Masaryk in Philadelphia, where the latter hosted a congress called the Mid-European Democratic Union on October 23-26. According to Zsatkovich's memoir afterwards, Masaryk assured him: "If the Rusyns decide to join the Czechoslovak Republic, they shall constitute a fully autonomous state." 33 There remained a sticky issue. Rusyn territorial claims included several counties in eastern Slovakia. Here there were numerous Rusyns in the northern mountain districts whereas elsewhere the population consisted of either Slovaks or Rusyns who had already voluntarily assimilated into the Slovak nationality. Masaryk was further alleged to declare on this point: "The frontiers will be so determined that the 34 Rusyns will be satisfied." On November 12, at a meeting of the National Council of UhroRusyns in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the Czechoslovak option was provisionally adopted, albeit including the demand for the counties of eastern Slovakia. A subsequent plebiscite among the American Rusyn fraternals provided Zsatkovich with the desired results: out of 1,102 votes submitted, 732 (67 percent) were for union with Czechoslovakia and 310 (28 percent) for union with Ukraine. Additionally, there were 27 votes for complete independence, 10 votes for union with Russia, and 9 votes for remaining part ofHungary. 35 Back in the Old Country, the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in October of 1918 led to a power vacuum in many areas of the Carpathians. Several different national councils were organized by Rusyns, each of which had its own program for the fu- 33 Gregory Zsatkovich, Otkryhote-Expose bydaltelho gubernatori Podkarpatskoj Rusi (Homestead, PA , 1921 ), 5. 34 Ibid 5 35 Ma~o~si , Th e Shaping of a National Identity, 85. �100 SLOVAK.IA 2019 ture affiliation of the people. A Russophile group in eastern Slovakia, based in Stara Cubovna, initially wanted a merger with Galicia. Dissenters among them, led by the lawyer Antonii Beskyd ( 1855-1933), considered such a move impractical. They reconvened in Presov and declared themselves for union with Czechoslovakia instead. A new revolutionary government in Hungary pledged to grant the Rusyns territorial autonomy. A group of Greek Catholic priests in Uzhorod declared themselves in favor of this option. Another pro-Hungarian group met in Khust, but its speakers were shouted down by Pro-Ukrainian elements led by the lawyer Iulii Braschaiko (1879-1955). The Ukrainophle orientation had at last taken hold in Podkarpatska Rus ', and would grow progressively stronger. Most dramatic of all were events in the easternmost Hutsul region, centered around Iasnyia. Here the populace favored union with Ukraine, but, pending further developments, took matters into their own hands. In the early morning of January 7, 1919, a group of demobilized Rusyn soldiers, aided by troops sent by the West Ukrainian Republic, drove out the Hungarian garrison of 250 militiamen. On February 5 the victorious Rusyns proclaimed their own "Hutsul Republic," with a 42-member elected council and a four-man government. This little state existed until June 11, when the area was occupied by advancing Romanian troops.36 Late in 1918, Czechoslovak legionnaires returning from the Italian Front had begun a military occupation of Slovakia, and advanced across the Uz River. Uzhorod was occupied on January 10, 1919. The Czechoslovak position was strengthened as a result of a Bolshevik government assuming power in Hungary, much to the alarm of the Western powers. This Hungarian government wished to build upon the "Ruska Kraina" declared by its predecessor, the Karolyi regime. It went to extremes attempting to implement communist rule, threatening the death penalty for even the smallest commercial transactions. This decree became impossible to enforce, since the commissars were themselves profiteering. 37 Podkarpatska Rus' was soon engulfed in counterrevolution. 36 See Paul Robert Magocsi, "The Rusyn Decision to Unite With Czechoslovakia" in Magocsi, Of the Making of Natio nalities, 134. 37 Ibid, 140-42 �SLOVAKIA 2019 101 Even before the establishment of the Bolshevik regime, members of the Uzhorod Council began experiencing doubts concerning the viability of remaining part of Hungary. A leading member of the Council, Reverend Avhustyn Voloshyn (1874-1945), began negotiating with Slovak leader Milan Hodza. Voloshyn was joined by supporters of both Beskid and Brashchaiko. The Russophiles realized that the Russia they had loved and believed in was unlikely to return from the dead. The Ukrainophiles realized that an independent Ukraine was unlikely to survive the turmoil of the Russian Civil War. Members of both orientations were willing to form a single body representing their mutual interests. It was in this spirit that the Central Russian National Council was formed in Uzhorod on May 8, 1919. Zsatkovich arrived with the text of the Scranton Resolution, which was endorsed unanimously. It remained to the Western peacemakers gathered in Paris to give sanction to Podkarpatska Rus' being granted to Czechoslovakia. Yet, contrary to later Hungarian revisionist claims, the victorious Western Allies did not arbitrarily hand the region over to the Czechs. The decision to unite with Czechoslovakia was that of the Rusyn people themselves .38 The realities of being part of the Czechoslovakia disappointed the expectations of many educated Rusyns. Autonomy was not forthcoming. They could send representatives to parliament in Prague, but did not have their own regional parliament. Prague apparently decided that the Rusyns, like the Slovaks, were not ready for autonomy. Zsatkovich became the first provincial governor, but the actual administration lay in the hands of a centralized Czech bureaucracy. Zsatkovich eventually resigned in disgust and returned to America. The disputed counties in eastern Slovakia remained under Slovak administration. To complicate matters further, there was now a group of Rusyns who considered themselves their own nationality, in addition to the existing Russophile and Ukrainophile orientations. Politically, on the local level, Prague would support one and then another orientation, depending upon its convenience at a particular moment. The Czechoslovak administration made great strides in education, virtually eliminating illiteracy in twenty years . The government poured tremendous amounts of money into Podkarpatska Rus ', and liberally funded cultural activities of all three orientations. 38 Ibid, 146. �102 SLOVAKIA 2019 On April 29, 1920, there was a meeting of local leaders in Uzhorod, headed by Iulii Brashchaiko. Its purpose was to establish a cultural organization encompassing all Podkarpatska Rus '. Nothing resulted from this meeting since Russophiles led by Anthonii Beskyd raised angry objections to the Ukrainophile cultural orientation of Brashchaiko ' s group. On May 9 Brashchaiko's fol lowers established the Prosvita Society, modeled along the lines of the Ukrainian society of the same name in Galicia. Its task was to publish all kinds of popular and scholarly books "written in the national tongue and accessible to every Subcarpathian Ru syn." 39 The Czechoslovak Pros vita was reinforced by many educated Ga li cian Ukrainians who found Polish rul e objectionable. On th e May 23 , 1923, those Russophiles who boycotted the Prosvita met in Uzhorod to establish their own organization, which was called the Dukhnovych Society. Its stated goals were to foster "the cultural deve lopment of the Ru ssian people living within Czechoslovakia, and most importantly to educate them in a moral , patriotic and Ru ssian spirit, exclusive of al l political activity." 40 The contrast between the two rival societies was visib le. The old tricolor Ru ssian flag flew over the reading rooms of the Dukhnovych Society, whereas Prosvita reading rooms displayed the blue and ye llow Ukrainian national colors. In terms of literature, the new Dukhnovych Society championed the great Russian masters : Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, etc. The Prosvita Society advanced the writings of Shevchenko and other less known Ukrainian awakeners. Both Russophiles and Ukrainophiles expanded their activities from literature to theater. The Ru ssophiles tended to produce hi storical dramas, whereas the Ukrainophi les focused on folk songs and ballads. The latter used standard Ukrainian as the language of performance, whereas the Russophiles had to translate their productions into a Rusyn dia lect. It must be frankly admitted that the Ukrainophile orientation gained the upper hand in popularity during the course of the kulturkampf for Podkarpatska Rus' in the First Czechoslovak Republic. Avtustyn Voloshyn had become a convert to the Ukrainophile orien39 Statul tova,ystva 'Prosvita • Podkarpatska Rus ·, (Uzhorod, 1920), 6. Usta v Rusakogo ku/'turna-prosvete/'noga obshchturni Aleksandra Duchnovychovicha , (Uzhorod, 1923), 40 �SLOVAK.IA 2019 103 tation. He and his associates were astute and learned men-teachers and scholars who kept closely in touch with Rusyn cultural life. By contrast, the Dukhnovych Society fell increasingly under the influence of Stefan Fentsik ( 1892-1946), a local politician who used the organization as a platform to propagate a his own views, his political ties with Poland and Hungary-which shall be di scussed in due course-became common knowledge by 1937, and did much to compromise the Dukhnovych Society. 41 Russian culture survived more comfortably in eastern Slovakia, since 1928 elevated to the official status of a province. In large measure this direction was due to the efforts of Iulii Lazho (18671929), a native of Svidnik and senator for the Social Democratic Party in the Czechoslovak parliament. Earlier, Lazho had emigrated to America, where he converted to Orthodoxy and also rose in the construction industry. He returned home to start his own construction firm, and also to seek revenge against his former Greek Catholic pastor. As mayor of Ladomirova, where the Russian military cemetery was located, Lazho invited Vital ii Maksimenko ( 1873-1960), former archimandrite of the monastery at Pochaiev (in Polish Volhynia), to establish a missionary headquarters there. Lazho also procured a Cyrillic alphabet printing press which Czechoslovak legionnaires in Russia had appropriated, shipped all the way to Vladivostok on the Pacific coast, and which made its way to Prague. During two decades of activity the Ladomirova mission published over I 00 Orthodox church books, the newspaper Pravoslavnaia Karpatskaje Rus ' (1928-1944), the journal for young people Diestvo I ivnost Khristi ( 1935-1941 ), a scholarly journal Pravoslavny put' ( 1938-1940) and the annual almanac Pravnoslavny ruskii/Ruskii narodnyi kalendar ( 1924-1944). The Russian monks also worked to inculcate Russian culture among the native Rusyns, hosting such events as an annual Russian Day in the summers and the tree-lighting ceremony for Orthodox Christmas. 42 In approaching the causes of the Orthodox revival in interwar Czechoslovakia, it is necessary to understand the world view of the 41 Magocsi, "Nationalist Intelligentsia and the Peasantry" in Of th e Making of Nationalities, 200. 42 See the entry "Ladomirova Monastery" in Magocsi and Pop, eds. , En cyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture, 266 . �104 SLOVAKIA 2019 national-state's founding father. T.G. Masaryk was a complex individual. As one biographer expressed it: "This man wanted to emancipate workers without embracing Marxism, liberate women without promoting feminism, and educate the young without celebrating youth. " 43 He was considered in the West to be an expert on Russia. He had written extensively on the great writer Dostoevsky, whom he regarded as the classic representative of Russian thought. There were elements of the Russian national psychology which Masaryk found disturbing. Like Havlicek before him, he felt that the Western Slavs, especially the Czechs, should follow a different path . As a proponent of Westeren humanism, Masaryk disparaged the mystical tradition of the Eastern Orthodox faith .44 Yet Masaryk reserved even greater hostility for the Roman Catholi c Church. He drew inspiration from Jan Hus, the great Bohemian religious reformer who was burned at the stake for heresy in 1415 . In 1905, while celebrating the anniversary of Hus ' death, Masaryk coined the slogan "Away from Rome! " Politics in the first years of the Czechoslovak Republic had a distinctly anti-Catholic flavor. His government favored the appointment of Lutherans for administration in Slovakia at the expense of the Catholic majority. In Podkarpatska Rus ', where there were virtua lly no Protestants, such a policy was impossible. Here Czechoslovak authorities fostered a revival of Orthodoxy. One Czech mini ster assessed the impact as follows: It seemed to some Russophile politicians, both in Prague and in Ruthenia ... that the right time had come to convert the Rutheni an peasant back to the Greek Orthodox religion. This opinion was shared by many Russian emigres who flocked to Czechoslovak ia ... after 1919. A drive for 'Orthodoxy ' was started in Rutheni a ... It is a question of how much of this movement was spontaneous and due to the pro-Russian feeling of the population and to its di slike for the purely magyarized Uniate clergy, and how much of its strength it owed to the propaganda and preaching of the Russian Orthodox emigres and clergy and to the support of some Czech political circles. 43 Bruce Garver, "Masaryk and Czech Politics 1900-1914" in Stanley B. Winters, ed. , T G. Masaryk (1850- 193 7) Vo lum e I Thinker and Politician (London, 1990), 22 . 44 See Paul 1. Tresky, " Masaryk and Dostoyevsky" in Harry Hanak, ed., T G. Masa1y k (/ 850- 193 7) Volum e II/ Statesman and Cultural Force (London, 1990), 161-77. �SLOVAKIA 2019 105 However, it certainly added one more element to the confusion reigning in Ruthenia and led to animosities which, in the end, turned against the Prague Government itself.45 Reverend Voloshyn bitterly remonstrated against the situation in Prague in 1929: The agitation usually began in the local tavern, where the agitator met the most notorious brawlers in the village. After a short talk, emboldened by 'noisy' arguments and vodka, the peasants would begin to shout abuse against the village pastor. In a matter of two or three days a ' committee' made up of the pastor's 'opponents ' would be formed. The committee did not immediately begin advocating Orthodoxy; instead, it showered the bishop with complaints and delegations, demanding that there be an investigation against the pastor or that he be removed outright. Then followed other forms of harassment, demonstrations, threats against the pastor, intimidation of church curators, and such . The committee would send the pastor letters demanding that he leave the vi llage. As time went on, the committee made increasingly bolder threats that the pastor get out ' or else!' .. .. If, despite such harassment, the priest remained in his parish, the threats escalated. Someone would break his windows, shoot into his windows, poison hi s well , set fire to his grain or stables, and in some cases even the parish house, assault and beat the priest, etc. The government remained indifferent to all this under the pretext of ' Freedom of conscience! Freedom ofreligion!' 46 This state of affairs could not permitted to go on indefinitely. Czechoslovakia was, after all, a republic governed by law. The Vatican made its own contribution to improved church-state relations by transferring Bishop Antonii Papp of Mukachevo to Hungary and replacing him with canon Petro Gebej on July 16, 1924. At the same time, in response to forthcoming parliamentary elections, President Masaryk cryptically declared that "the Catholics will get as many rights as they win." 47 Rusyn voters supported Czech Catho lic political parties which gained an increased measure of strength in parliament. The rights accorded to Greek Catholics by the constitution in 45 Frantisek Nemec and Vladimir Modry, Th e Soviet Seizure of Subcarpathian Ruthenia (Toronto, 1955), 38-9. 46 Avhustyn Voloshyn, " Relihijni vidnozny na Podkarpats ' kyi" in Acta Conventia Pragensis pro Studii Orentalibus n. 1919, (Olomouc, 1930), 218-9. 47 Pekar, 11 8. �106 SLOVAKIA 2019 any case were now enforced. Violence and vandalism were now prosecuted and soon ceased. In some instances church property was restored. Bishop Gebej led a religious revival which resulted in priests maintaining closer contact with their parishioners. A number of converts to Orthodoxy returned to the Greek Catholic faith. The Orthodox revival was one of the sources of survival for the Russophile orientation. Another source was, ironically, Hungarian funding . The fall of Bela Kun's communist regime in August of 1919 was followed by the restoration of the nobility in Hungary. Counterrevolutionary White terror now followed Red terror. Right wing elements who rallied under Admiral Miklos Horthy, soon elevated to the position of regent of Hungary, wanted to regain Slovakia and Podkarpatska Rus' but had to go about it covertly.48 The victorious Western powers would not recognize any government in Hungary which would not accept their peace tenns . On June 4, 1920, Hungary was compelled to sign the Treaty of Trianon, which ceded Slovakia and Podkarpatska Rus' to Czechoslovakia, Transylvania to Romania, and Croatia and the Voivodina to what became known as Yugoslavia. Trianon psychologically scarred Hungarian society for a full generation. France offered to soften the blow by extending to Hungary financial credits, particularly in the area of railway development, in exchange for compliance. Hungarian Prime Minister Istvan Bethlen cheerfully accepted the financial aid and outwardly complied with Trianon. Yet his government covertly subsidized elements in Slovakia and Podkarpatska Rus' who were disgruntled with Czechoslovak centrali sm. Having previously denied these peoples autonomy, the Hungarians now championed their right to selfdetern1ination as a first step toward regaining them. One of the recipients of Hungarian financial aid was Stefan Fentsik. Another was Andrei Brodii ( 1895-1946), a journalist, teacher and chairman of the Autonomous Agricultural Union/Autonomyi Zenled'skij Sojuz (AZS). Fentsik yielded leadership of the Russophile movement to Brodii during the 1930s. Ukrainophile historian Peter Stercho later maintained that Brodii, Fentsik and other select 48 As a precedent to future collaboration in this matter, Poland allowed itself to be used as a staging ground for Hungarian subversion of Czechos lovak administration . A "Magyar-S lovak League" was established in Krakow, and dispatched armed vo lunteers across the border into Slovakia. �SLOVAKIA 2019 107 Russophile leaders had to conceal their ties with Hungary from their followers, since even the latter were opposed to territorial revision. 49 Polish policy towards the Rusyns of Galicia followed a similar pattern. In the area directly north of the Dukla Pass lived people belonging to a branch of the Rusyns known as the Lemkos. They can be geographically divided by the San River. The Ukrainian movement penetrated the area east of the San early in the twentieth century and accounted for numerous followers. In November 1918 Lemkos from about 30 villages gathered in the village of Komancza (Komancha in Rusyn) to form their own little republic. This Komancha Republic was viewed as a transitional state, pending merger with a greater Ukraine. West of the San the Lemkos still adhered to the traditions of old Rus'. In autumn 1918 they wanted union with Russia. Since this was obviously never going to happen, the Polish government could afford to humor these Lemkos, The Poles were preoccupied with the West Ukrainian Republic which was proclaimed in Lviv on November 1, 1918, and event which plunged Galicia into an ethnic civil war. On December 5, some 500 Lemko Rusyns representing 130 vi1lages and towns of western Lemkovyna met in Florynka (in Grybow district) to form a government. While the Polish military crushed the Komancha Republic in January 1919, it tended to view the Florynka Lemko Rusyn Republic as a potential ally against the Ukrainians. Polish officials who were present offered the former town hall of Grybow as a political headquarters, while the Polish Army provided arms for a Lemko national guard. Schools and cooperatives were soon organized. Amazingly, the Lemko Rusyn Republic survived a full sixteen months. It was governed by an executive council headed by Reverend Mykhal Iurchakevych and a central national council headed by the lawyer Iaroslaw Kachmarchyk. The Poles were disappointed with the results. The Lemkos were happy to accept whatever aid the Polish government and military were willing to offer but nonetheless were unwilling to take up arms against their errant brethren to the east. Additionally, Kachmarchyk's government rejected the notion of union with a Bolshevik Russia, and began looking at the example of 49 Peter Stercho, Diplomacy of Double Morality: Europe's Crossroads in CarpathoUkraine /9/9-/939(NewYork , 1971), 171. �108 SLOVAKIA 2019 their brethren of the south side of the Carpathians. A union with Czechoslovakia now seemed a viable option. Unfortunately, in 1920 relations between Poland and Czechoslovakia were at a particularly low point, owing to border disputes concerning Tesin in Silesia and Orava-Spis in Slovakia. Before the end of March the Poles arrested Kachmarchyk and members of his government. They were tried on June 10, 1921. A Polish jury acquitted them, which was only reasonable insofar as the Poles had encouraged their activities in the first place. But the event marked the death knell of Lemko statehood. 50 Yet the Poles still had use for the Lernkos in the interwar period. The Greek Catholic Church was strongly identified with the Ukrainian national movement. The leadership of the Polish military, overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, encouraged the movement to convert the Lemkos to Orthodoxy, and thus express a Russian character at the expense of the Ukrainian .51 It was a classic case of Divide and Rule. Elsewhere, in Volhynia, adherents of the Ukrainian national movement were Orthodox. Here militant Polish nationalists attacked and vandalized Orthodox monasteries and schools. At the same time, for reasons of security, Poland wished to have a common border with Hungary. For this reason the Polish government supported Hungarian efforts to regain Podkarpatska Rus' . The events which accompanied the international crisis in 1938 are well-known. The present author shall limit himself to summarizing key particulars. The Munich "diktat" of September 1938 resulted in Czechoslovakia being forced to yield the Gennan populated Sudetenland to Nazi Germany. Deprived of her most vital border defenses, Czechoslovakia was now rendered militarily defenseless. Hostile neighbors, Poland and Hungary, were now encouraged to make their own territorial claims. Moreover, the Prague government could no longer resist demands for autonomy on the part of Slovakia and Podkarpatska Rus ' . 50 See Paul Robert Magocsi, "The Lemko Rusyn Republic ( 1918-1920) and Political Thought in Western Rus' -Ukraine" in Magocsi, Of the Making of Nationalities, 303315. 51 See Mykola Kucherpa, "The Nationality Policy of Poland towards Ukrainians before World War II" in Paul Berst and Jaroslav Mokolak, eds., Th e Lemko Region 1939-1947, War, Occupation and Deportation (New Haven and Krakow, 2002), 3949. �SLOVAKIA 2019 109 In the case of Podkarpatska Rus', a cabinet was formed on October 11 which consisted of both Russophiles and Ukrainophiles. Russophiles predominated, with Brodii as prime minister and Fentsik as deputy prime minister. Brodii was convinced that, if a plebiscite was held, the majority of Rusyns would vote for reunion with Hungary. Brodii 's ministry lasted only fifteen days. An alarmed central government summoned Brodii and Fentsik to Prague. There Brodii was arrested, while Fentsik found asylum in the Polish embassy. 52 Prague authorized Voloshyn, who was a member of the cabinet, to form a new government. Voloshyn proclaimed the province as an autonomous nation with the new name of Carpatho-Ukraine on November 3. The victory of the Ukrainophiles was at last complete. Autonomous Carpatho-Ukraine got off to a rough start. Hungary was prepared to re-annex the region, although conservative circles of the Hungarian government confined their claims to areas which were predominantly Magyar. Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy opted to appear in the role of peacemakers in this territorial dispute between Czechoslovakia and Hungary. They arbitrated a compromise settlement in Vienna on November 2, 1938. By terms of the First Vienna Award, Kosice, in southern Slovakia, and Uzhorod and Mukachevo, the two leading cities of Carpatho-Ukraine, were restored to Hungary. The government of Carpatho-Ukraine was forced to relocate to Khust, which was little more than an oversized village. Militant Hungarian nationalists regarded the First Vienna Award as a temporary expedient, and worked for the complete annexation of CarpathoUkraine. Under the auspices of the Ministry of Defense, a covert paramilitary group known as the "Ragged Guard" was organized to infiltrate Carpatho-Ukraine and conduct terrorist acts designed to destabilize the regime. Poland likewise dispatched paramilitary units for the same purpose. If the credible research of Ukrainophile historian Stercho is to be believed, the Polish paramilitary units outpaced their Hungarian counterparts in acts of terrorism. 53 Carpatho-Ukraine was in need of allies, and these were forthcoming. Militant Ukrainian nationalists from Poland crossed the mountains to organize the Riflemen of the Carpathian Sich. It has been argued by Russophile opponents that the Riflemen of the Car52 53 Magocs i, The Shaping of a National Identity, 238. Stercho, 302. �110 SLOVAKIA 2019 pathian Sich inaugurated the reign of "Ukrainian terror." It is true that they focu sed more on the Russophile domestic opposition than they did on Polish or Hungarian infiltrators. A detention camp was established for dissident Russophiles and Rusynophiles at Dumen . Yet conditions of internment were relaxed. Political differences extended to the family leve l, and prisoners under guard where permitted to attend social events in neighboring Rakhiv.54 There was a conflict of interest between the Carpathian Sich and the Voloshyn regime. Sich rifl emen viewed Carpatho-Ukraine as the cornerstore of a future greater Ukraine, and counted on the support of Nazi Germany. Voloshyn , by contrast, decided that adherence to Czecho-Slovakia (now officially spelled with a hyphen) was a necessary expedient. In March of 1939 there were clashes between the Carpathian Sich and the regular Czechoslovak military. This confl ict was abruptly terminated when German leader Adolf Hitler moved to eliminate what remained of Czecho-Slovakia . As he prepared to militarily occupy Prague, he disappointed Ukrainophi les by giving his consent for Hungary to annex the province. Under German pressure, Slovakia declared its independence on March 14. CarpathoUkraine was now cut off from the Czech lands. With Hungarian troops already crossing the border, Voloshyn symbo li cally proclaimed Carpatho-Ukraine's independence on March 15 . Carpatho-Ukraine existed as an independent state for all of a day . On the 16 th , Hungarian military units were fighting for Khust. The Riflemen of the Carpathian Sich resisted with admirab le resolve , but its units were scattered and no match for the Hungarian army. They later regrouped in the mountains or were pushed across the border to Eastern Slovakia, thus encouraging Hungary to invade the latter as well. 55 Hungarian troops reached the Polish border by the end of the I 61\ and were eagerly embraced by their opposite numbers. The region was renamed Subcarpathia and governed directly from Budapest. There was some vague talk in the Hungarian parliament about according autonomy to the most recently annexed portion , but not to Uzhorod or Mukachevo, which were now considered 54 Paul Robert Magocsi , "The Nationality Problem in Subcarpathian Rus ' I 9381939: A Reappraisal" in Magocsi , Of th e Making of Nationalities, 228 . 55 This invasion of Eastern Slovakia resulted in portions of the disputed counties likewise being annexed by Hungary. It also resulted in the Slovak Republic placing itself under the military protection of Nazi Germany. �SLOVAKIA 2019 111 directly part of Hungary. Autonomy was del ayed indefinitely. As World War II progressed, the Hungarian military vehemently opposed autonomy for security reaso ns . The Ukrainophiles were particularly singled out for political persecution, while the Russophiles were more or less set aside. Interestingly, the Hungarian government began cultivating the idea that the Rusyns were their own separate nationality, an idea which ultimately became the wave of the future. 56 The resto ration of Hungarian rule dis illusioned the Russophil es. It stood to reason that, once Hungary went down to defeat with Nazi Germany, Andrei Brodii would come to a bad end . He did not attempt to flee when Soviet forces reached the area in the autumn of 1944, but attempted to negotiate with them. He was arrested by the Soviet counterintelligence unit SMERSH, charged as a fascist co ll aborator, and executed on November 7, 1946. A similar fate awa ited Stefan Fentsik: he was shot in the courtyard of the Uzhorod prison on March 30, 1946. Their Ukrainophile rival Voloshyn fared no better. Having taken up res idence in Prague during the war years, he taught at the Ukrainian Free University. In June 1945 he was arrested by SMERSH and transported to Moscow. He died in Lefortovo prison on July 19, undoubtedl y murdered. An ironic footnote of hi story is worth mentioning. Both Brodii and Fentsik were posthumously rehabilitated after the breakup of the Soviet Union. No such rehabilitation has been granted to Voloshyn. World War II and Ukrainiazation If the Russophiles in Podkarpatska Rus' were fatally compromised by collaboration with the Hungarians, then in Eastern Slovakia they earned acclamation for their role in an anti-fascist struggle. A leading force in the resistance to the pro-German regime of president-priest Jozef Ti so was the Slovak Communist Party. George Kennan , at that time charge d 'affa ires to the U.S. embassy in Prague, assessed the pro-communist sentiment in Eastern Slovakia as being a "bird of a different color [which] in former circumstances would have little chance of success." He added, however, that owing to 56 Magocs i, The Shaping of a National Identity, 248-9 . �112 SLOVAKIA 2019 guidance from Moscow, the Communists could become the most formidable resistance group of all. 57 Kennan's prognosis was largely accurate, though certain qualifying feature s must be noted. The Communists did not have a monopoly on the resistance movement. In prewar Czechoslovakia they were strongest in Podkarpatska Rus ', but in Eastern Slovakia they were never ab le to muster more than seven percent of the vote among the Ru syns in the interwar period. Not wishing to be isolated from other Rusyns in organized resistance to the Tiso regime, local Communi sts opted to join the Carpatho-Russian Council for National Liberation (KRASNO), which shall be introduced shortly. The view of the autonomous and later independent Slovak state on the Rusyns was that the latter were "S lovaks of the Greek Catholic faith ." This view was exemp li fied by Andrej Dudas, who in 1940 was appointed regional administrator of Eastern Slovakia. He was convinced that the idea of a Rusyn nationality was created by the Hungarians, a position he maintained a full three decades later as an emigre in Argentina.58 In early 1939, the Rusyn Nationa l Committee and the Carpatho-Russian Nationa l Counci l were banned by the Slovak government, and the activity of the Dukhnovych Society was restricted. The Ukrainian movement among the Rusyns was particularly loathed by the Slovak nationalist leadership. Slovak police reports up until November 1938 indicate that Rusyns in the Presov Region supported union with their brethren east of the Uz Ri ver. Yet, in November, the same police reports indicate a significant change. The Ukrainian movement was even more alien to the Presov Region Rusyns than was Slovak nationalism, and they were henceforth opposed to a revision of borders which was favorable to CarpathoUkraine. 59 Rusyns shared in the economic prosperity of the Slovak Republic which characterized the first half of World War II. Workers in Germany sent money home to their families, whi le locally a number 57 Report written about May I, 1939 on conditions in Slovakia in George Ken nan, From Prague After Munich. Diplomatic Papers 1938-1 940 (Princeton, 1968), 139140. 58 Andrej Dudas, Rusinska otazka ajej uzadie (B uenos Aires, 1971), 25 . 59 See the entry " Carpatho-Russian Autonomous Counci l for National Liberation/Karpatorusskii avtonomyi sovet natsional'nmyi osvonodenyi (KRASNO)" in Magocsi and Pop, eds ., Encyclopedia of Rusy n Histo1y and Culture, 58. �SLOVAKIA 2019 113 of Rusyns profited from the expropriation of Jewish property. Yet once it became obvious that the Slovak Republic was on the losing side of the war, a number of Rusyns began to organize, The Carpatho-Russian Autonomous Council for National Liberation (Karpatorusskii avtonomyi sovet national'nogo obsvobzhdenii-KRASNO) was founded in Presov in September 1943. Its goals were to aid escaped Soviet prisoners of war and partisans and to cooperate with other underground elements opposed to what it considered a clericofascist regime. Its members envisioned a restored Czechoslovakia in which Rusyns would be equal partners with Czechs and Slovaks. Although its orientation was pro-Soviet and decidedly leftist, KRASNO was not a communist front organization. It was founded by civic and cultural leaders of varied political orientation. Vasyl' Karaman ( 1903-1961) was born in the village of Nagov, in Slovakia. After completing his education at the Commercial Academy in Mukachevo (1924-1927), be returned to eastern Slovakia, where he worked as a civil servant in Presov from 1927 to 1933 , and then served in various towns as secretary for the pro-government Agrarian Republican Party. When Czecho-Slovakia was being partitioned in the fall of 1938, he opposed the pro-Ukrainian orientation of the Voloshyn government. He was elected as chairman of a newly re-established Central Russian National Council. Its members included both Russophiles and Rusynophiles who wished to retain ties with what remained of Czecho-Slovakia, unlike the followers of Brodii and Fentsik. Unable to realize his objectives, he returned to the Presov Region. Here he joined a Committee of Rusyns which tried to reach an accommodation with the Slovak government. This was not possible, since Slovak nationalist officials distrusted his Russophile orientation. After Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June of 1941, Karaman was arrested. He spent a year and a half in jail, and after his release made contact with the Zhydovs'kyi brothers, Ivan and Petro. Together the three men were among the founders of KRASNO. 60 Ivan Zhydovs'kyi (1897-1982) was born in the village of Sarisske Jastrabie. His secondary school education at the Piarist gymnasium in Sabinov was interrupted in 1915, when he was drafted 60 See the entry " Karaman, Vasyl"' in Magocsi and Pop, eds., Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture, 228. �114 SLOVAKIA 2019 into the Austro-Hungarian Army. A year later he was captured on the Eastern Front. Like many prisoners of War, he embraced the Bolshevik cause during the Russian Revolution. During the Russian Civil War Zhydovs ' kyi served as a political commissar in the 216 th International Communist Brigade. When he returned home, he discontinued the role of agitator and became at least outwardly conformist. He completed his secondary education in 1919, and then studied law at the Comenius University in Bratislava, obtaining a degree in 1924. He worked for a time as a tax inspector in Uzhorod. By the I 930s he had a law practice in Uzhorod and he was director of the Presov branch of the Uzhorod-based Subcarpathia Bank. As a Russophile, Zhydovs ' kyi was prominent in the Central Russian National Council and in the Dukhnovych Society. Although opposed to the separatist Slovak government, he kept a lower profile then Kamman and was never arrested. He operated a law practice in Giraltovce prior to his invol ve ment with KRASNO .61 His older brother Petro Zhydovs'kyi (1890-1947) was likewise born in Sarisske Jastrabie. As a teenager Petro emigrated to America in 1905 . Although he acquired little formal education, he returned home on the eve of World War I detern1ined to work for the advancement of the Rusyn people. Drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army, he deserted, then was captured and sentenced to prison. After the establishment of Czechoslovakia, he joined the Agrarian Republican Party and served as deputy to parliament from 1935 to 1938 . During the crisis of 1938 Zhydovs'kyi joined with Ivan P' ieshchak in submitting a memorandum to the British envoy Lord Runciman, calling for the unification of the Presov Region with an autonomous Podkarpatska Rus' .62 Ivan P' ieshchak ( 1904-1972) was born in the village of Vel'ky Lipnik. After graduating from the gymnasium of Mukachevo and the Presov Greek Catholic Teachers' Co llege, he taught in the regional elementary school s. P ' ieshchak was active in the Union of Rusyn Teachers in Slovakia and helped organize the Union of Rusyn Youth in Slovakia (1933). At the same time he studied law, and attained a 61 See the entry "Zhydovs'kyi, Ivan" in Magocsi and Pop, eds., Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture, 55 l. 62 See the entry "Zhydovs' kyi , Petro" in Magocsi and Pop, eds., Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture, 551-2. �SLOVA.KIA 2019 115 doctoral degree from Charles University in Prague in the same year. By the mid 1930s P 'ieshchak was a prominent figure on the Rusyn political and cultural scene. He joined Andrei Brodii's Autonomous Agricultural Union and served as its representative in parliament. Interestingly, at this time he also worked closely with Andrej Hlinka's Slovak People's Party in the parliament's autonomist bloc . When Podkarpatska Rus' attained autonomy, P'ieshchak served as state secretary in Brodii 's brief-lived cabinet. After Brodii 's demise, he returned to Slovakia, where he maintained a law practice prior to his involvement with KRASNO .63 KRASNO rapidly expanded its network. By the summer of 1944 it controlled 3 7 villages in a sort of "partisan republic" between Medzilaborce and Stropkov. Intensification of partisan activityreinforced by Soviet partisans parachuted across the Carpathiansled to German military intervention in Slovakia at the end of August 1944. The clandestine military center of dissident Slovak Army officers , headquartered in Banska Bystrica, was already in touch with the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile in London. Its members had to proclaim the Slovak Nationa l Uprising under premature circumstances on August 29. 64 The Slovak National Uprising was a highly complex affair, which goes well beyond the limits of this study. It is sufficient to note here that it was dependent upon Soviet military support. Contrary to allegations by later critics, the Soviets did not deliberately betray the uprising. Their military capacity to cross the Carpathians was severely limited, particularly after the Germans occupied the Dukla pass. Yet the Soviets did not wish to forfeit the political influence they expected to enjoy in postwar Czechoslovakia, and rendered military assistance. In this capacity the Russian military 63 See the entry "P'ieshchak, Ivan" in Magocsi and Pop, eds., Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture, 384-5 . 64 Slovak soldiers, under the influence of Captain Piotr Alekseyevitch Velitchko intercepted members of a German military mission passing through Slovakia in the vicinity of Turciansky Sviity Martin. The Slovak soldiers escorted the Germans to the local barracks. It was Velitchko 's intention that the Germans would be disarmed there and that they would be sent to Ukrainian Partisan Headquarters in Kiev. But when the Germans attempted to depart, they were massacred by the Slovaks. Berlin then decided on a complete military occupation of Slovakia. At this point Lieutenant-Colonel Golian in Banska Bystrica issued the order to start the uprising. �116 SLOVAK.IA 2019 crossed through the Dukla pass for a third time in a military campaign that has been immortalized by local historiography. The Carpatho-Dukla operation, initiated on September 8, was undertaken by the 38 1h Soviet Army, led by General Kyril Moskalenko, supported by the 1s i Czechoslovak Army Corps, led by General Ludvik Svoboda. Many of the troops of the Is 1 Army Corps were Rusyns. In the autumn of 1939, as a result of the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, the Soviets had annexed eastern Galicia and merged it with the Ukrainian S.S.R. An estimated 30,000 Rusyns who were disgruntled with Hungarian rule crossed the mountains into eastern Galicia, expecting to be cordially received by their Slavic brethren. Instead, every single one of them was arrested by the NKVD (Soviet State Security) and received an eight to ten year sentence for the illegal border crossing. A full sixty percent of them perished in the Gulag by the time Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June of 1941. The survivors were released to join the I s i Czechoslovak Army Corps . Any Pan-Slav feeling- Russophile or Ukrainophi le alikewhich the Rusyn s may have had earlier had been beaten out of them in the Gulag. They merely wished to return home. In the autumn of 1944 it appeared that they would be the vanguard in the liberation of their homeland. Instead, they were committed to the meat-grinder of the Dukla Pass, where their casualties exceeded sixty percent. 65 The storming of the Duk la Pass was finally completed on October 6th. In the fighting which followed, the monastery community of Ladomirova was severely damaged. Most of the buildings, including the print shop but not the church, were destroyed. Now, too , the NKVD began rounding up Russian emigres in Slovakia. The monks fled to Bratislava, and from there fourteen of them emigrated to the United States. They entered the recently established Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, in upstate New York, where Archbishop Maksimenko now served as archimandrite. They built a church that was a replica of its predecessor in Ladomirova. A young Rusyn novitiate from the village, Vasyl' Shkurla (born 1928), ultimately became Archbishop Lavrl' , one of the leading figures of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. By the 1980s Holy Trinity had become a major 65 See Vladimir Baumgarten, "Fifty Years Later: An Inquiry into Soviet Military Policy During the Slovak Uprising" in Lewis White, ed., On All Fronts: Czechoslovaks During World War ff Part 2 (Washington , 1995), 2 19-28. �SLOVAKIA 2019 117 cultural center for Russian emigres. When the cello virtuoso Mstislav Rostropovich defected to the United States, he chose to settle in Jordanville in order to be near Holy Trinity. 66 The Germans torched large areas in eastern Slovakia as they were forced to retreat, including the town of Svidnik. General Svoboda was nonetheless hailed as a hero and liberator when he entered it on October 28 .67 After the liberation of Svidnik, the Allies temporarily went on the defensive. KRASNO partisans continued fighting in the hills north of Presov. In October their adherents welcomed a declaration by the Slovak National Council that a resurrected Czechoslovakia would consist of three equal nations- Czechs, Slovaks and Rusyns. It must be understood that Rusyns did not fight in partisan units exclusively of their own nationality. Jozef Rodak, longtime director of the East Slovak Military Museum in Svidnik, asserted that most partisan groups in the region had a mixed composition of Slovaks and Rusyns.68 To this day many people in eastern Slovakia have a dual sense of identity : they consider themselves Rusyns by heritage and Slovaks by citizenship. The realities of liberation at the end of World War II disappointed the aspirations of many Rusyns, particularly Russophiles. It undoubtedly di sconcerted them to discover that Moscow now considered them to be Ukrainians. There was already a precedent for thi s aspect of Soviet policy . In 1923 the delegation of Rusyn Communists attended a Party Congress in Soviet Ukraine and declared their acceptance of Ukrainian nationality. It was altogether practical for Soviet authorities to reaffirm acceptance of this principle at the end of 66 See the entry " Ladomirova Monastery" in Magocsi and Pop, eds., Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture, 266. 67 General Svoboda was designated as an honorary citizen of Svidnik. As president of Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring of 1968, Svoboda gave the town its first hospital. In I 979, the year of the old man's death, a statue of him was erected in Svidnik. Owing to the damage of autumn 1944, Svidnik is a modem town . Most of the buildings are constructed in the so-called "social realist" style. Svoboda ' s statue looks strangely at home among the imposing, unattractive concrete structures. 68 As a graduate student of Safarik University in Prefov who specialized in the history of his region during World War 11 , Rodak was frequently delegated to carry the briefcases of Soviet military visitors. He remained outwardly conformist throughout the Soviet era. After the 1989 revolution and the coll apse of the communist system, Rodak wrote a series of articles for newspapers in eastern Slovakia and southeas tern Poland in which he exonerated partisans who had fallen into disfa vor. �118 SLOVAKIA 2019 World War II. Throughout the war, the Soviets had pledged themselves to the recognition of Czechoslovakia' prewar frontiers . Yet now Moscow infom1ed the Czechoslovak government that it could not ignore "the will of the people." In the wake of the Red Army's occupation of Podkarpatska Rus ' , various National Committees were established to vote in favor of the province being merged with the Ukrainian S.S.R. In all fairness to these communities, they overall enjoyed popular support. 69 The region was officially ceded at the end of June, 1945. Across the Uz River, in the Presov Region , the Russophile leaders of the defunct KRASNO drew the politically correct conclusion. Now, they too, considered themselves Ukrainian. They reorganized themselves as the Ukrainian National Council of the Presov Region. They envisioned that the long disputed counties of eastern Slovakia would be included in the territorial transfer. Indeed, even before the war ended, Vasyl' Karaman and the Zhysov ' skyi brothers planned to stage a meeting in Presov in February 1945 calling for the merger. A Soviet military major explained to them that such a meeting would be inopportune. The war was still on, and the Soviet Union intended to honor its obligations to Czechoslovakia.70 With eastern Slovakia excluded from the territorial settlement, the Ukrainian National Council of the Presov Region now called for the resurrected Czechoslovakia to consist of three equal nations: Czechs, Slovaks and Ukrainians. The Slovak National Council had already expressed itself in favor of autonomy for the Rusyns. Now, in light of Ukrainian irredentism, it declared its Ukrainian counter• 1·d 11 part as mva 1 . Even after the Rusyns were officially classified as Ukrainian, the Russophile tradition not only persisted but predominated in the Presov Region . It must be noted that the Soviet 3gth Army was composed of elite Guards regiments, the cream of the Soviet military. Its soldiers conducted themselves in a correct and disciplined manner in 69 Yaroslav Pylynsky, Rising Ethnic Self-Awareness. Carpatho-Rusyns- Birth of a New Nation or a Political Game? (Copenhagen, 1998), 20. 70 Memorandum on the Ukrainian movement in Eastern Slovakia. Kosice. February 16, 1945 , in Nemec and Modry, Th e Soviet Seizure of Ruthenia, Document no.77 , 359-60 71 Magocsi , "National Assimilation: The Case of the Rusyn-Ukrainians of Czechoslovakia" in Of the Making of Nationalities, 262 . �SLOVAKIA 2019 119 their interactions with the locals after forcing their way through the Dukla Pass. This was in striking contrast with the soldiers of the 4 th Ukrainian Front, who penetrated Slovakia from the south, and who engaged in rape and widespread looting. This author can personally attest to the fact that citizens of the Svidnik area remember the Russians fondly as having assisted them through a bitter winter, and afterwards helped the locals plant their spring crops. Historian Mykola Musynka, himself a Ukrainophi le, summarizes the local attitudes as follows: The culmination of Russophilism in the cultural life of the Rusyns of the Prefo v Region occurred in the years just after World War II, when due to the Red Army's defeat of German fascism, th e Soviet Union enjoyed considerable authority among Rusyn-Ukrainians as well as Czechs and Slovaks. Everything "Soviet" was perceived as "Russian." Political propaganda attempted to portray the Soviet Union as an ideal country in which all peoples were united around the "Great Russian people. " The Russian language, Russian culture, the Russian individual, and the "Russian Soul " all symbolized the acme ofp e,:fection. 72 Russian Elementary and secondary schools proliferated after World War II, in addition to the Russian gymnasium in Presov, an additional Russian gymnasium was established in Medzilaborce on February 23, 1945, and trade schoo ls were opened in which Russian was the language of instruction. According to official statistics for the 1948-49 school year, there were 43 kindergartens, 276 elementary schools, 38 incomplete and 6 complete secondary schools with instruction in the Russian language, totaling 23, 11 2 pupils.73 After the Ukrainian National Council of the Presov Region was abolished, it was replaced by a new organization, the cultural Union of Ukrainian Workers (Kul'tumy sojuz'ukrajans'kyi trudjascychKSUT), which was staunchly supportive of the Communist Party. KSUT initiated numerous publications in the Ukrainian language. 72 Mykola Musynka, "The Postwar Development of the Regional Culture of the Rusyn-Ukrainians of Czechoslovakia' in Paul Robert Magocsi, ed., The Persistence of Regional Cultures: Rusyns and Ukrainians in the Carpathian Hom eland and Abroad (New York, 1993), 55. 73 Ibid, 56. �120 SLOVAKIA 2019 Beginning on June 28, 1952, by decree of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Slovakia, the language of instruction in all Russian elementary and secondary schools of Eastern Slovakia was changed to Ukrainian . The change in the school system was torturous for all parties. It was implemented too quickly. Instructors who had never studied literary Ukrainian were assigned to take month-long courses, after which they were expected to teach in that language. The vast majority of teachers detested it. There was a shortage of textbooks, dictionaries and other printed materials. Ukrainiazation nonetheless made significant strides in popular culture . In January 1953 , KSUT sponsored the first professional song and dance ensemble in Medzilaborce under the artistic direction of Jurij Kostjik. It was eventually reorganized as the Dukla Ukrainian Folk Ensemble. In September of that year, a Department of Ukrainian Language and Literature was established at the Presov Pedagogical Institute, which in 1959 became the Philosophical Faculty of Safarik University, under the direction of Petro Bungansyn. Literary works by Rusyns in the Presov Region reached an unprecedented level of publication in the course of a decade in the Ukrainian language. After 1959, the Ukrainian division of the Slovak Pedagogical Publishing House had a monopoly on the release of Ukrainian books in the Presov Region. During a thirty-year period it published 373 literary and scholarly works. Not all of them withstood the test of time. Many employed the so-called "socialist realist" style, reflecting a Marxist-Leninist ideological bent which conformed to Party dogma. Yet the Presov Region has produced works which have assumed a permanent place in the history of literature. 74 A number of former Russophiles moved with the times and adopted Ukrainian literary norms. Those Russophiles who remained outside the Communist Party could not expect a triumphal finish . Such was the case of Vasyl' Karaman, who, after the abolition of the body he had chaired, was accused of being a "Ukrainian bourgeois nationalist." The allegation was blatantly absurd: Karaman steadfactly believed that the future of the Rusyns was closely bound to the Soviet Union . He was nonetheless removed from political and cultural life in the Presov Region. Similarily, Ivan P'ieshchak was ac74 Ibid, 65 . �SLOVAKIA 2019 121 cused of bourgeois nationalism, driven from his home in 1952, and forbidden to practice law for nearly a decade. Ironically, some of the greatest beneficiaries of the new socialist order were those Rusyns of the 1st Czechoslovak Anny Corps who had survived the ordeal of the Dukla Pass. In spite of their suffering in the Gulag, they had fought bravely and well under General Svoboda, in fact becoming his favorite soldiers. 75 The treaty transferring Podkarpatska Rus ' to Soviet Ukraine contained a certain "exemption" clause. Those Rusyns with a record of service in the Czechoslovak Army could retain Czechoslovak citizenship. About half of them chose to do so, relocating west of the Uz. Svoboda redressed the balance for them as much as humanly possible, obtaining jobs for them in the military and especially in the security services. One might suppose that, after their experience in the Gulag, they would have been averse to serving as agents of repression. Instead, thanks to Svoboda' s generous patronage, they became overrepresented in the secret police, not only in eastern Slovakia but in Prague and Bratislava as well. This role fueled the hostility of their fellow citizens. Animosities smoldered beneath the surface for a full generation. During the Prague spring of 1968, the Slovak press suddenly became articulate in its denunciations: " ... this 15 year anti-Slovak movement in eastern ... Slovakia must be liquidated." 76 Slovak nationalists in particular resented the fact that the city of Presov served as a bastion of Ukrainophile activity. Slogans appeared on a number of buildings: "Presov was and will be only- and only- a Slovak city" and "Ukrainians, get out of Presov! " 77 The Slovak element of eastern Slovakia was not the only one which opposed the Ukrainian movement. Passive opposition was expressed by many Rusyns themselves . If they could not be themselves, the Rusyns opted for the closest thing, and voluntarily assimilated into the Slovak nationality. 78 The local dialect spoken was not foreign to them, unlike that of the Ukrainian textbooks imported from Kiev. Whenever local citizens were questioned by the police, they declared themselves as Slo75 Magocsi, "Magyars and Carpatho-Rusyns in Czechoslovakia" in Of the Making of Nationalities, 175. 76 Cited in Kulturny zivot (Bratislava) April 15, 1968 and Vychod (Kosice) November 29, 1968. 77 Magocsi, "National Assimilation", 283. 78 fbid, 264-70. �122 SLOVAKIA 2019 vak, fearing deportation to the Soviet Union. Finally, the relatively more advanced Slovak economy drew many to the industrial valleys farther south, where the process was completed. For those Rusyns who continued to consider themselves Ukrainian , yet another shock awaited in the following generation. After the 1989 revolutions and the collapse of communism in East Central Europe, first the Slovak and then the Polish government recognized the Carpatho-Rusyns as a distinct nationality. Many young Rusyns eagerly embraced the new orientation. 79 Conclusion. Unrepentant Russophiles: Yurkovsky, Kabuliak, Sidor and Karabelesh The demise of the Russophile orientation among the CarpathoRusyn people was undoubtedly, to employ a Marxist cliche, historically inevitable. An interesting story revealing the pathetic depths to which it had descended by World War II is provided by Marian Zgomiak, later a professor at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow , Poland. At the outbreak of World War II, Zgomiak was a 15 year-old Polish youth. When Poland was militarily crushed by Nazi Germany in September of 1939, Poli sh Army veterans hoped to escape to the West to fight again. Since most of the Polish soldiers fleeing abroad were between the ages of 17 and 30, two groups of people played disproportionately large roles in the domestic resistance movement organized by the Polish Home Army (Armija Krajowa- AK). One of them was Polish teenagers, who acted as couriers escorting the fugitive s to the border with Slovakia. Another was the Lemkos, who acted as guides. 79 The rejection of Ukrainian identity is by no means unanimous. On November 17, 1990, at the First Congress of the Ru syn Renaissance Society in Medzilaborce, spokesman Mychal Turok-Heter stressed that "while it is vital to preserve national pride, it is wrong to attack the Ukrai nians and the Ukrainian language . Gradually, the Ru syns will write and advance toward the common path which will lead them to fulfilling thei r mi ssive of peace for us all." See Myslenka, 75. Frequently, on the local level , there ex ists a certa in pluralism. In Svidnik, the Museu m of UkrainianRus'Culture acknowledges kinship with the former while stressing the regional identity of the latter. See the entry " Museum of Ukrainian Rus' Culture in Svidnik" in Magocsi and Pop, eds., Encyclopedia of Rusy n Histo1y and Cu lture, 337. �SLOVAK.IA 2019 123 Young Zgorniak was active in these border expeditions. On July 2, 1942, he and his father were arrested by the Gestapo. After the usual beatings and interrogation in the basement of the Gestapo headquarters in Gorlice, Zgorniak was transferred to the prison in Jaslo. Here he bonded with a Lemko prisoner named Yurkovsky. This Yurkovsky was an unrepentant Russophile. During World War I he and his father were hauled off to internment in Talerhof. Yurkovsky senior died there during the typhus epidemic. Yurkovsky junior returned to the mountain districts of Lemkovyna to serve as a teacher in the interwar years. He did not consider himself a Rusyn or even a Lemko, but a Russian. He was not receptive to Polish efforts to sponsor a separate Lemko identity. After the invasion of the Soviet Union in June of I 941 , the Nazi Government General (to which Lemkos west of the San River where subject) rounded up Lemkos known for their pro-Russian sentiments. In this manner Yurkovsky found himself in the prison of Jaslo. Both the quality and quantity of food in the prison of Jaslo left much to be desired. In September of 1942 German authorities loosened the regime to the point where Lemkos (but not Poles) could receive food packages. Arrangements were made for Zgomiak's mother to send food to Yurkovsky, who shared it with her son. Working together in the hospital section of the prison, they had the opportunity to engage in intellectual discussions. Zgorniak records the following: During one of the discussions I asked whether or how he could coordinate the Carpatho-Rusyn orientation on the Russia ruled by the Tsar with an orientation on a Russia ruled by the Bolsheviks who had overthrown and murdered the Tsar and his family. He said he could do so because "after the death a/father in Talerhof I had the dream . In it my father appeared and said 'the cause for which both are fighting shall be successful! ' That dream I keep in mind and I believe it will prove to be true. "80 80 Marian Zgomiak, " Meeting with Lemko leaders who had been arrested by the Gestapo and who were in prison in Jaslo 1942" in Best and Moklak, eds ., The Lemko Region, /939-194 7, 129. �124 SLOVAKIA 2019 Zgomiak asserts that he was convinced Yurkovsky and other Lemkos could have been released had they declared themselves Ukrainians. They declined to do so. Eventually, Yurkovsky was transferred to a concentration camp in Pruszkow, from which he was liberated before the end of the war. Yurkovsky then became sold on the plan jointly agreed upon by the Polish and Soviet governments to encourage Lemkos to emigrate to the east. Those whose villages had been destroyed during the Carpatho-Dukla operation went willingly. Others followed Yurkovsky across the border. They were by no means satisfied with living conditions in Soviet Ukraine, and turned on Yurkovsky for encouraging them to leave in the first place. He suffered something akin to a nervous breakdown and developed heart disease. Zgomiak concluded: "I remember him as an intelligent fellow who despite hi s various interests was fatally attracted to the idea for which he fought." 81 In light of its ignominious end in the realm of politics, what remains of the Russophile tradition among the Carpatho-Rusyns in the realm of culture? Here the author wishes to turn to the areas of religion and literature. In the area of reli gion, the Orthodox faith has provided a certain legacy. It must be understood that the majority of Rusyns professing any religious belief adhere to the Greek Catholic rather than the Orthodox Church . Yet the Orthodox revival of the early twentieth century made an enduring impact which was embraced by the communist regimes after World War II. Its most enthusiastic protagonist was Aleksander Kabuliak. At the end of World War I he was released from prison and became a major figure of the Orthodox revival in Czechoslovakia. There was a sc hi sm within the Orthodox Church in the 1920s. Its adherents were subject to the Serbian patriarchate, whereas Czech converts to Orthodoxy wanted their own autocephalous Orthodox Church. They appealed to the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople. On March 4, 1923 he consecrated the archimandrite Savritij as bishop. Bi shop Savritij 's leadership was contested by Bishop Gorazd, the Serbian patriarch 's representative. Kabuliak sided with the Serbian patriarchate in this di spute. With the Orthodox Church temporarily paralyzed and depri ved of an acting bishop, Kabuliak assumed the role of administrator. The Hungar81 Ibid, 129. �SLOVAKIA 2019 125 ians did not molest him during World War II, nor did he do anything to provoke them. But on November 18, 1944, on behalf of the Orthodox believers of Podkarpatska Rus ', Kabuliak wrote a letter to no less a personage than Soviet leader J. V. Stalin. He recommended the establishment of a Carpatho-Russian Soviet Republic encompassing territory extending "from Iasnyia to Poprad and from Uzhok Pass to Debrecen." 82 Since Moscow was already planning to incorporate Podkarpatska Rus' into the Ukrainian S.S.R., this was not an option. Yet in the following month Kabuliak led a delegation to Moscow requesting the transfer of episcopal jurisdiction from the Serbian to the Moscow patriarchate. Here his efforts were crowned with success. In posthumous recognition of his achievement, in 200 I the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow patriarchate) canonized Kabuliak as the first Carpatho-Rusyn saint. Eastern Galicia, like Podkarpatska Rus ', was ceded to Soviet Ukraine at the end of the war. In both areas incoming communist regimes declared the Greek Catholic Church abolished and transferred its parishes to the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church. In Galicia most of the clergy accepted the formal change and retained their old parishes. The Ukrainian character of the church consequently survived . In Transcarpathia the Greek Catholic clergy was more resistant to Orthodoxy and it was imposed more forcefully. Bishop Teodor Romza of Mukachevo was brutally murdered, while lesser clergymen were arrested and deported.83 They were replaced by Russian priests di spatched from Moscow. The Orthodox Church here acquired an expressively Russian character. From the standpoint of Rusyn culture, inclusion into the Russian Orthodox Church was a double-edged sword. In America, Reverend Alexis Toth had sought to convince his flock that the best way to preserve their rite, tradition and identity was through conversion to Orthodoxy. Yet St. Alexis (He too was canonized) had a great love for the variety of liturgical music known as Carpathian plainchant. 82 See the entry "Kabuliak, Aleksander" in Magocsi and Pop, eds. , Encyclopedia of Rusyn Hist01:y and Culture, 223 . 83 Pekar, 151 -4. �126 SLOVAK.IA 2019 This and another native aspects of worship were submerged by Russian liturgical tradition .84 In Czechoslovakia the legal status of the Greek Catholic Church was restored as a result of the liberal reforms of the Prague spring of 1968. Yet it lost its Rusyn character and became a force for slovakization. Much church property has been restored since the collapse of the communist system in 1989. Yet there remain adherents of the Orthodox faith in northeastern Slovakia. This author has an endearing memory of a visit to an Orthodox church in Svidnik. It was a modest, prefabricated structure, erected in the L990s. The morning was cold. There was only room inside the church for elderly parishioners. Yet a sizable crowd of young people remained standing outside. They displayed enough reverence to refrain from smoking throughout the Divine Liturgy. If the Rusyns can no longer be considered Great Russians, then the Russian government, and especially the Orthodox Church, wishes to retain whatever bonds still exist. While seminarians of the autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church have received their education in Ukraine, those who adhere to the Moscow patriarchate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have been educated in Russia. Such was the case of Dmitri Sidor, born March 29, 1955, currently rector of the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross in Uzhorod. Reverend Sidor heads a movement demanding autonomy for Rusyns of Ukraine. He stresses the religious character of his people, and the similarity of their language with Old Church Slavonic. On December 19, 2008 , the Rusyn issue was raised at an international conference held on the Don, southern Russia. The conference was entitled "Genocide and Cultural Ethnocide of the Rusyns of Carpathian Rus' [from the end of the nineteenth to the beginning of the twenty first century]." A resolution was adopted. It stated that, alongside the Armenians, the Rusyns were the first victims of genocide in the twentieth century, thi s in reference to the policy of the Austro-Hungarian military during the First World War. Today, the resolution continued, Kiev engaged in a "policy of cultural ethno- 84 Paul Robert Magocsi, "Adaptati on Wi thout Assimilati on: The Genius of the Greek Catholic Church of Mukachevo" in Of the Making of Nationalities, Volume 11 , 202. �SLOVAKIA 2019 127 cide." It pointed out that the Rusyns were recognized as a distinct nationality by numerous countries, but not Ukraine. 85 The Ukrainophile orientation responded to the Rostov conference. One articulate response may be found in the working paper "Political and Ethno-Cultural Aspects of the Rusyns' Problem: A Ukrainian Perspective," by Natalya Belitzer of the Py lip Orlyk Institute for Democracy in Kiev. She outlines the tortutous, complex evolution of the history of a region which has been subject to numerous rulers. She echoes her colleague M. Lanchuk in asserting that the main issue at stake has not been the ethno-cultural identity of the Rusyns but rather what has been termed "political Ruthenianism," which many Ukrainians perceive as a threat. 86 According to Belitzer, the disintegration of the Soviet Union was accompanied by an artificial politicization of the Rusyn question. Belitzer is not opposed to Ru syn autonomy in principle. Yet, as a Ukrainophile, she considers the Rusyn tongue as a mere dialect of the Ukrainian language. Belitzer makes a particularly revealing admission when she states that "Ukrainian democracy is ... quite benevolent to the ideas and practices of the restoration of minorities ' own identity, but at the same time strongly denies Rusyn identity as being separate from the Ukrainian.,,s1 Therein lies the rub. If the Rusyn tongue is a dialect of the Ukrainian language, why is its use not permitted in schools? Rusyn schoolchildren speak one way at home but are required to speak another way at school. Such practices are grist to Dmitri Sidor's mill. Aside from the fact that Ukraine has an army and the Rusyns do not, Father Dmitri's movement faces two serious obstacles. For one, he is an Orthodox priest, whereas the majority of Rusyns still profess (or have resumed professing) the Greek Catholic faith. Secondly, while a majority of the Rusyns in the Presov Region and Lemkovyna 85 Resolution of the International conference "Genocide and Cultural Ethnocide of Ru syns in Carpathian Rus' [from the end of the nineteenth to the beginning of the twenty first century] Rostov on the Don, Russia. December 2 1, 2008 www.podkar~atskarus.eu 6 M. Panchuk, " Political Rutheni ani sm" in Demons of Peace and Messengers of War(Kiev, 1997), 323. 87 Natalya Belitzer, "Political and Ethno-Cultural Aspects of the Rusyns' Problem : A Ukrainian Perspective". Research paper prepared within the framework of the Programme on European Security (PROGRES) sponsored by the Center for European Security Studies and the University of Gronigen (Netherlands). Undated, 12. �128 SLOVAKIA 2019 consider themselves their own nationality, a majority of them in Transcarpathia consider themselves Ukrainian. Yet the movement has a growing popular appeal. In a state where bureaucratic centralism has had a constipating effect, autonomy can be a powerful laxative. Moreover, the Rusyns now possess a certain bargaining chip . A full eighty percent of all Russian petroleum and natural gas which is sold to Europe passes through pipelines in the area of Uzhorod. If the Rusyns were to succeed in establishing an independent state, they would be eligible to receive billions of dollars of gas transit profits from Kiev.88 In the realm of literature, the Russophile tradition has likewise established an enduring legacy. This is especially exemplified by the writings of Andrii Karabelesh ( 1906-1964). Karabelesh was born in the Transcarpathian village of Tibala, near Mukachevo. When he first attended the gymnasium in Mukachevo the language of instruction was still Magyar. This changed due to the arrival in Podkarpatska Rus ' of many Russian emigres fleeing the revolution. Karabelesh adapted to the russification of the school system so enthusiastically that he became the first secular writer among Rusyn Russophi les. He went on to study at the Theological Seminary in Uzhorod ( 1925-1928). While still a student he published- in Russian- two collections of poetry, lzbrany e stikhovtvorenia (1928) and V buchalh rassvieta ( 1929). These works have been characterized as "dominated by mysticism, a pessimistic outlook on life, and a love of Russian culture." 89 He did not complete his studies at the Theological Seminary because he converted to Orthodoxy. His conversion was less for religious than for cultural reasons. As literary historian Elaine Rusinko writes: "Karabelesh ' s deity is not the conventional God of the Greek Catholic catechism, but an amorphous, spiritual force that provides metaphysical potential and philosophical substance for the poet." 9 Karabelesh went on to Prague, where he obtained a degree in philosophy from Charles University in 1934. ° 88 See " Ukraine Laun ches Moderni zation of Urengog-Ponary-U zhorod Pipeline," Ukra inian News Agency, Jul y 19, 2011 . 89 See the entry " Karabelesh, Andrii " in Magocsi and Pop, eds., Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture, 223. 90 Ru sinko, 350. �SLOVAKIA 2019 129 Karabelesh continued writing exclusively in standard Russian. Unlike earlier Russophiles, he did not look towards Russia for the deliverance of the Rusyn people. In his estimation, it was no longer a matter of what Holy Mother Russia could do for Podkarpatska Rus'. It was a matter of what Carpathian-Rus' could do for Holy Mother Russia. In his enthusiasm for the great Russian literary giants, Karabelesh exhibited a tendency towards plagiarism, using some of their phrases directly in his own poetry. Karabelesh 's special favorite was Mikhail Lennontov, who merits attention here. Like his predecessor, the great Russian Romantic Alexander Pushkin, Lermontov wrote passionately, lived wildly and was killed in a duel. Unlike Pushkin, Lermontov created a literary genre in which the psychology of the protagonist played a leading role. This served as a precedent for the great novels of Dostoyevsky later in the century.91 In his poem "Nevdol'strie" (Dissatisfaction), Karabelesh quotes Lermontov's Pechorin: "I was not born for happiness. " 92 Anyone who studies the course of Karabelesh 's life would probably agree. He taught secondary school for a time in Podkarpatska Rus ', but when the Hungarians reoccupied the region he fled to Bohemia. Karabelesh participated in the Czech Resistance against the Nazis, heading a small underground group in Litamsyl. In this capacity he was arrested by the Gestapo in 1942. He passed the remainder of the war in the concentration camps of Mauthausen and Buchenwald. After the war he remained for a time in western Czechoslovakia, serving as principal of the gymnasium of Svitavy (19451953). Then he moved to the Presov Region, where he taught Russian language and literature at Safarik University. Although a member of the Ukrainian section of the Slovak Writers Union, he continued to write exclusively in Russian. It was not simply a case of Karabelesh being unwilling to move with the times. The red banner of the October Revolution replaced the grey skies in "V karpatikh osin" (Autumn in the Carpathians ). 93 Yet the apolitical, pessimistic tone of Karabelesh 's poetry became increasingly an object of attack by communist ideologues. In 1956, when the Soviet Communist Party was 91 See Semyon Eks hut, " Pushkin 's Heir" Russian Life, 42 , No, 6 (October/November 1999), 20-32. 92 Rusinko, 353. 93 Ibid, 362. �130 SLOVAKIA 2019 in a state of ideological crisis in the aftermath of Stalin's death , Karabelesh raised his voice in criticism of the imposed ukrainization of the Rusyn people. He was subsequently expelled from the Slovak Writers Union and returned to Bohemia. In the homeland, literary hi storian and defender of the "social realist" genre Iurii Bolega opened an ideological offensive against Karabelesh ' s work, condemning it as having a Russian chauvinist and anti-social character. One may ask why Karabelesh would wish to return home under such circumstances. Yet the years he spent in concentration camps had undennined hi s health, and Karabelesh was of the opinion "Where you are born, there you should die! " 94 Terminally ill, Karabelesh finally returned home in 1964. He died in Mukachevo on September 4 . In the post-communist era his poetry has experienced a revival of popularity. The Eastern Carpathians constitute an area of scenic beauty, but also in many places one of the depressing poverty. In his poem " Moi Narod" (My Nation), Karabelesh focuses on "fences and of abandoned gardens," "dried out grape vines," "bars of broken down churches," "unplowed fields," and so on. His writing reflects the mixture of beauty and melancholia that is essential to the brooding Slavic soul. If the Russophile tradition never reached the level of popularity that the Ukrainophile orientation attained, it nonetheless remains an essential part of the cultural landscape. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author wishes to thank and express his deep appreciation to Bob Broedel , president of the Tallahassee-Krasnodar Sister City Program, for hi s technical assistance in accessing material published in Russia and Ukraine. 94 Ibid, 359. � 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 2019, Vol. 44 Description An account of the resource Vol. 44 (No. 82-83), 2019. 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 2019 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 2019 83 RUSSOPHILES WITHOUT RUSSIA R. Vladimir Baumgarten (Dedicated to the Memory ofNikolaj Ordos) The Carpatho-Rusyns, technically a stateless people, have been dubbed the "Kurds of Central Europe." They straddle the northern and southern slopes of the Carpathian mountains in the border re1 gions of Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine and Romania. Since the 1989 revolutions and the collapse of Communism in East Central Europe, both the Slovak and Polish governments have recognized the Carpatho-Rusyns as a distinct nationality. Ukraine, where the largest number of Rusyns dwell, does not. After World War II, incoming communist governments classified the Rusyns as Ukrainians by administrative fiat for reasons of convenience, which shall be explained below. The current post-communist government of Ukraine adamantly adheres to this position. 2 Further west, across the Uz river, many Carpatho-Rusyns in eastern Slovakia have voluntari ly assimilated into the Slovak nationality, for reasons which shall likewise be explained in this essay. The first impetus for the Rusyn national awakening came from a belief that they were part of a Great Russian nation, extending "from the Poprad River [in eastern Slovakia] to the Pacific." 3 The Russophile tradition influenced Carpatho-Rusyn culture and politics for a full century. An examination of its history reveals more than a few 1 Paul Robert Magocsi , " Mapping Stateless Peoples: The East Slavs of the Carpathians," Canadian Slavonic Papers, XXIX, Nos. 3-4 ( 1997), 301-54. 2 The Ukrainophile viewpoint was exemplified by Viacheslav Chomovil ( 19371999). During the Brezhnev era, Chomovil was a dissident journalist and human rights activist. He was sent to the labor camps several times for separatist activities. In the late I 980's he was one of the leaders of the People's Movement of Ukraine (better-known as Rukh). After the Soviet Union disintegrated and Ukraine became independent, Chomovil became alarmed by the Rusyn political renaissance. He considered it separatist and urged the Prosecutor General's office in Kiev to file charges aga inst its protagonists. 3 Paul Robert Magocsi , "The Nationalist lntelligentia and the Peasantry in Twentieth Century Subcarpathian Rus "', in Magocs i, Of the Making of Nationalities Th ere is No End, Vol. I (New York, 1999), 19. 84 SLOVAKIA 2019 ironies. In retrospect, it seems remarkable that the Russophile tradition lasted as long as it did. Indeed, remnants of it exist to this day. The current essay is an attempt to explain its rise and fall. The Russophile Tradition in Habsburg Hungary, Galicia and America The homeland of the Carpatho-Rusyns has been alternatively referred to as Ruthenia, Podkarpatska Rus' (Subcarpathian Rus '), Transcarpathia and Carpatho-Ukraine. For reasons of convenience, this author shall refer to it as Podkarpatska Rus' . It was part of the Kingdom of Hungary for about 900 years. Much of Podkarpatska Rus' was a game preserve for the Hungarian nobility. Its Eastern Slav peasants, shepherds and lumberjacks were forbidden to hunt the deer, even when the latter devoured the people's meagre cabbage plots. Starvation was common. The Rusyns were the most impoverished and illiterate ethnic group in the Hungarian kingdom. Originally a bastion of the Russian Orthodox Church, the homeland of the Carpatho-Rusyns was a battleground and passageway in the ongoing struggle between the Austrian Habsburgs and the Transylvanian princes. In order to wean these people away from any allegiance to the Transylvanian princes, most of whom were Calvinists, the Habsburgs decided to incorporate them into the Roman Catholic Church. They accomplished this by creating a Slavonic/Greek Rite of the church. At the Union of Uzhorod (April 24, 1646), 63 Orthodox priests pledged to recognize the primacy of the pope and the sanctity of Roman Catholic doctrine in exchange for keeping the Slavonic liturgy and a married clergy.4 These clergymen were exempted from the feudal burdens of serfdom, received an income from their parishioners, and could send their sons to seminaries in the Habsburg Monarchy for higher education. Despite this favorable concession from the Imperial House, the Rusyns remained generally loyal to their Magyar lords. This was especially the case of the Kuruc (Crusader) uprising and freedom war of Ferenc Rakoczi II ( 1703-1711 ). 4 For the most comprehensive study of this event, see Michal Lacko, "The Union of Uzhorod," Slovak Studies, VI ( 1966), 7-190. SLOVAK.IA 2019 85 The contribution of the Rusyns was sufficiently valorous for them to receive the title gens fidelissima ("the most faithful people").5 In the first half of the nineteenth century, when the various Slavic nationalities of the Habsburg Monarchy-Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs and Croats-launched their own national revivals, the Rusyns were slow to respond. No Rusyns attended the Slav Congress during the revolutionary year 1948. On the contrary, Greek Catholic seminarians in Uzhorod abandoned their intended vocations in order to volunteer for the Hungarian honveds (National Guard) during Hungary' s 1848-1849 war of independence.6 A few educated Rusyns were aware of a certain kinship with Russia. In 1791 Ivan Orlai ( 1771-1829) emigrated to Russia. A schoolteacher, he had been denied advancement in the Austrian system of education. In St. Petersburg he studied medicine and ultimately became court surgeon, actively working in the reorganization of the Russian medical profession. He advised the Ministry of Education to invite other educated Rusyns "since they usually know Church Slavonic thoroughly." 7 Orlai served as Mentor to Nikolaj Gogol, author of Taras Bulba, the Russified Ukrainian who ultimately became one of the literary giants of nineteenth-century Russia. Orlai encouraged other Russian scholars to take an interest in their kinsmen on the other side of the Carpathians. Meanwhile, a Greek Catholic eparchy was established in Presov, eastern Slovakia, in 1818. Its eparch (bishop), Hrihory Tarkovych, was an active pioneer of Russian culture. In expanding his library, he imported the complete works of the eighteenth-century Russian intellectual and scientist Mikhail Lomonosov.8 5 The Rusyns gained this title as a result of a battle fought near Trencin castle in western Slovakia on August 4, 1708. During the fi ghting Rakoczi vaulted across a ravine on horseback. He was thrown forward , striking his head and losing consciousness. His Carpatho-Rusyn peasant infantry held its ground long enough for him to be carried from the fi eld. Outnumbered and outgunned by the Imperial regulars, these Rusyns were subsequently massacred. 6 Paul Robert Magocsi, The Shaping of a National Identity: Subcarpathian Rus: / 848-1 948 (Cambridge, MA: 1978), 43. 7 Elaine Rusinko, Straddling Borders: Literature and Identity in Subcarpathian Rus ' (Toronto, 2008), 99. 8 Athanasius Pekar, The History of the Church in Carpathian Rus' (New York, 1992), 89. 86 SLOVAKIA 2019 The first real impetus for the Carpatho-Rusyn awakening came as a result of the Russian military intervention against the Hungarian war of independence in 1849. It was not undertaken to liberate the Slavs of Hungary who were in a state of revolt against Magyar tyranny. Tsar Nicholas I of Russia employed far more autocratic powers than did the House of Habsburg and regarded the stamping out of the fires of revolution, which had swept Europe since the previous year, as a self-evident duty. Polish revolutionary veterans were serving on the Hungarian side and he feared the spread of revolution to his Polish possessions. Nicholas was no Pan-Slav. Two years earlier a nest of such agitators had been discovered in Kiev. It called itself "The Brotherhood of Sts . Cyril and Methodius," and, according to Nicholas, its adherents had invented some monstrosity called the Ukrainian nationality. One of its leading members was not only Ukraine's best poet, but its best painter as well. His people sought ties with the Czechs and Slovaks. Nicholas saw to it that several of them were jailed and he had Taras Schevcenko drafted into the Russian army for ten years, during which time he was forbidden to write or sketch. 9 A number of Russian Pan-Slav politically conservative individuals sympathized with the Slovak people. Tsar Nicholas admonished the Slavophile journalist Ivan Aksakov ( 1823-1886) that, under the guise of a general Slav alliance, subversive elements in the Kingdom of Hungary wished to create a struggle which was not in the name of 0 God, but in a spirit of mutiny, which was dangerous to Russia. ' The Russian military commanders carefully studied the earlier conflicts between the Habsburgs and the Transylvanian princes . They observed that The Austrians had traditionally moved against Transylvania by starting from Kosice in eastern Slovakia. It was considered safer to cross the Hornad and Tisa rivers in the Carpathian 11 foothills than to assault Transylvania from the Hungarian plain. On June 9, the main Russian army commanded by Field Marshal Ivan Paskievitch, consisting of 70,890 soldiers and 240 cannon poured into Slovakia through the Dukla Pass from partitioned Po9 Pav lo Zaitsev, Taras Shevchenko. A Life (Toronto, 1989), 139-57. °Cudovit Holotik, "The Slovaks: An Integrating or Disintegrating Force?" Austrian 1 Histo ry Yearbook, III , Part 2 ( 1967): 2. 11 William Stiles, Austria in 1848-50, II (New York, 1850), 294. Stiles was the American charge d'affaires in Vienna during the revolutionary events of 1848-49. SLOVAKIA 2019 87 land. The Russians captured Presov on June 20 and took Kosice five days later. To supply their army, the Russians stockpiled large amounts of foodstuffs at the northern end of the Dukla Pass. However, the military bureaucracy of Tsar Nicholas was inefficient. Provisions were made to transport the artillery but not the food . Austrian quartermasters, who also had a supply of food , and were allied with the Russians, had fled the area. The Russian soldiers, hungry and exasperated, turned to plunder. Don Cossacks looted a number of Slovak villages so thoroughly that the inhabitants fled into the for12 ests . The Russian intervention in this area would be remembered with ill-feelings by Magyars and non-Magyars alike. There were Slovak Pan-Slavs who were willing to overlook Russian misconduct. They convinced themselves that Grand Duke Konstantin was preparing to transfer his headquarters from Warsaw to Kosice, where he would proclaim a new Slav state. Slovak leaders appealed to the Russian embassy and military mission in Vienna for recognition. They requested that Slovak advisors and regional administrators be attached to the Russian military in eastern Slovakia. Tsar Nicholas replied to one such request "I received the same thing yesterday from Danilevsky [the Russian consul in Belgrade]. I have no time for such matters." 13 On the other hand, the reception of Russian military intervention was not universally negative. Rusyn peasants in the highlands witnessed a mighty Slav army in their region for the first time. They were awed. They gave fruits and nuts to the invaders. Aleksander Dukhnovych, soon to become an awakener among the Rusyns, later wrote, "One thing really gave me joy in life, and that was in 1849 when I first saw the glorious Rus sian army .. .I can't describe the feeling of gladness at seeing the first Cossacks on the streets of Presov. I danced and cried with delight. .. It was truly the first, perhaps the last, joy of my life." 14 Aleksander Dukhnovych (1803-1865) was born in the village of Topol 'a in the Humenne region of eastern Slovakia. He was descended from Greek Catholic priests and was consequently educated 12 John Shelton Curtis, The Russian Army under Nicholas I, 1925-/ 854 (Durham, NC, 1865), 298 . 13 Holotik, 383. 14 Quoted in Magocsi, The Shaping of a National Identity, 45. 88 SLOVAKIA 2019 at the Theological Seminary in Uzhorod. After ordination as a priest in 1827, he was assigned to the bishop 's chancellery in Presov. His relatively progressive views clashed with those of the more conservative Tarkovych, who then assigned him to a relatively remote rural parish. Dukhnovych regarded his assignment as a godsend. In Uzhorod he had received a Hungarian education, which influenced his early writings. In the rural parish he discovered, or re-discovered, "the people." He was influenced by the Slovak National Awakening and applied its precepts to the awakening of his own Rusyn people. After the death of Tarkovych, Dukhnovych was reassigned to Presov and appointed eparchical canon in 1843 . He remained closely associated with the city-considered a Rusyn cultural center in spite of its Slovak majority- for the rest of his life. In 1850, after the suppression of the Hungarian revolution, Dukhnovych established the first Rusyn cultural association, the Presov Literary Society. His own literary contribution was considerable. In 1851 he composed the poem "Vruchanie," whose opening lines "I was, am, and will remain a Rusyn" became the motif for the unofficial anthem of the Carpatho-Rusyn people. He researched and wrote extensively on the Rusyn people. His monumental achievement was the play "Virtue is More Important than Riches," which is still performed regularly in regional theatres in eastern Slovakia and western Ukraine. 15 The ethical values expressed in this play mirror Dukhnovych 's role as a social reformer. He campaigned vigorously against illiteracy, alcoholism, and the lingering pagan superstitions which persisted among his people. The literary language employed-indeed, invented by Dukhnovych-was peculiar. It was a blend of Old Church Slavonic, standard Russian and the native dialect. His later disciples called it "the traditional Carpatho-Rusyn langage," while his critics derrided it as "jazychije" (macaronic jargon). 16 Indeed, while Dukhnovych was the greatest of the Rusyn awakeners, he inhibited the establishment of a distinctive Rusyn identity by his unequivocal adherence to the Great Russian idea. 15 For an English-language translation, see Aleksander Duchnovych, Virtue is More Important than Riches, ed. by Elai ne Rusinko (New York, 1994). 16 See the entry "Dukhnovych, Aleksander," in Paul Robert Magocs i and Robert Popp, eds. , Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture (Toronto, 2005), I06. SLOVAKIA 2019 89 If Dukhnovych was the unquestioned giant among the Rusyns in the realm of culture, then Adolf Dobrian' skyi ( 1817-1901) fulfilled this function in the realm of politics. Dobrian'skyi was born in Rudl'ov, Zemplin county, Slovakia, the son of a Greek Catholic priest. He attended secondary schools in Levoca, Roznava and Misko le, and then studied philosophy in Kos ice ( 1833 ), law in Eger (1834-36) and mining at the Academy of Mines and Forests in Banska Stiavnica, central Slovakia. He was fluent in several foreign languages, including Magyar, German, French, English and Italian. He visited Bohemia, where he was influenced by Frantisek Palacky, Karel Havlicek and other Czech national awakeners. Dobrian'skyi initially welcomed Hungary' s 1848 Revolution for the liberal reforms that it promised. But when the Slovak district of Banska Bystrica elected him as its representative to the Hungarian Diet, the Hungarian government rejected his mandate on the grounds of Pan-Slavism. Dobrian'skyi then indeed became a Pan-Slav. He moved to Presov, where he built a following which advocated a political union of the Rusyns of Hungary with those of Austrian Galicia. When the Russians prepared to invade Hungary, the Austrian government appointed him as its liason with Paskievitch. Dobrian 'skyi then served as advisor to the Russian military. After the defeat of revolutionary Hungary, the Austrian government imposed a centralist bureaucratic regime. Dobrian' skyi then became advisor to the Uzhorod Civil District, which encompassed four counties. He regarded the civil district as a prelude to the establishment of an autonomous Rusyn state under the Emperor of Austria. 17 Defeated in the Austro-Sardinian war of 1859, The Habsburg Monarchy was substantially weakened. It was forced to retreat from bureaucratic centralism and make concessions to the Magyars. Dobrian' skyi was recalled , and the old nobles began to reoccupy county positions. In 1866 Austria suffered another defeat, this time at the hands of Prussia, and resigned itself in 1867 to accepting the Magyar nobility as equal partners in the renamed Dual Monarchy of AustriaHungary. Emperor Franz-Josef allowed himself to be crowned King of Hungary in Budapest and the Hungarian nobles were granted complete self-government in internal affairs. By now their obsession 17 See the entry " Dobrian' skyi, Adolf," in Magocsi and Popp, eds., Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture, 93. 90 SLOVAK.IA 2019 with Pan-Slavism reached paranoid proportions . They viewed the magyarization of Hungary's Slavic minorities as imperative. Persecution of Slovak and Carpatho-Rusyn educational and cultural institutions became the order of the day. A similar course evolved in Galicia, the Austrian province of partitioned Poland. Shortly after the 1867 Compromise with Hungary came into effect, Empreor Franz-Josef appointed his trusted Polish confidant Count Agenor Goluchowski as Viceroy of Galicia. Goluchowski gained for his Polish nobles a degree of autonomy that mirrored that of the Magyars. The education system was polonized. This posed a direct threat to the advancement of the Rusyns. Educated Rusyns became politically divided. The Ukrainian movement gained the greatest strength . However, there were still Rusyns who adhered to the traditions of old Rus' .They stubbornly continued to write in Old Church Slavonic and isolated themselves from the people. Cultureally, these Old Ruthenians identified with Russia, but professed allegiance to the Austrian Emperor. Such a dual allegiance became more difficult to maintain as the nineteenth-century ran its course. Austria and Russia were no longer allies, and were in fact competing for hegemony in the Balkans. Similarly, the Rusyns of Galicia found themselves cast in the role of a political football in the rivalry of the two empires. A case in point was the career of Ivan Naumovych (1826-1891), who was born Galicia in 1836. In his youth he was strongly influenced by the Polish national movement. However, he experienced a turning point during the revolutionary year of 1848, when there was a brief uprising in the city of Lviv. Naumovych was observing the fighting from a hillside when imperial soldiers spotted him and assumed he was a Polish rebel. They arrested him, but Naumovych persuaded them to release him by convincing the Austrians that he was a Russian. 18 Being Russian, Naumovych decided, carried certain privileges. After 1850, when Naumovych was ordained a Greek Catholic priest, he became staunchly Russophile in cultural orientation. He organized opposition to a campaign organized by the Roman Catholic Polish clergy to latinize the liturgy of the Greek rite. In this ca18 Keith Dyrud, The Quest fo r th e Rusyn Soul: The Politics of Religion and Culture in Eastern Europ e and America, 1890-World War I (Philadelphia, 1992), 28. SLOVAKIA 2019 91 pacity he sought Russian support. At this point, Naumovych did not convert to Orthodoxy . He still regarded the Greek Catholic (Uniate) church as a potential bridge between Eastern and Western Christendom. Nontheless, inspired by his activism, an entire village in eastern Galicia converted to Orthodoxy in May of 1877. More conversions followed in the next three years. The Galician authorities charged Naumovych with treason. In their view his activity was not religious but political. Naumovych had indeed maintained contact with Russian Pan-Slav agents. 19In July of 1882 he was finally convicted and sentenced to eight months in jail. Other Rusyns who converted to Orthodoxy likewise found themselves hauled into court, although, surprisingly, a Polish jury acquitted them. Both the Austrian government and Polish patriots understood the necessity of not pushing the Old Ruthenians to the point of open subversion. The Ukrainophile movement predominated in Galicia, but the Russophile tradition was not going to go away. Galicia, unlike Russian Ukraine, was not a particularly productive agricultural region. Much of the countryside is hilly and the soil is poor. A bad harvest usually resulted in famine , and this happened at the beginning of the twentieth century. Russian Pan-Slavs responded by founding the Galician-Russian Benevolent Association in St. Petersburg on February 9, 1903. At the opening meeting acertain Father Petrov delivered the inaugural address. American historian Keith Dyrud described the subsequent address as follows: He likened the world to an artist's palette or a musician 's instrument. God was that artist or musician. The nationalities of the world were like colors on the palette or strings on the instrument. If some of the colors or strings are missing, the painting or music will be incomplete and this is a crime against the spirit. This crime against the spirit occurs when a culture allows itself to become divided. The separation of the people of Galicia and Carpatho-Russia (Subcarpathia) from the Russian nation was just such a crime . It is the obligation of a national culture to unite its people into a united nation. In other words, the orator was suggesting that it was 19 Ibid ., 28 . 92 SLOVAK.IA 2019 the obligation of Russia to unite in a single nation all people with a Russian culture. He included the Galicians and Subcarpathians 20 among the people with a Russian culture. Under the leadership of Count Vladimir Bobrinski , the GalicianRussian Benevolent Association extended financia l relief to famine victims of Galicia. Tsarist Russia, the most despotic and reactionary among the Great Powers, could appear benevolent while working to expand its influence. Bobrinski likewise dispatched agents to Podparkarpatska Rus ' , where starvation was an everyday occurrence, rather than a momentous event. The Hungarian government was less hesitant than its Austrian counterpart to prosecute Rusyns for conversion to the Orthodox faith. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the first converts to the Orthodox faith in Podkarpatska Rus ' materialized in the vi llage of Iza. They were simple peasants who disliked their pastor, a magyarized Rusyn, who replaced their language with Magyar in the parish school. Led by the cantor-teacher Andry Vladymir, they appealed to the Serbian patriarch, who had nominal authority over all Orthodox subjects of the Habsburg Monarchy, to send them an Orthodox priest. Greek Catholic priest and historian Athanasius Pekar, himself a Ukrainophile, later admitted: "All that needed to be done to liquidate the so-called 'Orthodox movement' in Iza was to appoint a new village pastor and reopen the parish school." 2 1 Instead, the Hungarian government arrested the participants late in 1903 for alleged ties with Russia, and in the following year placed them on trial in Marmaros. All the defendants were found gui lty of treason. The Maramaros trial made a deep impression on the mind of a simple woodcutter of Iasnyia named Aleksander Kabaliu (18771947). He had just been released from the army, where he had been persecuted by Hungarian officers for his Pan-Slav inclinations. Kabuliak had a pronounced inclination towards a monastic life . He made religious pilgrimages to Russia, Jerusalem and Mount Athos in Greece. At a Russian monastery in the last-named location, he was received into the Orthodox fold . He turned his home in Iasnyia into a veritable Russian museum, collecting and displaying icons. Fearing 20 21 Ibid. , 49-50. Pekar, I 05 . SLOVAKIA 2019 93 persecution by Hungarian authorities, Kabaliuk emigrated to the Russian Empire, where he was tonsured as a monk in 1910. The Russian Orthodox Church initially intended that Kabaliuk wou ld go to America and assume custody of a modest parish in Pittsburgh.22 Instead, he decided to return to Hungary to share in the martyrdom of the villagers of Iza. The Hungarian authorities were happy to oblige him. At the end of 1913 there was a second Maramaros trial, in which Kabaliuk and 94 peasants were the defendants. The Hungarians were hopeful that the trial would expose the activities of Count Bobrinskii and his associates. All it achieved was international condemnation of Magyar policies . Nonetheless, Kabaliuk was sentenced to four and a half years in jail, while 32 others were sentenced to one or two years and various fines. The rest were dismissed for lack of evidence. It was also at the tum of the century that many Rusyns followed the example of their Slovak kinsmen and neighbors in emigrating to America. Although members of both groups originated in the dirtpoor hill country of the eastern Carpathians, they tended to gravitate towards industrial centers in the United States. Surprisingly, America provided both stimulus for the Russophile tradition and a resurgence of the Russian Orthodox faith. Dyrud writes: The majority of the Rusyn immigrants came to the United States as illiterate peasants and had not participated in the intellectual and cultural conflicts that were raging in the old country. Thus it was in this country that Rusyn peasants from Galicia and Subcarpathia first lived together and found that they did not have as much in common as it first seemed. And it was in the United States that many of them first heard of the Ukrainian movement. And it was there that the Rusyns from Subcarpathia felt free to express national sentiments without the pressures of magyarization. It was in the United States that most of the Rusyn immigrants were told for the first time by the Russian Orthodox mission that they were really Russians. 23 22 See the entry "Kabaliuk, Aleksander," in Magocsi and Popp, eds., Encyclopedia o[ Ru syn History and Culture, 223. 2 Dyrud, 58 . 94 SLOVAK.IA 2019 Ironically, the Russian cause was indirectly aided by a most unlikely element: Irish American Catholic priests. Many of the latter resented the fact that Greek Catholic candidates for the priesthood were permitted to marry while they were not. Most outstanding was Archbishop John Ireland of Minneapolis-St. Paul. On December 19, 1889, he was visited by a Greek Catholic priest named Alexis Toth. Toth had been dispatched by the Presov eparchy to assume the pastorship of St. Mary ' s, a modest church recently constructed by the Rusyn community of Minneapolis. When Father Toth presented his credentials, Archbishop Ireland became greatly agitated. He informed Toth that he did not consider him to be a genuine Catholic, and denied him permission to administer the sacraments. 24 After consultation with the parishioners of St. Mary's, Toth conferred with Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Vladimir of San Francisco. The latter was eager and willing to accept the parish of St. Mary's into the Orthodox fold. Aside from Alaska, which Russia had sold to the United States earlier, there were up to the 1870s only three Orthodox churches in the United States. In addition to San Francisco, there was a Russian parish in New York City and a Greek Orthodox church in New Orleans. Native converts in America were exclusively Alaskan Aleuts and Eskimos . Now, however, the wave of Carpatho-Rusyn immigrants indicated a potential source of growth. Since nearly all Rusyn immigrants were in the eastern half of the United States, New York rather than San Francisco was delegated as an episcopal seat. In 1890 the construction of St. Nicholas Cathedral was completed in New York. Tsar Nicholas II personally donated 5,000 roubles to this project. His government subsidized the construction of other churches and supported activities of the Orthodox Missionary Society founded in Moscow. In Minneapolis, Father Toth founded the Russian Mutual Aid Society. These prosletization efforts exceeded all expectations. By the time of the outbreak of World War I in 1914, over one-third of all Rusyn immigrants in the United States had converted to Orthodoxy. 25 They served as enthusiastic supporters of the Russian cause in the Great War. World War I brought with it the culmination of the historic struggle for the Carpathians, and caused great suffering among the 24 25 Ibid 65-6 Ibid: 65 . • SLOVAK.IA 2019 95 Rusyns of Galicia, eastern Slovakia and Podkarpatska Rus' . By early September 1914 Russian armies had overrun much of eastern Galicia. Count Georgii Bobrinskii, brother of Count Vladimir, was made governor-general, and started a campaign to eradicate the Ukrainian movement. All Ukrainian cultural organizations, cooperatives and journals were shut down. The Russian language replaced Ukrainian in the school system. Hundreds of Greek Catholic priests were deported into the depths of Russia. There was admittedly some dissent in Russian governmental circles. Noted statesman Pavel Miliukov described Russian conduct in Galicia as a European scandal. Yet Foreign Minister Sergei Sazanov stated unequivocally: "Now is exactly the right moment to rid ourselves of the Ukrainian movement once and for all." 26 The Ukrainophiles had a measure of revenge when the AustroHungarian military reoccupied the province in the following year. They denounced their Russophile neighbors for alleged collaboration with the invaders. Hungarian troops carried out mass hangings. At the same time, Polish nobles spread rumors that the Ukrainophiles were covertly pro-Russian, so as to reassert their own authority in Galicia. In truth, thousands of Russophiles and Ukrainophiles alike suffered internment in Austrian concentration camps. The most notorious of these camps was Talerhof, near Graz. Sanitary conditions were deplorable, and an estimated 1,767 persons died of typhus and 27 other diseases. Austria's parliament was scandalized, and Emperor Karl ordered Talerhof closed early in 1917. Early in 1915, for the second of three occasions in the course of a century, the Russian military crossed through the Dukla Pass. This move came as a result of the seige of Przemysl, Austria-Hungary's principal fortress in Galicia. Russian troops occupied the Carpathian mountain passes to the south to prevent the Austro-Hungarian military from sending reinforcements to break the siege. Casualties on both sides of the winter war of 1914-15 were appalling. It is likely that more soldiers succumbed to the "White Death" (hypothermia) than were killed by enemy bullets. 28 Ultimately, the Austrian side 26 Orest Subtelny, Ukraine: A History (Toronto, Buffalo and London, 2009), 343. See the entry "Talerhof," in Magocsi and Pop, eds,. Encyclopedia of Rusy n History and Culture, 488 . 28 For rhe most recent account of the winter campaign, see Traydon A. Tumstell, Blood on the Snow: The Carpathian Winter War of I 9 I 5 (Lawrence, KD, 20 I 0). 27 96 SLOVAKIA 2019 gave way first. Russian soldiers under General Lavrl' Kornilov pushed through the southern end of Dukla Pass and advanced as far as the village of Lodomirova, just north of the town of Svidnik. Here they established a military cemetery for their dead. Lodomirova eventually became the site of a Russian cultural center in northeastern Slovakia, which shall be discussed in due course. The Russians did not remain in occupation of this toehold in Slovakia for long. Germany, Austria-Hungary's senior partner, launched a counteroffensive eastward across Poland, albeit at the cost of having enough troops to capture Paris. Russian troops painfully withdrew north of the Carpathians. They were now demoralized and ripe for revolution. Mass mutinies forced Tsar Nicholas II to abdicate on March 15, 1917. The reign of the Romanov dynasty had ended. Tsarist Russia was destroyed. Politically speaking, the Russophi-le orientation was now a dead letter. Culturally, its future was now an openended question . At this point Russophiles among the Rusyns looked with growing interest at the now ascendant Czechoslovak independence movement. The Rusyns in Interwar Czechoslovakia and Poland The Czechoslovak independence movement was a curious article. For almost a century, there existed an intellectual tradition which maintained that Czechs and Slovaks were two branches of the same nationality. Yet the concept of a politically united Czechoslovak state was largely the invention to Tomas Garrigue Masaryk ( 18501937), a Czech philosophy professor and notorious defender of unpopular causes. Perceiving that World War I would result in AustriaHungary coming increasingly under the domination of Kaiser Wilhelm ' s Germany, Masaryk decided to lobby among the opposing Western powers for Czecho-Slovak independence. In Geneva, in neutral Switzerland, he was joined by his protege, the sociology professor Edvard Benes. Together they proceeded to Paris, where they were joined by Milan Rastislav Stefanik, a young Slovak serving as an officer in the French Air Force. This triumvirate formed a Czech Action Committee Abroad, which was eventually expanded and renamed the Czechoslovak National Council. Given his position on this body, the French eventually gave Stefanik genera l' s rank. He raised a Czechoslovak Legion from prisoners of war and deserters SLOVAKIA 2019 97 from the Austro-Hungarian Army. The Czechoslovak Legion distinguished itself on the Western, Eastern and eventually Italian fronts, and gained increased Allied favor in the struggle for the recognition of the independence movement. 29 In 1918 Masaryk visited the United States, not only to gain official American recognition, but also a mandate from the Slovak community in America, since Slovakia itself was politically gagged. In October of 1915 the Bohemian National Alliance and the Slovak League of America had already concluded a preliminary agreement for cooperation in Cleveland. Masaryk proceeded to Pittsburgh to conclude a more formal agreement for a Czecho-Slovak merger. Masaryk's visit to the Mecca of the American Slovaks was greeted by a large manifestation of support which included South Slavs as well as Czechs and Slovaks. Yet the negotiations undertaken at Moose Hall on May 29-31 were not without controversy. Masaryk pledged Slovakia an administration, a school system and linguistic rights, but not its own parliament, as specified by the earlier Cleveland Agreement. Here Jozef Husek of the Slovak Catholic Jednota raised strenuous objections. Albert Mamatey, president of the Slovak League, impressed Masaryk with the seriousness of losing the support of the largest single Slovak organization. The delegates were evenly divided, and Masaryk finally broke the deadlock by signing a revised draft with all the proposals. 30 The steel towns of the greater Pittsburgh area were also heavily populated by Rusyns from Hungary. Following the lead of the Slovaks, many joined fraternal organizations, which not only provided 29 The Czechoslovak Legion in Russia was the most instrumental military force in attaining Allied recognition of the independence movement. With Russia withdrawing from the war in 1918, Czechoslovak legionnaires wished to be evacuated and sent to France, where a German offensive to capture Paris was anticipated. Attempts by the Bolsheviks to disarm them resu lted in their capture of the Trans-Siberian Railway and a legendary odyssey to the Pacific coast. It also gave the Western Allies a pretext to intervene in the Russian Civil War. The experience of the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia boats of a sizable amount of literature. The best Englishlanguage studies are authored by Victor M. Fie, The Revolutionary War for Independence and the Russian Question: The Czechoslovak Army in Russia 1914-191 8 (New Delhi, 1977) and The Bolsheviks and the Czechoslovak Legion. The Origins of Their Armed Conflict: March to May 1918 (New Delhi , 1978). 30 See Marian Mark Stolarik, "The Role of American Slovaks in the Creation of Czecho-Slovakia" Slo vak Studies, VIII ( 1968), 48-5 1 98 SLOVAKIA 2019 benefits to workers but published newspapers as well. Its members had acquired a measure of political awareness. One such organization was the Greek Catholic Union, headquartered in the HomesteadMunhall district. Another was the United Societies of America, which contained both Greek Catholic and Orthodox members, based in McKeesport. At the time of Masaryk's pilgrimage to Pittsburgh, the Czech independence leader was approached by Nicholas Pachuta, editor of the Greek Catholic Union's newspaper Rus 'kii Viestnik. Pachuta had recently converted to Orthodoxy. Up until this point he had advocated the incorporation of Podkarpatska Rus' into the Russian Empire. Now that there was no more Russian Empire, Pachuta approached Masaryk with the idea of union with a Czecho-Slovak state. He was soon afterwards expelled from the Greek Catholic Union. 3 1 Overall, the Greek Catholic clergy wished their homeland to remain part of Hungary. Many laymen wanted union with Galicia but insisted Galicia was Russian rather than Ukrainian. The end to the Great War was approaching, and territorial changes could be anticipated. One of President Woodrow Wilson's celebrated Fourteen Points for peace was "self-determination for the peoples of AustriaHungary." It was necessary to have a common program. Members of both organizations met in Homestead on July 23, 1918 to form the American National Council of Uhro-Rusyns. The subsequent Homestead Resolution read as follows: If the pre-war boundaries remain, Rusyns, as the most loyal people-gens fidelissima-deserve that Hungary provide [them} with autonomy. If new boundaries are made, they should be made according to nationality; thus, Uhro-Rusyns can belong nowhere else than to their nearest brothers by blood, language and faith, to the Galician and Bukovinian Rusyns. But if we are divided by foreign aspirations from Ukrainians and Old-Russians [Galician Russophiles}, the National Council demands in this case autonomy for Uhro-Rusyns so they can pre32 serve their national character. 31 Magocsi, Th e Shaping of a National Identity, 81. The original text of the Homestead Resolution appears under the heading " Do Vpukh Vhro-Rusynov zhivlych v Soed" in Prosvita, August 8, 1918 32 SLOVAKIA 2019 99 The Rusyns commissioned a young Pittsburgh lawyer named Gregory Zsatkovich ( 1886-1967) to represent their interests to the United States government. Pennsylvania congressman Guy Campbell arranged a meeting between Zsatkovich and President Wilson on October 21. Wilson thought it unfeasible to grant full independence to so small a nation in a geopolitically sensitive region, and consequently recommended that Zsatkovich seek autonomy in a larger state. He referred Zsatkovich to Masaryk, whose independence movement had been recently recognized by the U.S. State Department, Zsatkovich met with Masaryk in Philadelphia, where the latter hosted a congress called the Mid-European Democratic Union on October 23-26. According to Zsatkovich's memoir afterwards, Masaryk assured him: "If the Rusyns decide to join the Czechoslovak Republic, they shall constitute a fully autonomous state." 33 There remained a sticky issue. Rusyn territorial claims included several counties in eastern Slovakia. Here there were numerous Rusyns in the northern mountain districts whereas elsewhere the population consisted of either Slovaks or Rusyns who had already voluntarily assimilated into the Slovak nationality. Masaryk was further alleged to declare on this point: "The frontiers will be so determined that the 34 Rusyns will be satisfied." On November 12, at a meeting of the National Council of UhroRusyns in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the Czechoslovak option was provisionally adopted, albeit including the demand for the counties of eastern Slovakia. A subsequent plebiscite among the American Rusyn fraternals provided Zsatkovich with the desired results: out of 1,102 votes submitted, 732 (67 percent) were for union with Czechoslovakia and 310 (28 percent) for union with Ukraine. Additionally, there were 27 votes for complete independence, 10 votes for union with Russia, and 9 votes for remaining part ofHungary. 35 Back in the Old Country, the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in October of 1918 led to a power vacuum in many areas of the Carpathians. Several different national councils were organized by Rusyns, each of which had its own program for the fu- 33 Gregory Zsatkovich, Otkryhote-Expose bydaltelho gubernatori Podkarpatskoj Rusi (Homestead, PA , 1921 ), 5. 34 Ibid 5 35 Ma~o~si , Th e Shaping of a National Identity, 85. 100 SLOVAK.IA 2019 ture affiliation of the people. A Russophile group in eastern Slovakia, based in Stara Cubovna, initially wanted a merger with Galicia. Dissenters among them, led by the lawyer Antonii Beskyd ( 1855-1933), considered such a move impractical. They reconvened in Presov and declared themselves for union with Czechoslovakia instead. A new revolutionary government in Hungary pledged to grant the Rusyns territorial autonomy. A group of Greek Catholic priests in Uzhorod declared themselves in favor of this option. Another pro-Hungarian group met in Khust, but its speakers were shouted down by Pro-Ukrainian elements led by the lawyer Iulii Braschaiko (1879-1955). The Ukrainophle orientation had at last taken hold in Podkarpatska Rus ', and would grow progressively stronger. Most dramatic of all were events in the easternmost Hutsul region, centered around Iasnyia. Here the populace favored union with Ukraine, but, pending further developments, took matters into their own hands. In the early morning of January 7, 1919, a group of demobilized Rusyn soldiers, aided by troops sent by the West Ukrainian Republic, drove out the Hungarian garrison of 250 militiamen. On February 5 the victorious Rusyns proclaimed their own "Hutsul Republic," with a 42-member elected council and a four-man government. This little state existed until June 11, when the area was occupied by advancing Romanian troops.36 Late in 1918, Czechoslovak legionnaires returning from the Italian Front had begun a military occupation of Slovakia, and advanced across the Uz River. Uzhorod was occupied on January 10, 1919. The Czechoslovak position was strengthened as a result of a Bolshevik government assuming power in Hungary, much to the alarm of the Western powers. This Hungarian government wished to build upon the "Ruska Kraina" declared by its predecessor, the Karolyi regime. It went to extremes attempting to implement communist rule, threatening the death penalty for even the smallest commercial transactions. This decree became impossible to enforce, since the commissars were themselves profiteering. 37 Podkarpatska Rus' was soon engulfed in counterrevolution. 36 See Paul Robert Magocsi, "The Rusyn Decision to Unite With Czechoslovakia" in Magocsi, Of the Making of Natio nalities, 134. 37 Ibid, 140-42 SLOVAKIA 2019 101 Even before the establishment of the Bolshevik regime, members of the Uzhorod Council began experiencing doubts concerning the viability of remaining part of Hungary. A leading member of the Council, Reverend Avhustyn Voloshyn (1874-1945), began negotiating with Slovak leader Milan Hodza. Voloshyn was joined by supporters of both Beskid and Brashchaiko. The Russophiles realized that the Russia they had loved and believed in was unlikely to return from the dead. The Ukrainophiles realized that an independent Ukraine was unlikely to survive the turmoil of the Russian Civil War. Members of both orientations were willing to form a single body representing their mutual interests. It was in this spirit that the Central Russian National Council was formed in Uzhorod on May 8, 1919. Zsatkovich arrived with the text of the Scranton Resolution, which was endorsed unanimously. It remained to the Western peacemakers gathered in Paris to give sanction to Podkarpatska Rus' being granted to Czechoslovakia. Yet, contrary to later Hungarian revisionist claims, the victorious Western Allies did not arbitrarily hand the region over to the Czechs. The decision to unite with Czechoslovakia was that of the Rusyn people themselves .38 The realities of being part of the Czechoslovakia disappointed the expectations of many educated Rusyns. Autonomy was not forthcoming. They could send representatives to parliament in Prague, but did not have their own regional parliament. Prague apparently decided that the Rusyns, like the Slovaks, were not ready for autonomy. Zsatkovich became the first provincial governor, but the actual administration lay in the hands of a centralized Czech bureaucracy. Zsatkovich eventually resigned in disgust and returned to America. The disputed counties in eastern Slovakia remained under Slovak administration. To complicate matters further, there was now a group of Rusyns who considered themselves their own nationality, in addition to the existing Russophile and Ukrainophile orientations. Politically, on the local level, Prague would support one and then another orientation, depending upon its convenience at a particular moment. The Czechoslovak administration made great strides in education, virtually eliminating illiteracy in twenty years . The government poured tremendous amounts of money into Podkarpatska Rus ', and liberally funded cultural activities of all three orientations. 38 Ibid, 146. 102 SLOVAKIA 2019 On April 29, 1920, there was a meeting of local leaders in Uzhorod, headed by Iulii Brashchaiko. Its purpose was to establish a cultural organization encompassing all Podkarpatska Rus '. Nothing resulted from this meeting since Russophiles led by Anthonii Beskyd raised angry objections to the Ukrainophile cultural orientation of Brashchaiko ' s group. On May 9 Brashchaiko's fol lowers established the Prosvita Society, modeled along the lines of the Ukrainian society of the same name in Galicia. Its task was to publish all kinds of popular and scholarly books "written in the national tongue and accessible to every Subcarpathian Ru syn." 39 The Czechoslovak Pros vita was reinforced by many educated Ga li cian Ukrainians who found Polish rul e objectionable. On th e May 23 , 1923, those Russophiles who boycotted the Prosvita met in Uzhorod to establish their own organization, which was called the Dukhnovych Society. Its stated goals were to foster "the cultural deve lopment of the Ru ssian people living within Czechoslovakia, and most importantly to educate them in a moral , patriotic and Ru ssian spirit, exclusive of al l political activity." 40 The contrast between the two rival societies was visib le. The old tricolor Ru ssian flag flew over the reading rooms of the Dukhnovych Society, whereas Prosvita reading rooms displayed the blue and ye llow Ukrainian national colors. In terms of literature, the new Dukhnovych Society championed the great Russian masters : Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, etc. The Prosvita Society advanced the writings of Shevchenko and other less known Ukrainian awakeners. Both Russophiles and Ukrainophiles expanded their activities from literature to theater. The Ru ssophiles tended to produce hi storical dramas, whereas the Ukrainophi les focused on folk songs and ballads. The latter used standard Ukrainian as the language of performance, whereas the Russophiles had to translate their productions into a Rusyn dia lect. It must be frankly admitted that the Ukrainophile orientation gained the upper hand in popularity during the course of the kulturkampf for Podkarpatska Rus' in the First Czechoslovak Republic. Avtustyn Voloshyn had become a convert to the Ukrainophile orien39 Statul tova,ystva 'Prosvita • Podkarpatska Rus ·, (Uzhorod, 1920), 6. Usta v Rusakogo ku/'turna-prosvete/'noga obshchturni Aleksandra Duchnovychovicha , (Uzhorod, 1923), 40 SLOVAK.IA 2019 103 tation. He and his associates were astute and learned men-teachers and scholars who kept closely in touch with Rusyn cultural life. By contrast, the Dukhnovych Society fell increasingly under the influence of Stefan Fentsik ( 1892-1946), a local politician who used the organization as a platform to propagate a his own views, his political ties with Poland and Hungary-which shall be di scussed in due course-became common knowledge by 1937, and did much to compromise the Dukhnovych Society. 41 Russian culture survived more comfortably in eastern Slovakia, since 1928 elevated to the official status of a province. In large measure this direction was due to the efforts of Iulii Lazho (18671929), a native of Svidnik and senator for the Social Democratic Party in the Czechoslovak parliament. Earlier, Lazho had emigrated to America, where he converted to Orthodoxy and also rose in the construction industry. He returned home to start his own construction firm, and also to seek revenge against his former Greek Catholic pastor. As mayor of Ladomirova, where the Russian military cemetery was located, Lazho invited Vital ii Maksimenko ( 1873-1960), former archimandrite of the monastery at Pochaiev (in Polish Volhynia), to establish a missionary headquarters there. Lazho also procured a Cyrillic alphabet printing press which Czechoslovak legionnaires in Russia had appropriated, shipped all the way to Vladivostok on the Pacific coast, and which made its way to Prague. During two decades of activity the Ladomirova mission published over I 00 Orthodox church books, the newspaper Pravoslavnaia Karpatskaje Rus ' (1928-1944), the journal for young people Diestvo I ivnost Khristi ( 1935-1941 ), a scholarly journal Pravoslavny put' ( 1938-1940) and the annual almanac Pravnoslavny ruskii/Ruskii narodnyi kalendar ( 1924-1944). The Russian monks also worked to inculcate Russian culture among the native Rusyns, hosting such events as an annual Russian Day in the summers and the tree-lighting ceremony for Orthodox Christmas. 42 In approaching the causes of the Orthodox revival in interwar Czechoslovakia, it is necessary to understand the world view of the 41 Magocsi, "Nationalist Intelligentsia and the Peasantry" in Of th e Making of Nationalities, 200. 42 See the entry "Ladomirova Monastery" in Magocsi and Pop, eds. , En cyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture, 266 . 104 SLOVAKIA 2019 national-state's founding father. T.G. Masaryk was a complex individual. As one biographer expressed it: "This man wanted to emancipate workers without embracing Marxism, liberate women without promoting feminism, and educate the young without celebrating youth. " 43 He was considered in the West to be an expert on Russia. He had written extensively on the great writer Dostoevsky, whom he regarded as the classic representative of Russian thought. There were elements of the Russian national psychology which Masaryk found disturbing. Like Havlicek before him, he felt that the Western Slavs, especially the Czechs, should follow a different path . As a proponent of Westeren humanism, Masaryk disparaged the mystical tradition of the Eastern Orthodox faith .44 Yet Masaryk reserved even greater hostility for the Roman Catholi c Church. He drew inspiration from Jan Hus, the great Bohemian religious reformer who was burned at the stake for heresy in 1415 . In 1905, while celebrating the anniversary of Hus ' death, Masaryk coined the slogan "Away from Rome! " Politics in the first years of the Czechoslovak Republic had a distinctly anti-Catholic flavor. His government favored the appointment of Lutherans for administration in Slovakia at the expense of the Catholic majority. In Podkarpatska Rus ', where there were virtua lly no Protestants, such a policy was impossible. Here Czechoslovak authorities fostered a revival of Orthodoxy. One Czech mini ster assessed the impact as follows: It seemed to some Russophile politicians, both in Prague and in Ruthenia ... that the right time had come to convert the Rutheni an peasant back to the Greek Orthodox religion. This opinion was shared by many Russian emigres who flocked to Czechoslovak ia ... after 1919. A drive for 'Orthodoxy ' was started in Rutheni a ... It is a question of how much of this movement was spontaneous and due to the pro-Russian feeling of the population and to its di slike for the purely magyarized Uniate clergy, and how much of its strength it owed to the propaganda and preaching of the Russian Orthodox emigres and clergy and to the support of some Czech political circles. 43 Bruce Garver, "Masaryk and Czech Politics 1900-1914" in Stanley B. Winters, ed. , T G. Masaryk (1850- 193 7) Vo lum e I Thinker and Politician (London, 1990), 22 . 44 See Paul 1. Tresky, " Masaryk and Dostoyevsky" in Harry Hanak, ed., T G. Masa1y k (/ 850- 193 7) Volum e II/ Statesman and Cultural Force (London, 1990), 161-77. SLOVAKIA 2019 105 However, it certainly added one more element to the confusion reigning in Ruthenia and led to animosities which, in the end, turned against the Prague Government itself.45 Reverend Voloshyn bitterly remonstrated against the situation in Prague in 1929: The agitation usually began in the local tavern, where the agitator met the most notorious brawlers in the village. After a short talk, emboldened by 'noisy' arguments and vodka, the peasants would begin to shout abuse against the village pastor. In a matter of two or three days a ' committee' made up of the pastor's 'opponents ' would be formed. The committee did not immediately begin advocating Orthodoxy; instead, it showered the bishop with complaints and delegations, demanding that there be an investigation against the pastor or that he be removed outright. Then followed other forms of harassment, demonstrations, threats against the pastor, intimidation of church curators, and such . The committee would send the pastor letters demanding that he leave the vi llage. As time went on, the committee made increasingly bolder threats that the pastor get out ' or else!' .. .. If, despite such harassment, the priest remained in his parish, the threats escalated. Someone would break his windows, shoot into his windows, poison hi s well , set fire to his grain or stables, and in some cases even the parish house, assault and beat the priest, etc. The government remained indifferent to all this under the pretext of ' Freedom of conscience! Freedom ofreligion!' 46 This state of affairs could not permitted to go on indefinitely. Czechoslovakia was, after all, a republic governed by law. The Vatican made its own contribution to improved church-state relations by transferring Bishop Antonii Papp of Mukachevo to Hungary and replacing him with canon Petro Gebej on July 16, 1924. At the same time, in response to forthcoming parliamentary elections, President Masaryk cryptically declared that "the Catholics will get as many rights as they win." 47 Rusyn voters supported Czech Catho lic political parties which gained an increased measure of strength in parliament. The rights accorded to Greek Catholics by the constitution in 45 Frantisek Nemec and Vladimir Modry, Th e Soviet Seizure of Subcarpathian Ruthenia (Toronto, 1955), 38-9. 46 Avhustyn Voloshyn, " Relihijni vidnozny na Podkarpats ' kyi" in Acta Conventia Pragensis pro Studii Orentalibus n. 1919, (Olomouc, 1930), 218-9. 47 Pekar, 11 8. 106 SLOVAKIA 2019 any case were now enforced. Violence and vandalism were now prosecuted and soon ceased. In some instances church property was restored. Bishop Gebej led a religious revival which resulted in priests maintaining closer contact with their parishioners. A number of converts to Orthodoxy returned to the Greek Catholic faith. The Orthodox revival was one of the sources of survival for the Russophile orientation. Another source was, ironically, Hungarian funding . The fall of Bela Kun's communist regime in August of 1919 was followed by the restoration of the nobility in Hungary. Counterrevolutionary White terror now followed Red terror. Right wing elements who rallied under Admiral Miklos Horthy, soon elevated to the position of regent of Hungary, wanted to regain Slovakia and Podkarpatska Rus' but had to go about it covertly.48 The victorious Western powers would not recognize any government in Hungary which would not accept their peace tenns . On June 4, 1920, Hungary was compelled to sign the Treaty of Trianon, which ceded Slovakia and Podkarpatska Rus' to Czechoslovakia, Transylvania to Romania, and Croatia and the Voivodina to what became known as Yugoslavia. Trianon psychologically scarred Hungarian society for a full generation. France offered to soften the blow by extending to Hungary financial credits, particularly in the area of railway development, in exchange for compliance. Hungarian Prime Minister Istvan Bethlen cheerfully accepted the financial aid and outwardly complied with Trianon. Yet his government covertly subsidized elements in Slovakia and Podkarpatska Rus' who were disgruntled with Czechoslovak centrali sm. Having previously denied these peoples autonomy, the Hungarians now championed their right to selfdetern1ination as a first step toward regaining them. One of the recipients of Hungarian financial aid was Stefan Fentsik. Another was Andrei Brodii ( 1895-1946), a journalist, teacher and chairman of the Autonomous Agricultural Union/Autonomyi Zenled'skij Sojuz (AZS). Fentsik yielded leadership of the Russophile movement to Brodii during the 1930s. Ukrainophile historian Peter Stercho later maintained that Brodii, Fentsik and other select 48 As a precedent to future collaboration in this matter, Poland allowed itself to be used as a staging ground for Hungarian subversion of Czechos lovak administration . A "Magyar-S lovak League" was established in Krakow, and dispatched armed vo lunteers across the border into Slovakia. SLOVAKIA 2019 107 Russophile leaders had to conceal their ties with Hungary from their followers, since even the latter were opposed to territorial revision. 49 Polish policy towards the Rusyns of Galicia followed a similar pattern. In the area directly north of the Dukla Pass lived people belonging to a branch of the Rusyns known as the Lemkos. They can be geographically divided by the San River. The Ukrainian movement penetrated the area east of the San early in the twentieth century and accounted for numerous followers. In November 1918 Lemkos from about 30 villages gathered in the village of Komancza (Komancha in Rusyn) to form their own little republic. This Komancha Republic was viewed as a transitional state, pending merger with a greater Ukraine. West of the San the Lemkos still adhered to the traditions of old Rus'. In autumn 1918 they wanted union with Russia. Since this was obviously never going to happen, the Polish government could afford to humor these Lemkos, The Poles were preoccupied with the West Ukrainian Republic which was proclaimed in Lviv on November 1, 1918, and event which plunged Galicia into an ethnic civil war. On December 5, some 500 Lemko Rusyns representing 130 vi1lages and towns of western Lemkovyna met in Florynka (in Grybow district) to form a government. While the Polish military crushed the Komancha Republic in January 1919, it tended to view the Florynka Lemko Rusyn Republic as a potential ally against the Ukrainians. Polish officials who were present offered the former town hall of Grybow as a political headquarters, while the Polish Army provided arms for a Lemko national guard. Schools and cooperatives were soon organized. Amazingly, the Lemko Rusyn Republic survived a full sixteen months. It was governed by an executive council headed by Reverend Mykhal Iurchakevych and a central national council headed by the lawyer Iaroslaw Kachmarchyk. The Poles were disappointed with the results. The Lemkos were happy to accept whatever aid the Polish government and military were willing to offer but nonetheless were unwilling to take up arms against their errant brethren to the east. Additionally, Kachmarchyk's government rejected the notion of union with a Bolshevik Russia, and began looking at the example of 49 Peter Stercho, Diplomacy of Double Morality: Europe's Crossroads in CarpathoUkraine /9/9-/939(NewYork , 1971), 171. 108 SLOVAKIA 2019 their brethren of the south side of the Carpathians. A union with Czechoslovakia now seemed a viable option. Unfortunately, in 1920 relations between Poland and Czechoslovakia were at a particularly low point, owing to border disputes concerning Tesin in Silesia and Orava-Spis in Slovakia. Before the end of March the Poles arrested Kachmarchyk and members of his government. They were tried on June 10, 1921. A Polish jury acquitted them, which was only reasonable insofar as the Poles had encouraged their activities in the first place. But the event marked the death knell of Lemko statehood. 50 Yet the Poles still had use for the Lernkos in the interwar period. The Greek Catholic Church was strongly identified with the Ukrainian national movement. The leadership of the Polish military, overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, encouraged the movement to convert the Lemkos to Orthodoxy, and thus express a Russian character at the expense of the Ukrainian .51 It was a classic case of Divide and Rule. Elsewhere, in Volhynia, adherents of the Ukrainian national movement were Orthodox. Here militant Polish nationalists attacked and vandalized Orthodox monasteries and schools. At the same time, for reasons of security, Poland wished to have a common border with Hungary. For this reason the Polish government supported Hungarian efforts to regain Podkarpatska Rus' . The events which accompanied the international crisis in 1938 are well-known. The present author shall limit himself to summarizing key particulars. The Munich "diktat" of September 1938 resulted in Czechoslovakia being forced to yield the Gennan populated Sudetenland to Nazi Germany. Deprived of her most vital border defenses, Czechoslovakia was now rendered militarily defenseless. Hostile neighbors, Poland and Hungary, were now encouraged to make their own territorial claims. Moreover, the Prague government could no longer resist demands for autonomy on the part of Slovakia and Podkarpatska Rus ' . 50 See Paul Robert Magocsi, "The Lemko Rusyn Republic ( 1918-1920) and Political Thought in Western Rus' -Ukraine" in Magocsi, Of the Making of Nationalities, 303315. 51 See Mykola Kucherpa, "The Nationality Policy of Poland towards Ukrainians before World War II" in Paul Berst and Jaroslav Mokolak, eds., Th e Lemko Region 1939-1947, War, Occupation and Deportation (New Haven and Krakow, 2002), 3949. SLOVAKIA 2019 109 In the case of Podkarpatska Rus', a cabinet was formed on October 11 which consisted of both Russophiles and Ukrainophiles. Russophiles predominated, with Brodii as prime minister and Fentsik as deputy prime minister. Brodii was convinced that, if a plebiscite was held, the majority of Rusyns would vote for reunion with Hungary. Brodii 's ministry lasted only fifteen days. An alarmed central government summoned Brodii and Fentsik to Prague. There Brodii was arrested, while Fentsik found asylum in the Polish embassy. 52 Prague authorized Voloshyn, who was a member of the cabinet, to form a new government. Voloshyn proclaimed the province as an autonomous nation with the new name of Carpatho-Ukraine on November 3. The victory of the Ukrainophiles was at last complete. Autonomous Carpatho-Ukraine got off to a rough start. Hungary was prepared to re-annex the region, although conservative circles of the Hungarian government confined their claims to areas which were predominantly Magyar. Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy opted to appear in the role of peacemakers in this territorial dispute between Czechoslovakia and Hungary. They arbitrated a compromise settlement in Vienna on November 2, 1938. By terms of the First Vienna Award, Kosice, in southern Slovakia, and Uzhorod and Mukachevo, the two leading cities of Carpatho-Ukraine, were restored to Hungary. The government of Carpatho-Ukraine was forced to relocate to Khust, which was little more than an oversized village. Militant Hungarian nationalists regarded the First Vienna Award as a temporary expedient, and worked for the complete annexation of CarpathoUkraine. Under the auspices of the Ministry of Defense, a covert paramilitary group known as the "Ragged Guard" was organized to infiltrate Carpatho-Ukraine and conduct terrorist acts designed to destabilize the regime. Poland likewise dispatched paramilitary units for the same purpose. If the credible research of Ukrainophile historian Stercho is to be believed, the Polish paramilitary units outpaced their Hungarian counterparts in acts of terrorism. 53 Carpatho-Ukraine was in need of allies, and these were forthcoming. Militant Ukrainian nationalists from Poland crossed the mountains to organize the Riflemen of the Carpathian Sich. It has been argued by Russophile opponents that the Riflemen of the Car52 53 Magocs i, The Shaping of a National Identity, 238. Stercho, 302. 110 SLOVAKIA 2019 pathian Sich inaugurated the reign of "Ukrainian terror." It is true that they focu sed more on the Russophile domestic opposition than they did on Polish or Hungarian infiltrators. A detention camp was established for dissident Russophiles and Rusynophiles at Dumen . Yet conditions of internment were relaxed. Political differences extended to the family leve l, and prisoners under guard where permitted to attend social events in neighboring Rakhiv.54 There was a conflict of interest between the Carpathian Sich and the Voloshyn regime. Sich rifl emen viewed Carpatho-Ukraine as the cornerstore of a future greater Ukraine, and counted on the support of Nazi Germany. Voloshyn , by contrast, decided that adherence to Czecho-Slovakia (now officially spelled with a hyphen) was a necessary expedient. In March of 1939 there were clashes between the Carpathian Sich and the regular Czechoslovak military. This confl ict was abruptly terminated when German leader Adolf Hitler moved to eliminate what remained of Czecho-Slovakia . As he prepared to militarily occupy Prague, he disappointed Ukrainophi les by giving his consent for Hungary to annex the province. Under German pressure, Slovakia declared its independence on March 14. CarpathoUkraine was now cut off from the Czech lands. With Hungarian troops already crossing the border, Voloshyn symbo li cally proclaimed Carpatho-Ukraine's independence on March 15 . Carpatho-Ukraine existed as an independent state for all of a day . On the 16 th , Hungarian military units were fighting for Khust. The Riflemen of the Carpathian Sich resisted with admirab le resolve , but its units were scattered and no match for the Hungarian army. They later regrouped in the mountains or were pushed across the border to Eastern Slovakia, thus encouraging Hungary to invade the latter as well. 55 Hungarian troops reached the Polish border by the end of the I 61\ and were eagerly embraced by their opposite numbers. The region was renamed Subcarpathia and governed directly from Budapest. There was some vague talk in the Hungarian parliament about according autonomy to the most recently annexed portion , but not to Uzhorod or Mukachevo, which were now considered 54 Paul Robert Magocsi , "The Nationality Problem in Subcarpathian Rus ' I 9381939: A Reappraisal" in Magocsi , Of th e Making of Nationalities, 228 . 55 This invasion of Eastern Slovakia resulted in portions of the disputed counties likewise being annexed by Hungary. It also resulted in the Slovak Republic placing itself under the military protection of Nazi Germany. SLOVAKIA 2019 111 directly part of Hungary. Autonomy was del ayed indefinitely. As World War II progressed, the Hungarian military vehemently opposed autonomy for security reaso ns . The Ukrainophiles were particularly singled out for political persecution, while the Russophiles were more or less set aside. Interestingly, the Hungarian government began cultivating the idea that the Rusyns were their own separate nationality, an idea which ultimately became the wave of the future. 56 The resto ration of Hungarian rule dis illusioned the Russophil es. It stood to reason that, once Hungary went down to defeat with Nazi Germany, Andrei Brodii would come to a bad end . He did not attempt to flee when Soviet forces reached the area in the autumn of 1944, but attempted to negotiate with them. He was arrested by the Soviet counterintelligence unit SMERSH, charged as a fascist co ll aborator, and executed on November 7, 1946. A similar fate awa ited Stefan Fentsik: he was shot in the courtyard of the Uzhorod prison on March 30, 1946. Their Ukrainophile rival Voloshyn fared no better. Having taken up res idence in Prague during the war years, he taught at the Ukrainian Free University. In June 1945 he was arrested by SMERSH and transported to Moscow. He died in Lefortovo prison on July 19, undoubtedl y murdered. An ironic footnote of hi story is worth mentioning. Both Brodii and Fentsik were posthumously rehabilitated after the breakup of the Soviet Union. No such rehabilitation has been granted to Voloshyn. World War II and Ukrainiazation If the Russophiles in Podkarpatska Rus' were fatally compromised by collaboration with the Hungarians, then in Eastern Slovakia they earned acclamation for their role in an anti-fascist struggle. A leading force in the resistance to the pro-German regime of president-priest Jozef Ti so was the Slovak Communist Party. George Kennan , at that time charge d 'affa ires to the U.S. embassy in Prague, assessed the pro-communist sentiment in Eastern Slovakia as being a "bird of a different color [which] in former circumstances would have little chance of success." He added, however, that owing to 56 Magocs i, The Shaping of a National Identity, 248-9 . 112 SLOVAKIA 2019 guidance from Moscow, the Communists could become the most formidable resistance group of all. 57 Kennan's prognosis was largely accurate, though certain qualifying feature s must be noted. The Communists did not have a monopoly on the resistance movement. In prewar Czechoslovakia they were strongest in Podkarpatska Rus ', but in Eastern Slovakia they were never ab le to muster more than seven percent of the vote among the Ru syns in the interwar period. Not wishing to be isolated from other Rusyns in organized resistance to the Tiso regime, local Communi sts opted to join the Carpatho-Russian Council for National Liberation (KRASNO), which shall be introduced shortly. The view of the autonomous and later independent Slovak state on the Rusyns was that the latter were "S lovaks of the Greek Catholic faith ." This view was exemp li fied by Andrej Dudas, who in 1940 was appointed regional administrator of Eastern Slovakia. He was convinced that the idea of a Rusyn nationality was created by the Hungarians, a position he maintained a full three decades later as an emigre in Argentina.58 In early 1939, the Rusyn Nationa l Committee and the Carpatho-Russian Nationa l Counci l were banned by the Slovak government, and the activity of the Dukhnovych Society was restricted. The Ukrainian movement among the Rusyns was particularly loathed by the Slovak nationalist leadership. Slovak police reports up until November 1938 indicate that Rusyns in the Presov Region supported union with their brethren east of the Uz Ri ver. Yet, in November, the same police reports indicate a significant change. The Ukrainian movement was even more alien to the Presov Region Rusyns than was Slovak nationalism, and they were henceforth opposed to a revision of borders which was favorable to CarpathoUkraine. 59 Rusyns shared in the economic prosperity of the Slovak Republic which characterized the first half of World War II. Workers in Germany sent money home to their families, whi le locally a number 57 Report written about May I, 1939 on conditions in Slovakia in George Ken nan, From Prague After Munich. Diplomatic Papers 1938-1 940 (Princeton, 1968), 139140. 58 Andrej Dudas, Rusinska otazka ajej uzadie (B uenos Aires, 1971), 25 . 59 See the entry " Carpatho-Russian Autonomous Counci l for National Liberation/Karpatorusskii avtonomyi sovet natsional'nmyi osvonodenyi (KRASNO)" in Magocsi and Pop, eds ., Encyclopedia of Rusy n Histo1y and Culture, 58. SLOVAKIA 2019 113 of Rusyns profited from the expropriation of Jewish property. Yet once it became obvious that the Slovak Republic was on the losing side of the war, a number of Rusyns began to organize, The Carpatho-Russian Autonomous Council for National Liberation (Karpatorusskii avtonomyi sovet national'nogo obsvobzhdenii-KRASNO) was founded in Presov in September 1943. Its goals were to aid escaped Soviet prisoners of war and partisans and to cooperate with other underground elements opposed to what it considered a clericofascist regime. Its members envisioned a restored Czechoslovakia in which Rusyns would be equal partners with Czechs and Slovaks. Although its orientation was pro-Soviet and decidedly leftist, KRASNO was not a communist front organization. It was founded by civic and cultural leaders of varied political orientation. Vasyl' Karaman ( 1903-1961) was born in the village of Nagov, in Slovakia. After completing his education at the Commercial Academy in Mukachevo (1924-1927), be returned to eastern Slovakia, where he worked as a civil servant in Presov from 1927 to 1933 , and then served in various towns as secretary for the pro-government Agrarian Republican Party. When Czecho-Slovakia was being partitioned in the fall of 1938, he opposed the pro-Ukrainian orientation of the Voloshyn government. He was elected as chairman of a newly re-established Central Russian National Council. Its members included both Russophiles and Rusynophiles who wished to retain ties with what remained of Czecho-Slovakia, unlike the followers of Brodii and Fentsik. Unable to realize his objectives, he returned to the Presov Region. Here he joined a Committee of Rusyns which tried to reach an accommodation with the Slovak government. This was not possible, since Slovak nationalist officials distrusted his Russophile orientation. After Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June of 1941, Karaman was arrested. He spent a year and a half in jail, and after his release made contact with the Zhydovs'kyi brothers, Ivan and Petro. Together the three men were among the founders of KRASNO. 60 Ivan Zhydovs'kyi (1897-1982) was born in the village of Sarisske Jastrabie. His secondary school education at the Piarist gymnasium in Sabinov was interrupted in 1915, when he was drafted 60 See the entry " Karaman, Vasyl"' in Magocsi and Pop, eds., Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture, 228. 114 SLOVAKIA 2019 into the Austro-Hungarian Army. A year later he was captured on the Eastern Front. Like many prisoners of War, he embraced the Bolshevik cause during the Russian Revolution. During the Russian Civil War Zhydovs ' kyi served as a political commissar in the 216 th International Communist Brigade. When he returned home, he discontinued the role of agitator and became at least outwardly conformist. He completed his secondary education in 1919, and then studied law at the Comenius University in Bratislava, obtaining a degree in 1924. He worked for a time as a tax inspector in Uzhorod. By the I 930s he had a law practice in Uzhorod and he was director of the Presov branch of the Uzhorod-based Subcarpathia Bank. As a Russophile, Zhydovs ' kyi was prominent in the Central Russian National Council and in the Dukhnovych Society. Although opposed to the separatist Slovak government, he kept a lower profile then Kamman and was never arrested. He operated a law practice in Giraltovce prior to his invol ve ment with KRASNO .61 His older brother Petro Zhydovs'kyi (1890-1947) was likewise born in Sarisske Jastrabie. As a teenager Petro emigrated to America in 1905 . Although he acquired little formal education, he returned home on the eve of World War I detern1ined to work for the advancement of the Rusyn people. Drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army, he deserted, then was captured and sentenced to prison. After the establishment of Czechoslovakia, he joined the Agrarian Republican Party and served as deputy to parliament from 1935 to 1938 . During the crisis of 1938 Zhydovs'kyi joined with Ivan P' ieshchak in submitting a memorandum to the British envoy Lord Runciman, calling for the unification of the Presov Region with an autonomous Podkarpatska Rus' .62 Ivan P' ieshchak ( 1904-1972) was born in the village of Vel'ky Lipnik. After graduating from the gymnasium of Mukachevo and the Presov Greek Catholic Teachers' Co llege, he taught in the regional elementary school s. P ' ieshchak was active in the Union of Rusyn Teachers in Slovakia and helped organize the Union of Rusyn Youth in Slovakia (1933). At the same time he studied law, and attained a 61 See the entry "Zhydovs'kyi, Ivan" in Magocsi and Pop, eds., Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture, 55 l. 62 See the entry "Zhydovs' kyi , Petro" in Magocsi and Pop, eds., Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture, 551-2. SLOVA.KIA 2019 115 doctoral degree from Charles University in Prague in the same year. By the mid 1930s P 'ieshchak was a prominent figure on the Rusyn political and cultural scene. He joined Andrei Brodii's Autonomous Agricultural Union and served as its representative in parliament. Interestingly, at this time he also worked closely with Andrej Hlinka's Slovak People's Party in the parliament's autonomist bloc . When Podkarpatska Rus' attained autonomy, P'ieshchak served as state secretary in Brodii 's brief-lived cabinet. After Brodii 's demise, he returned to Slovakia, where he maintained a law practice prior to his involvement with KRASNO .63 KRASNO rapidly expanded its network. By the summer of 1944 it controlled 3 7 villages in a sort of "partisan republic" between Medzilaborce and Stropkov. Intensification of partisan activityreinforced by Soviet partisans parachuted across the Carpathiansled to German military intervention in Slovakia at the end of August 1944. The clandestine military center of dissident Slovak Army officers , headquartered in Banska Bystrica, was already in touch with the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile in London. Its members had to proclaim the Slovak Nationa l Uprising under premature circumstances on August 29. 64 The Slovak National Uprising was a highly complex affair, which goes well beyond the limits of this study. It is sufficient to note here that it was dependent upon Soviet military support. Contrary to allegations by later critics, the Soviets did not deliberately betray the uprising. Their military capacity to cross the Carpathians was severely limited, particularly after the Germans occupied the Dukla pass. Yet the Soviets did not wish to forfeit the political influence they expected to enjoy in postwar Czechoslovakia, and rendered military assistance. In this capacity the Russian military 63 See the entry "P'ieshchak, Ivan" in Magocsi and Pop, eds., Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture, 384-5 . 64 Slovak soldiers, under the influence of Captain Piotr Alekseyevitch Velitchko intercepted members of a German military mission passing through Slovakia in the vicinity of Turciansky Sviity Martin. The Slovak soldiers escorted the Germans to the local barracks. It was Velitchko 's intention that the Germans would be disarmed there and that they would be sent to Ukrainian Partisan Headquarters in Kiev. But when the Germans attempted to depart, they were massacred by the Slovaks. Berlin then decided on a complete military occupation of Slovakia. At this point Lieutenant-Colonel Golian in Banska Bystrica issued the order to start the uprising. 116 SLOVAK.IA 2019 crossed through the Dukla pass for a third time in a military campaign that has been immortalized by local historiography. The Carpatho-Dukla operation, initiated on September 8, was undertaken by the 38 1h Soviet Army, led by General Kyril Moskalenko, supported by the 1s i Czechoslovak Army Corps, led by General Ludvik Svoboda. Many of the troops of the Is 1 Army Corps were Rusyns. In the autumn of 1939, as a result of the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, the Soviets had annexed eastern Galicia and merged it with the Ukrainian S.S.R. An estimated 30,000 Rusyns who were disgruntled with Hungarian rule crossed the mountains into eastern Galicia, expecting to be cordially received by their Slavic brethren. Instead, every single one of them was arrested by the NKVD (Soviet State Security) and received an eight to ten year sentence for the illegal border crossing. A full sixty percent of them perished in the Gulag by the time Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June of 1941. The survivors were released to join the I s i Czechoslovak Army Corps . Any Pan-Slav feeling- Russophile or Ukrainophi le alikewhich the Rusyn s may have had earlier had been beaten out of them in the Gulag. They merely wished to return home. In the autumn of 1944 it appeared that they would be the vanguard in the liberation of their homeland. Instead, they were committed to the meat-grinder of the Dukla Pass, where their casualties exceeded sixty percent. 65 The storming of the Duk la Pass was finally completed on October 6th. In the fighting which followed, the monastery community of Ladomirova was severely damaged. Most of the buildings, including the print shop but not the church, were destroyed. Now, too , the NKVD began rounding up Russian emigres in Slovakia. The monks fled to Bratislava, and from there fourteen of them emigrated to the United States. They entered the recently established Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, in upstate New York, where Archbishop Maksimenko now served as archimandrite. They built a church that was a replica of its predecessor in Ladomirova. A young Rusyn novitiate from the village, Vasyl' Shkurla (born 1928), ultimately became Archbishop Lavrl' , one of the leading figures of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. By the 1980s Holy Trinity had become a major 65 See Vladimir Baumgarten, "Fifty Years Later: An Inquiry into Soviet Military Policy During the Slovak Uprising" in Lewis White, ed., On All Fronts: Czechoslovaks During World War ff Part 2 (Washington , 1995), 2 19-28. SLOVAKIA 2019 117 cultural center for Russian emigres. When the cello virtuoso Mstislav Rostropovich defected to the United States, he chose to settle in Jordanville in order to be near Holy Trinity. 66 The Germans torched large areas in eastern Slovakia as they were forced to retreat, including the town of Svidnik. General Svoboda was nonetheless hailed as a hero and liberator when he entered it on October 28 .67 After the liberation of Svidnik, the Allies temporarily went on the defensive. KRASNO partisans continued fighting in the hills north of Presov. In October their adherents welcomed a declaration by the Slovak National Council that a resurrected Czechoslovakia would consist of three equal nations- Czechs, Slovaks and Rusyns. It must be understood that Rusyns did not fight in partisan units exclusively of their own nationality. Jozef Rodak, longtime director of the East Slovak Military Museum in Svidnik, asserted that most partisan groups in the region had a mixed composition of Slovaks and Rusyns.68 To this day many people in eastern Slovakia have a dual sense of identity : they consider themselves Rusyns by heritage and Slovaks by citizenship. The realities of liberation at the end of World War II disappointed the aspirations of many Rusyns, particularly Russophiles. It undoubtedly di sconcerted them to discover that Moscow now considered them to be Ukrainians. There was already a precedent for thi s aspect of Soviet policy . In 1923 the delegation of Rusyn Communists attended a Party Congress in Soviet Ukraine and declared their acceptance of Ukrainian nationality. It was altogether practical for Soviet authorities to reaffirm acceptance of this principle at the end of 66 See the entry " Ladomirova Monastery" in Magocsi and Pop, eds., Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture, 266. 67 General Svoboda was designated as an honorary citizen of Svidnik. As president of Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring of 1968, Svoboda gave the town its first hospital. In I 979, the year of the old man's death, a statue of him was erected in Svidnik. Owing to the damage of autumn 1944, Svidnik is a modem town . Most of the buildings are constructed in the so-called "social realist" style. Svoboda ' s statue looks strangely at home among the imposing, unattractive concrete structures. 68 As a graduate student of Safarik University in Prefov who specialized in the history of his region during World War 11 , Rodak was frequently delegated to carry the briefcases of Soviet military visitors. He remained outwardly conformist throughout the Soviet era. After the 1989 revolution and the coll apse of the communist system, Rodak wrote a series of articles for newspapers in eastern Slovakia and southeas tern Poland in which he exonerated partisans who had fallen into disfa vor. 118 SLOVAKIA 2019 World War II. Throughout the war, the Soviets had pledged themselves to the recognition of Czechoslovakia' prewar frontiers . Yet now Moscow infom1ed the Czechoslovak government that it could not ignore "the will of the people." In the wake of the Red Army's occupation of Podkarpatska Rus ' , various National Committees were established to vote in favor of the province being merged with the Ukrainian S.S.R. In all fairness to these communities, they overall enjoyed popular support. 69 The region was officially ceded at the end of June, 1945. Across the Uz River, in the Presov Region , the Russophile leaders of the defunct KRASNO drew the politically correct conclusion. Now, they too, considered themselves Ukrainian. They reorganized themselves as the Ukrainian National Council of the Presov Region. They envisioned that the long disputed counties of eastern Slovakia would be included in the territorial transfer. Indeed, even before the war ended, Vasyl' Karaman and the Zhysov ' skyi brothers planned to stage a meeting in Presov in February 1945 calling for the merger. A Soviet military major explained to them that such a meeting would be inopportune. The war was still on, and the Soviet Union intended to honor its obligations to Czechoslovakia.70 With eastern Slovakia excluded from the territorial settlement, the Ukrainian National Council of the Presov Region now called for the resurrected Czechoslovakia to consist of three equal nations: Czechs, Slovaks and Ukrainians. The Slovak National Council had already expressed itself in favor of autonomy for the Rusyns. Now, in light of Ukrainian irredentism, it declared its Ukrainian counter• 1·d 11 part as mva 1 . Even after the Rusyns were officially classified as Ukrainian, the Russophile tradition not only persisted but predominated in the Presov Region . It must be noted that the Soviet 3gth Army was composed of elite Guards regiments, the cream of the Soviet military. Its soldiers conducted themselves in a correct and disciplined manner in 69 Yaroslav Pylynsky, Rising Ethnic Self-Awareness. Carpatho-Rusyns- Birth of a New Nation or a Political Game? (Copenhagen, 1998), 20. 70 Memorandum on the Ukrainian movement in Eastern Slovakia. Kosice. February 16, 1945 , in Nemec and Modry, Th e Soviet Seizure of Ruthenia, Document no.77 , 359-60 71 Magocsi , "National Assimilation: The Case of the Rusyn-Ukrainians of Czechoslovakia" in Of the Making of Nationalities, 262 . SLOVAKIA 2019 119 their interactions with the locals after forcing their way through the Dukla Pass. This was in striking contrast with the soldiers of the 4 th Ukrainian Front, who penetrated Slovakia from the south, and who engaged in rape and widespread looting. This author can personally attest to the fact that citizens of the Svidnik area remember the Russians fondly as having assisted them through a bitter winter, and afterwards helped the locals plant their spring crops. Historian Mykola Musynka, himself a Ukrainophi le, summarizes the local attitudes as follows: The culmination of Russophilism in the cultural life of the Rusyns of the Prefo v Region occurred in the years just after World War II, when due to the Red Army's defeat of German fascism, th e Soviet Union enjoyed considerable authority among Rusyn-Ukrainians as well as Czechs and Slovaks. Everything "Soviet" was perceived as "Russian." Political propaganda attempted to portray the Soviet Union as an ideal country in which all peoples were united around the "Great Russian people. " The Russian language, Russian culture, the Russian individual, and the "Russian Soul " all symbolized the acme ofp e,:fection. 72 Russian Elementary and secondary schools proliferated after World War II, in addition to the Russian gymnasium in Presov, an additional Russian gymnasium was established in Medzilaborce on February 23, 1945, and trade schoo ls were opened in which Russian was the language of instruction. According to official statistics for the 1948-49 school year, there were 43 kindergartens, 276 elementary schools, 38 incomplete and 6 complete secondary schools with instruction in the Russian language, totaling 23, 11 2 pupils.73 After the Ukrainian National Council of the Presov Region was abolished, it was replaced by a new organization, the cultural Union of Ukrainian Workers (Kul'tumy sojuz'ukrajans'kyi trudjascychKSUT), which was staunchly supportive of the Communist Party. KSUT initiated numerous publications in the Ukrainian language. 72 Mykola Musynka, "The Postwar Development of the Regional Culture of the Rusyn-Ukrainians of Czechoslovakia' in Paul Robert Magocsi, ed., The Persistence of Regional Cultures: Rusyns and Ukrainians in the Carpathian Hom eland and Abroad (New York, 1993), 55. 73 Ibid, 56. 120 SLOVAKIA 2019 Beginning on June 28, 1952, by decree of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Slovakia, the language of instruction in all Russian elementary and secondary schools of Eastern Slovakia was changed to Ukrainian . The change in the school system was torturous for all parties. It was implemented too quickly. Instructors who had never studied literary Ukrainian were assigned to take month-long courses, after which they were expected to teach in that language. The vast majority of teachers detested it. There was a shortage of textbooks, dictionaries and other printed materials. Ukrainiazation nonetheless made significant strides in popular culture . In January 1953 , KSUT sponsored the first professional song and dance ensemble in Medzilaborce under the artistic direction of Jurij Kostjik. It was eventually reorganized as the Dukla Ukrainian Folk Ensemble. In September of that year, a Department of Ukrainian Language and Literature was established at the Presov Pedagogical Institute, which in 1959 became the Philosophical Faculty of Safarik University, under the direction of Petro Bungansyn. Literary works by Rusyns in the Presov Region reached an unprecedented level of publication in the course of a decade in the Ukrainian language. After 1959, the Ukrainian division of the Slovak Pedagogical Publishing House had a monopoly on the release of Ukrainian books in the Presov Region. During a thirty-year period it published 373 literary and scholarly works. Not all of them withstood the test of time. Many employed the so-called "socialist realist" style, reflecting a Marxist-Leninist ideological bent which conformed to Party dogma. Yet the Presov Region has produced works which have assumed a permanent place in the history of literature. 74 A number of former Russophiles moved with the times and adopted Ukrainian literary norms. Those Russophiles who remained outside the Communist Party could not expect a triumphal finish . Such was the case of Vasyl' Karaman, who, after the abolition of the body he had chaired, was accused of being a "Ukrainian bourgeois nationalist." The allegation was blatantly absurd: Karaman steadfactly believed that the future of the Rusyns was closely bound to the Soviet Union . He was nonetheless removed from political and cultural life in the Presov Region. Similarily, Ivan P'ieshchak was ac74 Ibid, 65 . SLOVAKIA 2019 121 cused of bourgeois nationalism, driven from his home in 1952, and forbidden to practice law for nearly a decade. Ironically, some of the greatest beneficiaries of the new socialist order were those Rusyns of the 1st Czechoslovak Anny Corps who had survived the ordeal of the Dukla Pass. In spite of their suffering in the Gulag, they had fought bravely and well under General Svoboda, in fact becoming his favorite soldiers. 75 The treaty transferring Podkarpatska Rus ' to Soviet Ukraine contained a certain "exemption" clause. Those Rusyns with a record of service in the Czechoslovak Army could retain Czechoslovak citizenship. About half of them chose to do so, relocating west of the Uz. Svoboda redressed the balance for them as much as humanly possible, obtaining jobs for them in the military and especially in the security services. One might suppose that, after their experience in the Gulag, they would have been averse to serving as agents of repression. Instead, thanks to Svoboda' s generous patronage, they became overrepresented in the secret police, not only in eastern Slovakia but in Prague and Bratislava as well. This role fueled the hostility of their fellow citizens. Animosities smoldered beneath the surface for a full generation. During the Prague spring of 1968, the Slovak press suddenly became articulate in its denunciations: " ... this 15 year anti-Slovak movement in eastern ... Slovakia must be liquidated." 76 Slovak nationalists in particular resented the fact that the city of Presov served as a bastion of Ukrainophile activity. Slogans appeared on a number of buildings: "Presov was and will be only- and only- a Slovak city" and "Ukrainians, get out of Presov! " 77 The Slovak element of eastern Slovakia was not the only one which opposed the Ukrainian movement. Passive opposition was expressed by many Rusyns themselves . If they could not be themselves, the Rusyns opted for the closest thing, and voluntarily assimilated into the Slovak nationality. 78 The local dialect spoken was not foreign to them, unlike that of the Ukrainian textbooks imported from Kiev. Whenever local citizens were questioned by the police, they declared themselves as Slo75 Magocsi, "Magyars and Carpatho-Rusyns in Czechoslovakia" in Of the Making of Nationalities, 175. 76 Cited in Kulturny zivot (Bratislava) April 15, 1968 and Vychod (Kosice) November 29, 1968. 77 Magocsi, "National Assimilation", 283. 78 fbid, 264-70. 122 SLOVAKIA 2019 vak, fearing deportation to the Soviet Union. Finally, the relatively more advanced Slovak economy drew many to the industrial valleys farther south, where the process was completed. For those Rusyns who continued to consider themselves Ukrainian , yet another shock awaited in the following generation. After the 1989 revolutions and the collapse of communism in East Central Europe, first the Slovak and then the Polish government recognized the Carpatho-Rusyns as a distinct nationality. Many young Rusyns eagerly embraced the new orientation. 79 Conclusion. Unrepentant Russophiles: Yurkovsky, Kabuliak, Sidor and Karabelesh The demise of the Russophile orientation among the CarpathoRusyn people was undoubtedly, to employ a Marxist cliche, historically inevitable. An interesting story revealing the pathetic depths to which it had descended by World War II is provided by Marian Zgomiak, later a professor at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow , Poland. At the outbreak of World War II, Zgomiak was a 15 year-old Polish youth. When Poland was militarily crushed by Nazi Germany in September of 1939, Poli sh Army veterans hoped to escape to the West to fight again. Since most of the Polish soldiers fleeing abroad were between the ages of 17 and 30, two groups of people played disproportionately large roles in the domestic resistance movement organized by the Polish Home Army (Armija Krajowa- AK). One of them was Polish teenagers, who acted as couriers escorting the fugitive s to the border with Slovakia. Another was the Lemkos, who acted as guides. 79 The rejection of Ukrainian identity is by no means unanimous. On November 17, 1990, at the First Congress of the Ru syn Renaissance Society in Medzilaborce, spokesman Mychal Turok-Heter stressed that "while it is vital to preserve national pride, it is wrong to attack the Ukrai nians and the Ukrainian language . Gradually, the Ru syns will write and advance toward the common path which will lead them to fulfilling thei r mi ssive of peace for us all." See Myslenka, 75. Frequently, on the local level , there ex ists a certa in pluralism. In Svidnik, the Museu m of UkrainianRus'Culture acknowledges kinship with the former while stressing the regional identity of the latter. See the entry " Museum of Ukrainian Rus' Culture in Svidnik" in Magocsi and Pop, eds., Encyclopedia of Rusy n Histo1y and Cu lture, 337. SLOVAK.IA 2019 123 Young Zgorniak was active in these border expeditions. On July 2, 1942, he and his father were arrested by the Gestapo. After the usual beatings and interrogation in the basement of the Gestapo headquarters in Gorlice, Zgorniak was transferred to the prison in Jaslo. Here he bonded with a Lemko prisoner named Yurkovsky. This Yurkovsky was an unrepentant Russophile. During World War I he and his father were hauled off to internment in Talerhof. Yurkovsky senior died there during the typhus epidemic. Yurkovsky junior returned to the mountain districts of Lemkovyna to serve as a teacher in the interwar years. He did not consider himself a Rusyn or even a Lemko, but a Russian. He was not receptive to Polish efforts to sponsor a separate Lemko identity. After the invasion of the Soviet Union in June of I 941 , the Nazi Government General (to which Lemkos west of the San River where subject) rounded up Lemkos known for their pro-Russian sentiments. In this manner Yurkovsky found himself in the prison of Jaslo. Both the quality and quantity of food in the prison of Jaslo left much to be desired. In September of 1942 German authorities loosened the regime to the point where Lemkos (but not Poles) could receive food packages. Arrangements were made for Zgomiak's mother to send food to Yurkovsky, who shared it with her son. Working together in the hospital section of the prison, they had the opportunity to engage in intellectual discussions. Zgorniak records the following: During one of the discussions I asked whether or how he could coordinate the Carpatho-Rusyn orientation on the Russia ruled by the Tsar with an orientation on a Russia ruled by the Bolsheviks who had overthrown and murdered the Tsar and his family. He said he could do so because "after the death a/father in Talerhof I had the dream . In it my father appeared and said 'the cause for which both are fighting shall be successful! ' That dream I keep in mind and I believe it will prove to be true. "80 80 Marian Zgomiak, " Meeting with Lemko leaders who had been arrested by the Gestapo and who were in prison in Jaslo 1942" in Best and Moklak, eds ., The Lemko Region, /939-194 7, 129. 124 SLOVAKIA 2019 Zgomiak asserts that he was convinced Yurkovsky and other Lemkos could have been released had they declared themselves Ukrainians. They declined to do so. Eventually, Yurkovsky was transferred to a concentration camp in Pruszkow, from which he was liberated before the end of the war. Yurkovsky then became sold on the plan jointly agreed upon by the Polish and Soviet governments to encourage Lemkos to emigrate to the east. Those whose villages had been destroyed during the Carpatho-Dukla operation went willingly. Others followed Yurkovsky across the border. They were by no means satisfied with living conditions in Soviet Ukraine, and turned on Yurkovsky for encouraging them to leave in the first place. He suffered something akin to a nervous breakdown and developed heart disease. Zgomiak concluded: "I remember him as an intelligent fellow who despite hi s various interests was fatally attracted to the idea for which he fought." 81 In light of its ignominious end in the realm of politics, what remains of the Russophile tradition among the Carpatho-Rusyns in the realm of culture? Here the author wishes to turn to the areas of religion and literature. In the area of reli gion, the Orthodox faith has provided a certain legacy. It must be understood that the majority of Rusyns professing any religious belief adhere to the Greek Catholic rather than the Orthodox Church . Yet the Orthodox revival of the early twentieth century made an enduring impact which was embraced by the communist regimes after World War II. Its most enthusiastic protagonist was Aleksander Kabuliak. At the end of World War I he was released from prison and became a major figure of the Orthodox revival in Czechoslovakia. There was a sc hi sm within the Orthodox Church in the 1920s. Its adherents were subject to the Serbian patriarchate, whereas Czech converts to Orthodoxy wanted their own autocephalous Orthodox Church. They appealed to the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople. On March 4, 1923 he consecrated the archimandrite Savritij as bishop. Bi shop Savritij 's leadership was contested by Bishop Gorazd, the Serbian patriarch 's representative. Kabuliak sided with the Serbian patriarchate in this di spute. With the Orthodox Church temporarily paralyzed and depri ved of an acting bishop, Kabuliak assumed the role of administrator. The Hungar81 Ibid, 129. SLOVAKIA 2019 125 ians did not molest him during World War II, nor did he do anything to provoke them. But on November 18, 1944, on behalf of the Orthodox believers of Podkarpatska Rus ', Kabuliak wrote a letter to no less a personage than Soviet leader J. V. Stalin. He recommended the establishment of a Carpatho-Russian Soviet Republic encompassing territory extending "from Iasnyia to Poprad and from Uzhok Pass to Debrecen." 82 Since Moscow was already planning to incorporate Podkarpatska Rus' into the Ukrainian S.S.R., this was not an option. Yet in the following month Kabuliak led a delegation to Moscow requesting the transfer of episcopal jurisdiction from the Serbian to the Moscow patriarchate. Here his efforts were crowned with success. In posthumous recognition of his achievement, in 200 I the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow patriarchate) canonized Kabuliak as the first Carpatho-Rusyn saint. Eastern Galicia, like Podkarpatska Rus ', was ceded to Soviet Ukraine at the end of the war. In both areas incoming communist regimes declared the Greek Catholic Church abolished and transferred its parishes to the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church. In Galicia most of the clergy accepted the formal change and retained their old parishes. The Ukrainian character of the church consequently survived . In Transcarpathia the Greek Catholic clergy was more resistant to Orthodoxy and it was imposed more forcefully. Bishop Teodor Romza of Mukachevo was brutally murdered, while lesser clergymen were arrested and deported.83 They were replaced by Russian priests di spatched from Moscow. The Orthodox Church here acquired an expressively Russian character. From the standpoint of Rusyn culture, inclusion into the Russian Orthodox Church was a double-edged sword. In America, Reverend Alexis Toth had sought to convince his flock that the best way to preserve their rite, tradition and identity was through conversion to Orthodoxy. Yet St. Alexis (He too was canonized) had a great love for the variety of liturgical music known as Carpathian plainchant. 82 See the entry "Kabuliak, Aleksander" in Magocsi and Pop, eds. , Encyclopedia of Rusyn Hist01:y and Culture, 223 . 83 Pekar, 151 -4. 126 SLOVAK.IA 2019 This and another native aspects of worship were submerged by Russian liturgical tradition .84 In Czechoslovakia the legal status of the Greek Catholic Church was restored as a result of the liberal reforms of the Prague spring of 1968. Yet it lost its Rusyn character and became a force for slovakization. Much church property has been restored since the collapse of the communist system in 1989. Yet there remain adherents of the Orthodox faith in northeastern Slovakia. This author has an endearing memory of a visit to an Orthodox church in Svidnik. It was a modest, prefabricated structure, erected in the L990s. The morning was cold. There was only room inside the church for elderly parishioners. Yet a sizable crowd of young people remained standing outside. They displayed enough reverence to refrain from smoking throughout the Divine Liturgy. If the Rusyns can no longer be considered Great Russians, then the Russian government, and especially the Orthodox Church, wishes to retain whatever bonds still exist. While seminarians of the autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church have received their education in Ukraine, those who adhere to the Moscow patriarchate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have been educated in Russia. Such was the case of Dmitri Sidor, born March 29, 1955, currently rector of the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross in Uzhorod. Reverend Sidor heads a movement demanding autonomy for Rusyns of Ukraine. He stresses the religious character of his people, and the similarity of their language with Old Church Slavonic. On December 19, 2008 , the Rusyn issue was raised at an international conference held on the Don, southern Russia. The conference was entitled "Genocide and Cultural Ethnocide of the Rusyns of Carpathian Rus' [from the end of the nineteenth to the beginning of the twenty first century]." A resolution was adopted. It stated that, alongside the Armenians, the Rusyns were the first victims of genocide in the twentieth century, thi s in reference to the policy of the Austro-Hungarian military during the First World War. Today, the resolution continued, Kiev engaged in a "policy of cultural ethno- 84 Paul Robert Magocsi, "Adaptati on Wi thout Assimilati on: The Genius of the Greek Catholic Church of Mukachevo" in Of the Making of Nationalities, Volume 11 , 202. SLOVAKIA 2019 127 cide." It pointed out that the Rusyns were recognized as a distinct nationality by numerous countries, but not Ukraine. 85 The Ukrainophile orientation responded to the Rostov conference. One articulate response may be found in the working paper "Political and Ethno-Cultural Aspects of the Rusyns' Problem: A Ukrainian Perspective," by Natalya Belitzer of the Py lip Orlyk Institute for Democracy in Kiev. She outlines the tortutous, complex evolution of the history of a region which has been subject to numerous rulers. She echoes her colleague M. Lanchuk in asserting that the main issue at stake has not been the ethno-cultural identity of the Rusyns but rather what has been termed "political Ruthenianism," which many Ukrainians perceive as a threat. 86 According to Belitzer, the disintegration of the Soviet Union was accompanied by an artificial politicization of the Rusyn question. Belitzer is not opposed to Ru syn autonomy in principle. Yet, as a Ukrainophile, she considers the Rusyn tongue as a mere dialect of the Ukrainian language. Belitzer makes a particularly revealing admission when she states that "Ukrainian democracy is ... quite benevolent to the ideas and practices of the restoration of minorities ' own identity, but at the same time strongly denies Rusyn identity as being separate from the Ukrainian.,,s1 Therein lies the rub. If the Rusyn tongue is a dialect of the Ukrainian language, why is its use not permitted in schools? Rusyn schoolchildren speak one way at home but are required to speak another way at school. Such practices are grist to Dmitri Sidor's mill. Aside from the fact that Ukraine has an army and the Rusyns do not, Father Dmitri's movement faces two serious obstacles. For one, he is an Orthodox priest, whereas the majority of Rusyns still profess (or have resumed professing) the Greek Catholic faith. Secondly, while a majority of the Rusyns in the Presov Region and Lemkovyna 85 Resolution of the International conference "Genocide and Cultural Ethnocide of Ru syns in Carpathian Rus' [from the end of the nineteenth to the beginning of the twenty first century] Rostov on the Don, Russia. December 2 1, 2008 www.podkar~atskarus.eu 6 M. Panchuk, " Political Rutheni ani sm" in Demons of Peace and Messengers of War(Kiev, 1997), 323. 87 Natalya Belitzer, "Political and Ethno-Cultural Aspects of the Rusyns' Problem : A Ukrainian Perspective". Research paper prepared within the framework of the Programme on European Security (PROGRES) sponsored by the Center for European Security Studies and the University of Gronigen (Netherlands). Undated, 12. 128 SLOVAKIA 2019 consider themselves their own nationality, a majority of them in Transcarpathia consider themselves Ukrainian. Yet the movement has a growing popular appeal. In a state where bureaucratic centralism has had a constipating effect, autonomy can be a powerful laxative. Moreover, the Rusyns now possess a certain bargaining chip . A full eighty percent of all Russian petroleum and natural gas which is sold to Europe passes through pipelines in the area of Uzhorod. If the Rusyns were to succeed in establishing an independent state, they would be eligible to receive billions of dollars of gas transit profits from Kiev.88 In the realm of literature, the Russophile tradition has likewise established an enduring legacy. This is especially exemplified by the writings of Andrii Karabelesh ( 1906-1964). Karabelesh was born in the Transcarpathian village of Tibala, near Mukachevo. When he first attended the gymnasium in Mukachevo the language of instruction was still Magyar. This changed due to the arrival in Podkarpatska Rus ' of many Russian emigres fleeing the revolution. Karabelesh adapted to the russification of the school system so enthusiastically that he became the first secular writer among Rusyn Russophi les. He went on to study at the Theological Seminary in Uzhorod ( 1925-1928). While still a student he published- in Russian- two collections of poetry, lzbrany e stikhovtvorenia (1928) and V buchalh rassvieta ( 1929). These works have been characterized as "dominated by mysticism, a pessimistic outlook on life, and a love of Russian culture." 89 He did not complete his studies at the Theological Seminary because he converted to Orthodoxy. His conversion was less for religious than for cultural reasons. As literary historian Elaine Rusinko writes: "Karabelesh ' s deity is not the conventional God of the Greek Catholic catechism, but an amorphous, spiritual force that provides metaphysical potential and philosophical substance for the poet." 9 Karabelesh went on to Prague, where he obtained a degree in philosophy from Charles University in 1934. ° 88 See " Ukraine Laun ches Moderni zation of Urengog-Ponary-U zhorod Pipeline," Ukra inian News Agency, Jul y 19, 2011 . 89 See the entry " Karabelesh, Andrii " in Magocsi and Pop, eds., Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture, 223. 90 Ru sinko, 350. SLOVAKIA 2019 129 Karabelesh continued writing exclusively in standard Russian. Unlike earlier Russophiles, he did not look towards Russia for the deliverance of the Rusyn people. In his estimation, it was no longer a matter of what Holy Mother Russia could do for Podkarpatska Rus'. It was a matter of what Carpathian-Rus' could do for Holy Mother Russia. In his enthusiasm for the great Russian literary giants, Karabelesh exhibited a tendency towards plagiarism, using some of their phrases directly in his own poetry. Karabelesh 's special favorite was Mikhail Lennontov, who merits attention here. Like his predecessor, the great Russian Romantic Alexander Pushkin, Lermontov wrote passionately, lived wildly and was killed in a duel. Unlike Pushkin, Lermontov created a literary genre in which the psychology of the protagonist played a leading role. This served as a precedent for the great novels of Dostoyevsky later in the century.91 In his poem "Nevdol'strie" (Dissatisfaction), Karabelesh quotes Lermontov's Pechorin: "I was not born for happiness. " 92 Anyone who studies the course of Karabelesh 's life would probably agree. He taught secondary school for a time in Podkarpatska Rus ', but when the Hungarians reoccupied the region he fled to Bohemia. Karabelesh participated in the Czech Resistance against the Nazis, heading a small underground group in Litamsyl. In this capacity he was arrested by the Gestapo in 1942. He passed the remainder of the war in the concentration camps of Mauthausen and Buchenwald. After the war he remained for a time in western Czechoslovakia, serving as principal of the gymnasium of Svitavy (19451953). Then he moved to the Presov Region, where he taught Russian language and literature at Safarik University. Although a member of the Ukrainian section of the Slovak Writers Union, he continued to write exclusively in Russian. It was not simply a case of Karabelesh being unwilling to move with the times. The red banner of the October Revolution replaced the grey skies in "V karpatikh osin" (Autumn in the Carpathians ). 93 Yet the apolitical, pessimistic tone of Karabelesh 's poetry became increasingly an object of attack by communist ideologues. In 1956, when the Soviet Communist Party was 91 See Semyon Eks hut, " Pushkin 's Heir" Russian Life, 42 , No, 6 (October/November 1999), 20-32. 92 Rusinko, 353. 93 Ibid, 362. 130 SLOVAKIA 2019 in a state of ideological crisis in the aftermath of Stalin's death , Karabelesh raised his voice in criticism of the imposed ukrainization of the Rusyn people. He was subsequently expelled from the Slovak Writers Union and returned to Bohemia. In the homeland, literary hi storian and defender of the "social realist" genre Iurii Bolega opened an ideological offensive against Karabelesh ' s work, condemning it as having a Russian chauvinist and anti-social character. One may ask why Karabelesh would wish to return home under such circumstances. Yet the years he spent in concentration camps had undennined hi s health, and Karabelesh was of the opinion "Where you are born, there you should die! " 94 Terminally ill, Karabelesh finally returned home in 1964. He died in Mukachevo on September 4 . In the post-communist era his poetry has experienced a revival of popularity. The Eastern Carpathians constitute an area of scenic beauty, but also in many places one of the depressing poverty. In his poem " Moi Narod" (My Nation), Karabelesh focuses on "fences and of abandoned gardens," "dried out grape vines," "bars of broken down churches," "unplowed fields," and so on. His writing reflects the mixture of beauty and melancholia that is essential to the brooding Slavic soul. If the Russophile tradition never reached the level of popularity that the Ukrainophile orientation attained, it nonetheless remains an essential part of the cultural landscape. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author wishes to thank and express his deep appreciation to Bob Broedel , president of the Tallahassee-Krasnodar Sister City Program, for hi s technical assistance in accessing material published in Russia and Ukraine. 94 Ibid, 359.  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 Russophiles without Russia Description An account of the resource R. Vladimir Baumgarten Slovakia, Vol. 44 (No. 82-83), 2019 pp. 83-130 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Baumgarten, R. Vladimir Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/0b6c68ad0818ec5fc3a9c1430d5a48e6.pdf fbaea4ee445f3de9f46cda610c0c5e13 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 39 Rusyns a'\d the Slovak State· PAULR. MAGOCSI The status of Rusyns living within the boundaries of the Slovak state between the years 1939 and 1944 was greatly influenced by developments during the interwar period and most especially during the period of the Second Czecho-Slovak Republic in late 1938 and early 1939. The Rusyns, or as they are known today, Ukrainians, who inhabit the so-called Presov Region of present-day northeastern Slovakia, 1 had lived for centuries in harmony with neighboring Slovaks. Both groups were ruled by Hungary and both groups were characterized by general economic and social backwardness. 2 This situation changed after 1918 when Rusyns and Slovaks found themselves within the first Czechoslovak Republic. Both groups now had the opportunity to function as a political as well as cultural force whose demands had to be taken into consideration by the Czechoslovak state. This, however, led to friction between these otherwise friendly Slavic groups. Already toward the end of World War I Rusyn immigrants in the United States began to talk about autonomy, or even statehood, which they hoped to obtain for their Carpatho-Rusyn homeland at the close of the war. These leaders spoke of uniting all Rusyn-inhabited areas, including the northern portions of the old Hungarian counties of Spis, Saris, and Zemplin. This demand was opposed, however, by Slovak leaders who felt that all three of these counties should belong to Slovakia. 3 When the Rusyn province of Subcarpathian Rus' (Podkarpatska Rus) was established in 1919, its western border with Slovakia (along the Uz River) was initially only a provisional one, and Rusyn politicians both in Subcarpathian Rus' as well as in the Presov Region called upon the Prague administration to unite all Rusyn-inhabited areas into one autonomous province. But Slovaks adamantly opposed any proposed cession of Spis, Saris, and Zemplin counties. Finally in 1929, the • Paper presented as part of a panel on "14 March 1939 and the Slovak State," sponsored by the Slovak Studies Association in conjunction with the national convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, New Haven, October, 1979. �40 SLOVAKIA boundary of Subcarpathian Rus' was moved slightly westward, still leaving more than 90,000 Rusyns as a minority within the province of Slovakia.4 Rusyn leaders in Subcarpathian Rus' continued to lay claim to what became their Presov Region irredenta, but it was not until late 1938 that a new drive toward Rusyn unification was undertaken in earnest. After the Munich Crisis and the establishment of a federalized Czecho-Slovakia in October 1938, Presov Region Rusyn parliamentary deputies Ivan P 'escak and Petr Zidovskij supported the demands of the Rusyn National Committee in Presov (est. 1937) , which called for unification with the autonomous Subcarpathian Rus'. These efforts lasted barely a month, however, because in November, after a Ukrainophile government led by Avhustyn Volosyn came to power in Subcarpathian Rl,ls', Presov Region Rusyns, who were traditionally Russophile in national orientation, wanted nothing to do with the Carpatho-Ukrainian government farther east. Instead, the Rusyn National Committee in Presov supported elections to the Slovak Provincial Diet (to which two Rusyns were chosen) in December.5 Within a few months the question of unity with Subcarpathian Rus' became a moot issue. On March 15, 1939, Hitler decided to liquidate what remained of Czecho-Slovakia. Bohemia and Moravia were incorporated into the Third Reich; Slovakia (without its southern region annexed by Hungary in November, 1938) was allowed to become an independent but German-oriented state; and Subcarpathian Rus' was taken by Hungary. In late March, the anxious Hungarians sliced off a piece of land in eastern Slovakia leaving 36 Rusyn villages (20,000 people from the Presov Region) under Hungary for the duration of the war. As a result of these political changes, most Presov Region Rusyns were now under the control of a state governed by Slovaks in Bratislava. The Slovaks had struggled for more than two decades to gain greater autonomy from the Czech-dominated centralized Prague government. Now they finally had their own state, even if its existence depended on the good will of Hitler's German~. The new government in Bratislava was dominated by patriots whose goal was to Slovakize all aspects of the country. The Rusyns of the Presov Region were especially a target for discrimination, because just after the Munich Crisis they expressed a desire to unite with Subcarpathian Rus ' . Consequently, the Greek Catholic Church and especially its Bishop, Pavel Gojdic, were accused of disloyalty and pro-Hungarian feelings . For instance, in 1939 the President of Slovakia, Dr. Jozef Tiso, and in 1940 the Minister of Propaganda, Sano Mach, visited Presov and on two �SLOVAKIA 41 separate occasions sligh_ted the Bishop in public and questioned his loyalty.6 Also in 1940, Apdrej Dudas was appointed to head the administrative district (Saris:.Zemplin iupa) for all of eastern Slovakia, a post he was to hold for the remainder of the war. Dudas was convinced that the idea of a Rusyn nationality was created by the Hungarians, and in 1943 he wrote a book on the subject and concluded that the "socalled Rusyn people (rusinsky l 'ud) in the Carpathian Basin are by origin and character Slovak. "7 It was in such an atmosphere that Presov Region Rusyns now found themselves. In early 1939, the Rusyn National Committee and Carpatho-Rusyn National Council were banned, the newspaper Prja~evskaja Rus' (Presov, 1938-39) was closed, and the activity of the local Rusyn cultural Duchnovyc Society was restricted. Rusyns were allowed one more deputy, Mychal Bon'ko, who was appointed to the Slovak Diet in 1941, but like his elected predecessors (Simko and Hornjak), he was expected to support the government's policy.8 Only the Greek Catholic Church led by Bishop Gojdic could effectively defend Rusyn national interests. As a result of Gojdic' s efforts, the Slovak government passed a decree in 1940 making all Rusyn elementary schools the responsibility of the Greek Catholic Church. This allowed for the maintenance of Rusyn teaching, and for that purpose four new textbooks were published. Other cultural activity was limited. The Slovaks wanted to remove Presov as the cultural center for Rusyns, and in that regard tried, though unsuccessfully, to have Bishop Gojdic' s residence transferred from Presov northward to Medzilaborce. One newspaper was permitted, Novoe vremja (Medzilaborce, 1940-44), which like the Greek Catholic school system used the so-called ''traditional Carpatho-Rusyn language" (i.e., Russian with local dialectisms) and propagated a Russophile national orientation.9 Presov Region authors were generally isolated from each other during the war years, although some cultural activity took place among Rusyn university students in Bratislava through their student club, the Dobrianskij Society (Obscestvo Dobrianskogo) and publications: Studenfeskij iurnal (Bratislava, 194041) and Jar' (Bratislava, 1942-43).10 The economic situation of the mass of Rusyn peasantry did not change from what it was during the interwar years, even though a few thousand went to Germany to work and some who remained home were able to take advantage of the aryanization laws (September, 1941) and receive proprietorship over former Jewish land and shops. Moreover, Slovakia suffered little destruction until the last months of the war, and �42 SLOVAKIA some improvements, especially in roads and communications, took place. It is beyond the scope of this presentation to discuss the partisan movement in any detail. Suffice it to say that the first partisan unit in the Presov Region was organized already in 1943, and an underground movement, the Carpatho-Russian Autonomous Union for National Liberation (Karpatorusskij Avtonomnyj Sojuz Nacionafnogo Osvobozdenija - KRASNO), was formed in 1944. The latter maintained contacts both with the Slovak underground movement and with the Czechoslovak Army Corps in the Soviet Union. KRASNO was dedicated to the principle of a liberated Chzechoslovakia, and it welcomed the October, 1944 declaration of the underground Slovak National Council that the ''new republic must be ... a fraternal republic of three equal nations - Czechs, Slovaks, and Carpatho-Rusyns. "11 In summary, the close and often supportive relations that existed for centuries between Slovaks and Presov Region Rusyns were replaced in the twentieth century by friction often caused by the opposed political and cultural goals of the two groups. Neither the First nor Second Czechoslovak Republic, nor the Slovak state contributed in any way to a lessening of political friction between Slovaks and Presov Region Rusyns, a situation, I might add, which has only worsened since World War II.12 NOTES 1 Rusyns living south of the Carpathian Mountains (i.e. , in the present-day Transcarpathian Oblast' of the Ukrainian SSR as well as the Pre§ov Region) have been known by various names , such as Carpatho-Ruthenian, Carpatho-Russian, and CarpathoUkrainian. It was not until the twentieth century that the name Ukrainian came to be accepted by certain segments of the population; and with regard specifically to the inhabitants of the Pre§ov Region, this did not occur until as late as the 1960s. The historic name of the group has always been Rusyn (o~ Rusnak in the Pre§ov Region), and this is the term that will be used here. The Pre§ov Region takes its name from the city of Pre§ov, the traditional religious and cultural center of the group, which is, however, located outside of Rusyn ethnographic territory. For a discussion of nomenclature, see Paul R. Magocsi, The Shaping of a National Identity: Subcarpathian Rus', 1848-1948 (Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 1978), pp. 277-281. 2 For a survey of socioeconomic and cultural developments in the nineteenth century among Rusyns, see Magocsi, ibid, pp. 9-76 ; I. G. Kolomiets, Sotsial'no-ekonomicheskie otnosheniia i obshchestvennoe dvizhenie v Zakarpat'e vo vtoroi polovine XIX, 2 vols. (Tomsk: lzd. Tomskogo universiteta, 1961-62) ; and Ivan Zeguc, Die national- �SLOVAKIA 43 politischem Bestrebungen der Karpato-Ruthenen 1848-1914 (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1965). On the Slovaks, see R. W .~Seton-Watson, Racial Problems in Hungary (London, 1908); and Franti§ek Bokes, Dejiny Slovdkov a Slovenska od najstarJfch i!ias al po oslobodenie; Slovenska vlastiveda , Vol. IV (Bratislava, 1946), esp. pp. 130-339. On Slovak-Rusyn relations before 1918, see Mykhailo Mofnar, Slovaky i Ukraintsi (Bratislava and Pre§ov, 1966); and Helen Rudlovi!akova, " K otazkam vzajomnych kultumych stykov Slovakov a zakarpatskych Ukrajincov v polovici minuleho storocia,'' Sbomtk Sevi!enskovskj Filozoficky fakulty Univ. P. J. Safdrika, V (Bratislava, 1965) , pp. 149-166. 3 For further details on the immediate post-World War I developments, see Magocsi, Shaping of a National Identity , pp. 76-102 ; and Marian Mark Stolarik, " The Role of American Slovaks in the Creation of Czecho-Slovakia, 1914-1918, " Slovakia, VIIl (Cleveland and Rome, 1968), pp. 7-82 . 4 For details on the problem of the Slovak-Rusyn border during the interwar period, see the comprehensive recent monograph by Ivan Vanat, Narysy novitn 'oi istorii ukrain· tsiv Skhidnoi Slovachchyny , Vol. I: 1918-1988 (Bratislava and Pre§ov, 1979), pp. 103135 and 272-287. 5 There is controversy over the extent to which Rusyn leaders in the Pre§ov Region supported the call for unification with the autonomous Subcarpathian Rue'. Ukrainian writers in Pre§ov today, in an attempt to show that Rusyns in 1938 were in opposition to Slovak political activity at the same time that they were anxious to express solidarity with their " Carpatho-Ukrainian" brethren just to the east, argue that contemporary Slovak police reports revealed that support for unity with Subcarpathian Rue ' was widespread. Cf. Stefan Pazur, ''O vyvoji narodnostnych pomerov na vychodnom Slovensku v jesennych mesiacoch roku 1938," Nove obzory, X (Pre§ov, 1968), pp. 13-25. Indeed, this is true for the month of October and very early November. But I have read these same police reports (in the Statny Slovensky Ostredny Archiv - SSOA - in Bratislava), and they indicate by November a clear change in Pre§ov Region Rusyn public opinion against the idea of unity, because the "Ukrainian orientation is alien and in the end they (Pre§ov Region Rusyns) reject any kind of revision of borders in favor of Carpatho-Ukraine. " Prezidium Policajneho riaditel'stva v Pre§ove, January 11 , 1939 (SSOA , Fond Prezidium Krajinskeho uradu, carton 297, folder 310-1938). See · also carton 298, folder 62212-38. 6 These incidents are based on an unnamed eyewitness report and are given in Atanasii V. Pekar, Narysy istorii tserkvy Zakarpattia , Analecta OSBM, Series II, Sectio I (Rome , 1967) , pp. 144-146; and Julius Kubinyi, The History of PrjaJiv Eparchy, Editiones Universitatis Catholicae Ucrainorum S. Clementia Papae, Vol. XXXII (Rome, 1970) , pp . 161-163. 7 Andrej DudltA,Rustnskaotdzkaajej uzadie (Buenos Aires: Zahranii!na Matica slovenska, 1971) , p. 25. The Slovak denial of the existence of Rusyns in the Pre§ov Region was widespread already during the interwar period: ''These people (in northern Sari§ and Zemplin counties) are our Slovaks, who only because of the Greek Catholic faith inadvertently call themselves Rusnaks or of the Rusnak faith . But teachenJ infect them by saying that they are also of Rusyn nationality. This is ridiculous, but it is happening .... There are no Rusyns up there, nor Rusnaks, only Slovaks of the Greek Catholic faith. " Slovenska politika (Bratislava), September 2, 1928 - cited in Ivan Baji!ura, Ukrajinskaotdzka v CSSR (Ko§ice : Vychodoslovenske vyd. , 1967) , p. 44. The politically and emotionally charged questions of whether all Greek Catholics in eastern Slovakia are Rusyns or whether all or most are Slovaks has acquired an exten- �44 SLOVAKIA sive polemical and scholarly literature. Among the better works which present opposing views are: Volodymyr Hnatiuk, " Rusyny Priashivs'koi eparkhii i ikh hovory," Zapysky Nau.kouoho Touarystua im. Sheuchenka, XXXV (L'viv, 1900), pp. 1-25; and Ondrej R. Halaga, Slouanske osfdlenie potisia a uychodoslouenski greckokatolici (Ko§ice , 1947) . 8 For details on the policy of the Slovak autonomous government and later the Slovak state vis-a-vis the Pre§ov Region Rusyns, see Andrii Kovach, " Stanovyshche zakarpatis'kykh ukraintsiv (rusyniv) i zanepad pershoi ChSR," Nau.kouyi zbirnyk , VI, pt. 1 (Svidnik, Bratislava, and Pre§ov, 1972), esp. pp. 23-30 ; and his " Natsional'na polityka Slovats'koi Respubliky po vidnoshenniu do rusyniv-ukraintsiv (1939-1945 r.r.)," in Zhouten ' i ukrains'ka kul'tura (Pre§ov, 1968), pp. 132-143 . 9 Beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century and continuing down to as recently as the early 1950s, most members of the Pre§ov Region Rusyn intelligentsia considered themselves part of one Russian nationality which lived from the Carpathian Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. 10 On cultural developments during the war years, see Andrii Kovach, ''Ukraintsi Priashivshchyny i deiaki pytannia kul 'turnoi polityky Slovats'koi Respubliky," Naukouyi zbirnyk, IV, pt. 1 (Svidnik, Pre§ov, and Bratislava, 1969), pp . 401-412; and his " Ukraintsi Skhidnoi Slovachchyny naperedodni slovats'koho narodnoho povstannia, " Z mynuloho i suchasnoho ukraintsiu Chekhoslouachchyny, Pedahohichnyi zbirnyk, No. 3 (Bratislava, 1973), pp . 196-215. 11 Cited in Edo Fri§ , My§lienka a tin: uuahy o Ceskoslouensku 1938-1948 (Bratislava, 1968) , p. 104. For details on the Rusyn underground and partisan movement, see the studies by Stepan Pazhur, Vasyl' Horkovych, Andrii Kovach, as well as several eyewitness recollections from the period contained in Shliakh do uoli , in Naukouyi zbirnyk , II (Svidnik, Pre§ov, and Bratislava, 1966) . 12 For a discussion of Slovak-Rusyn relations between 1945 and the mid-1960s, see Baj<'!ura , Ukrajinska. ota.zka u CSSR; on the worsening of those relations after the Dubrek era in 1968-69, see Pavel Maro, " National Assimilation: The Case of the RusynUkrainians of Czechoslovakia," East Central Europe, II, 2 (Pittsburgh, 1975), pp . 101132. � SLOVAKIA 39 Rusyns a'\d the Slovak State· PAULR. MAGOCSI The status of Rusyns living within the boundaries of the Slovak state between the years 1939 and 1944 was greatly influenced by developments during the interwar period and most especially during the period of the Second Czecho-Slovak Republic in late 1938 and early 1939. The Rusyns, or as they are known today, Ukrainians, who inhabit the so-called Presov Region of present-day northeastern Slovakia, 1 had lived for centuries in harmony with neighboring Slovaks. Both groups were ruled by Hungary and both groups were characterized by general economic and social backwardness. 2 This situation changed after 1918 when Rusyns and Slovaks found themselves within the first Czechoslovak Republic. Both groups now had the opportunity to function as a political as well as cultural force whose demands had to be taken into consideration by the Czechoslovak state. This, however, led to friction between these otherwise friendly Slavic groups. Already toward the end of World War I Rusyn immigrants in the United States began to talk about autonomy, or even statehood, which they hoped to obtain for their Carpatho-Rusyn homeland at the close of the war. These leaders spoke of uniting all Rusyn-inhabited areas, including the northern portions of the old Hungarian counties of Spis, Saris, and Zemplin. This demand was opposed, however, by Slovak leaders who felt that all three of these counties should belong to Slovakia. 3 When the Rusyn province of Subcarpathian Rus' (Podkarpatska Rus) was established in 1919, its western border with Slovakia (along the Uz River) was initially only a provisional one, and Rusyn politicians both in Subcarpathian Rus' as well as in the Presov Region called upon the Prague administration to unite all Rusyn-inhabited areas into one autonomous province. But Slovaks adamantly opposed any proposed cession of Spis, Saris, and Zemplin counties. Finally in 1929, the • Paper presented as part of a panel on "14 March 1939 and the Slovak State," sponsored by the Slovak Studies Association in conjunction with the national convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, New Haven, October, 1979. �40 SLOVAKIA boundary of Subcarpathian Rus' was moved slightly westward, still leaving more than 90,000 Rusyns as a minority within the province of Slovakia.4 Rusyn leaders in Subcarpathian Rus' continued to lay claim to what became their Presov Region irredenta, but it was not until late 1938 that a new drive toward Rusyn unification was undertaken in earnest. After the Munich Crisis and the establishment of a federalized Czecho-Slovakia in October 1938, Presov Region Rusyn parliamentary deputies Ivan P 'escak and Petr Zidovskij supported the demands of the Rusyn National Committee in Presov (est. 1937) , which called for unification with the autonomous Subcarpathian Rus'. These efforts lasted barely a month, however, because in November, after a Ukrainophile government led by Avhustyn Volosyn came to power in Subcarpathian Rl,ls', Presov Region Rusyns, who were traditionally Russophile in national orientation, wanted nothing to do with the Carpatho-Ukrainian government farther east. Instead, the Rusyn National Committee in Presov supported elections to the Slovak Provincial Diet (to which two Rusyns were chosen) in December.5 Within a few months the question of unity with Subcarpathian Rus' became a moot issue. On March 15, 1939, Hitler decided to liquidate what remained of Czecho-Slovakia. Bohemia and Moravia were incorporated into the Third Reich; Slovakia (without its southern region annexed by Hungary in November, 1938) was allowed to become an independent but German-oriented state; and Subcarpathian Rus' was taken by Hungary. In late March, the anxious Hungarians sliced off a piece of land in eastern Slovakia leaving 36 Rusyn villages (20,000 people from the Presov Region) under Hungary for the duration of the war. As a result of these political changes, most Presov Region Rusyns were now under the control of a state governed by Slovaks in Bratislava. The Slovaks had struggled for more than two decades to gain greater autonomy from the Czech-dominated centralized Prague government. Now they finally had their own state, even if its existence depended on the good will of Hitler's German~. The new government in Bratislava was dominated by patriots whose goal was to Slovakize all aspects of the country. The Rusyns of the Presov Region were especially a target for discrimination, because just after the Munich Crisis they expressed a desire to unite with Subcarpathian Rus ' . Consequently, the Greek Catholic Church and especially its Bishop, Pavel Gojdic, were accused of disloyalty and pro-Hungarian feelings . For instance, in 1939 the President of Slovakia, Dr. Jozef Tiso, and in 1940 the Minister of Propaganda, Sano Mach, visited Presov and on two �SLOVAKIA 41 separate occasions sligh_ted the Bishop in public and questioned his loyalty.6 Also in 1940, Apdrej Dudas was appointed to head the administrative district (Saris:.Zemplin iupa) for all of eastern Slovakia, a post he was to hold for the remainder of the war. Dudas was convinced that the idea of a Rusyn nationality was created by the Hungarians, and in 1943 he wrote a book on the subject and concluded that the "socalled Rusyn people (rusinsky l 'ud) in the Carpathian Basin are by origin and character Slovak. "7 It was in such an atmosphere that Presov Region Rusyns now found themselves. In early 1939, the Rusyn National Committee and Carpatho-Rusyn National Council were banned, the newspaper Prja~evskaja Rus' (Presov, 1938-39) was closed, and the activity of the local Rusyn cultural Duchnovyc Society was restricted. Rusyns were allowed one more deputy, Mychal Bon'ko, who was appointed to the Slovak Diet in 1941, but like his elected predecessors (Simko and Hornjak), he was expected to support the government's policy.8 Only the Greek Catholic Church led by Bishop Gojdic could effectively defend Rusyn national interests. As a result of Gojdic' s efforts, the Slovak government passed a decree in 1940 making all Rusyn elementary schools the responsibility of the Greek Catholic Church. This allowed for the maintenance of Rusyn teaching, and for that purpose four new textbooks were published. Other cultural activity was limited. The Slovaks wanted to remove Presov as the cultural center for Rusyns, and in that regard tried, though unsuccessfully, to have Bishop Gojdic' s residence transferred from Presov northward to Medzilaborce. One newspaper was permitted, Novoe vremja (Medzilaborce, 1940-44), which like the Greek Catholic school system used the so-called ''traditional Carpatho-Rusyn language" (i.e., Russian with local dialectisms) and propagated a Russophile national orientation.9 Presov Region authors were generally isolated from each other during the war years, although some cultural activity took place among Rusyn university students in Bratislava through their student club, the Dobrianskij Society (Obscestvo Dobrianskogo) and publications: Studenfeskij iurnal (Bratislava, 194041) and Jar' (Bratislava, 1942-43).10 The economic situation of the mass of Rusyn peasantry did not change from what it was during the interwar years, even though a few thousand went to Germany to work and some who remained home were able to take advantage of the aryanization laws (September, 1941) and receive proprietorship over former Jewish land and shops. Moreover, Slovakia suffered little destruction until the last months of the war, and �42 SLOVAKIA some improvements, especially in roads and communications, took place. It is beyond the scope of this presentation to discuss the partisan movement in any detail. Suffice it to say that the first partisan unit in the Presov Region was organized already in 1943, and an underground movement, the Carpatho-Russian Autonomous Union for National Liberation (Karpatorusskij Avtonomnyj Sojuz Nacionafnogo Osvobozdenija - KRASNO), was formed in 1944. The latter maintained contacts both with the Slovak underground movement and with the Czechoslovak Army Corps in the Soviet Union. KRASNO was dedicated to the principle of a liberated Chzechoslovakia, and it welcomed the October, 1944 declaration of the underground Slovak National Council that the ''new republic must be ... a fraternal republic of three equal nations - Czechs, Slovaks, and Carpatho-Rusyns. "11 In summary, the close and often supportive relations that existed for centuries between Slovaks and Presov Region Rusyns were replaced in the twentieth century by friction often caused by the opposed political and cultural goals of the two groups. Neither the First nor Second Czechoslovak Republic, nor the Slovak state contributed in any way to a lessening of political friction between Slovaks and Presov Region Rusyns, a situation, I might add, which has only worsened since World War II.12 NOTES 1 Rusyns living south of the Carpathian Mountains (i.e. , in the present-day Transcarpathian Oblast' of the Ukrainian SSR as well as the Pre§ov Region) have been known by various names , such as Carpatho-Ruthenian, Carpatho-Russian, and CarpathoUkrainian. It was not until the twentieth century that the name Ukrainian came to be accepted by certain segments of the population; and with regard specifically to the inhabitants of the Pre§ov Region, this did not occur until as late as the 1960s. The historic name of the group has always been Rusyn (o~ Rusnak in the Pre§ov Region), and this is the term that will be used here. The Pre§ov Region takes its name from the city of Pre§ov, the traditional religious and cultural center of the group, which is, however, located outside of Rusyn ethnographic territory. For a discussion of nomenclature, see Paul R. Magocsi, The Shaping of a National Identity: Subcarpathian Rus', 1848-1948 (Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 1978), pp. 277-281. 2 For a survey of socioeconomic and cultural developments in the nineteenth century among Rusyns, see Magocsi, ibid, pp. 9-76 ; I. G. Kolomiets, Sotsial'no-ekonomicheskie otnosheniia i obshchestvennoe dvizhenie v Zakarpat'e vo vtoroi polovine XIX, 2 vols. (Tomsk: lzd. Tomskogo universiteta, 1961-62) ; and Ivan Zeguc, Die national- �SLOVAKIA 43 politischem Bestrebungen der Karpato-Ruthenen 1848-1914 (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1965). On the Slovaks, see R. W .~Seton-Watson, Racial Problems in Hungary (London, 1908); and Franti§ek Bokes, Dejiny Slovdkov a Slovenska od najstarJfch i!ias al po oslobodenie; Slovenska vlastiveda , Vol. IV (Bratislava, 1946), esp. pp. 130-339. On Slovak-Rusyn relations before 1918, see Mykhailo Mofnar, Slovaky i Ukraintsi (Bratislava and Pre§ov, 1966); and Helen Rudlovi!akova, " K otazkam vzajomnych kultumych stykov Slovakov a zakarpatskych Ukrajincov v polovici minuleho storocia,'' Sbomtk Sevi!enskovskj Filozoficky fakulty Univ. P. J. Safdrika, V (Bratislava, 1965) , pp. 149-166. 3 For further details on the immediate post-World War I developments, see Magocsi, Shaping of a National Identity , pp. 76-102 ; and Marian Mark Stolarik, " The Role of American Slovaks in the Creation of Czecho-Slovakia, 1914-1918, " Slovakia, VIIl (Cleveland and Rome, 1968), pp. 7-82 . 4 For details on the problem of the Slovak-Rusyn border during the interwar period, see the comprehensive recent monograph by Ivan Vanat, Narysy novitn 'oi istorii ukrain· tsiv Skhidnoi Slovachchyny , Vol. I: 1918-1988 (Bratislava and Pre§ov, 1979), pp. 103135 and 272-287. 5 There is controversy over the extent to which Rusyn leaders in the Pre§ov Region supported the call for unification with the autonomous Subcarpathian Rue'. Ukrainian writers in Pre§ov today, in an attempt to show that Rusyns in 1938 were in opposition to Slovak political activity at the same time that they were anxious to express solidarity with their " Carpatho-Ukrainian" brethren just to the east, argue that contemporary Slovak police reports revealed that support for unity with Subcarpathian Rue ' was widespread. Cf. Stefan Pazur, ''O vyvoji narodnostnych pomerov na vychodnom Slovensku v jesennych mesiacoch roku 1938," Nove obzory, X (Pre§ov, 1968), pp. 13-25. Indeed, this is true for the month of October and very early November. But I have read these same police reports (in the Statny Slovensky Ostredny Archiv - SSOA - in Bratislava), and they indicate by November a clear change in Pre§ov Region Rusyn public opinion against the idea of unity, because the "Ukrainian orientation is alien and in the end they (Pre§ov Region Rusyns) reject any kind of revision of borders in favor of Carpatho-Ukraine. " Prezidium Policajneho riaditel'stva v Pre§ove, January 11 , 1939 (SSOA , Fond Prezidium Krajinskeho uradu, carton 297, folder 310-1938). See · also carton 298, folder 62212-38. 6 These incidents are based on an unnamed eyewitness report and are given in Atanasii V. Pekar, Narysy istorii tserkvy Zakarpattia , Analecta OSBM, Series II, Sectio I (Rome , 1967) , pp. 144-146; and Julius Kubinyi, The History of PrjaJiv Eparchy, Editiones Universitatis Catholicae Ucrainorum S. Clementia Papae, Vol. XXXII (Rome, 1970) , pp . 161-163. 7 Andrej DudltA,Rustnskaotdzkaajej uzadie (Buenos Aires: Zahranii!na Matica slovenska, 1971) , p. 25. The Slovak denial of the existence of Rusyns in the Pre§ov Region was widespread already during the interwar period: ''These people (in northern Sari§ and Zemplin counties) are our Slovaks, who only because of the Greek Catholic faith inadvertently call themselves Rusnaks or of the Rusnak faith . But teachenJ infect them by saying that they are also of Rusyn nationality. This is ridiculous, but it is happening .... There are no Rusyns up there, nor Rusnaks, only Slovaks of the Greek Catholic faith. " Slovenska politika (Bratislava), September 2, 1928 - cited in Ivan Baji!ura, Ukrajinskaotdzka v CSSR (Ko§ice : Vychodoslovenske vyd. , 1967) , p. 44. The politically and emotionally charged questions of whether all Greek Catholics in eastern Slovakia are Rusyns or whether all or most are Slovaks has acquired an exten- �44 SLOVAKIA sive polemical and scholarly literature. Among the better works which present opposing views are: Volodymyr Hnatiuk, " Rusyny Priashivs'koi eparkhii i ikh hovory," Zapysky Nau.kouoho Touarystua im. Sheuchenka, XXXV (L'viv, 1900), pp. 1-25; and Ondrej R. Halaga, Slouanske osfdlenie potisia a uychodoslouenski greckokatolici (Ko§ice , 1947) . 8 For details on the policy of the Slovak autonomous government and later the Slovak state vis-a-vis the Pre§ov Region Rusyns, see Andrii Kovach, " Stanovyshche zakarpatis'kykh ukraintsiv (rusyniv) i zanepad pershoi ChSR," Nau.kouyi zbirnyk , VI, pt. 1 (Svidnik, Bratislava, and Pre§ov, 1972), esp. pp. 23-30 ; and his " Natsional'na polityka Slovats'koi Respubliky po vidnoshenniu do rusyniv-ukraintsiv (1939-1945 r.r.)," in Zhouten ' i ukrains'ka kul'tura (Pre§ov, 1968), pp. 132-143 . 9 Beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century and continuing down to as recently as the early 1950s, most members of the Pre§ov Region Rusyn intelligentsia considered themselves part of one Russian nationality which lived from the Carpathian Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. 10 On cultural developments during the war years, see Andrii Kovach, ''Ukraintsi Priashivshchyny i deiaki pytannia kul 'turnoi polityky Slovats'koi Respubliky," Naukouyi zbirnyk, IV, pt. 1 (Svidnik, Pre§ov, and Bratislava, 1969), pp . 401-412; and his " Ukraintsi Skhidnoi Slovachchyny naperedodni slovats'koho narodnoho povstannia, " Z mynuloho i suchasnoho ukraintsiu Chekhoslouachchyny, Pedahohichnyi zbirnyk, No. 3 (Bratislava, 1973), pp . 196-215. 11 Cited in Edo Fri§ , My§lienka a tin: uuahy o Ceskoslouensku 1938-1948 (Bratislava, 1968) , p. 104. For details on the Rusyn underground and partisan movement, see the studies by Stepan Pazhur, Vasyl' Horkovych, Andrii Kovach, as well as several eyewitness recollections from the period contained in Shliakh do uoli , in Naukouyi zbirnyk , II (Svidnik, Pre§ov, and Bratislava, 1966) . 12 For a discussion of Slovak-Rusyn relations between 1945 and the mid-1960s, see Baj<'!ura , Ukrajinska. ota.zka u CSSR; on the worsening of those relations after the Dubrek era in 1968-69, see Pavel Maro, " National Assimilation: The Case of the RusynUkrainians of Czechoslovakia," East Central Europe, II, 2 (Pittsburgh, 1975), pp . 101132. � 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 39 Rusyns a'\d the Slovak State· PAULR. MAGOCSI The status of Rusyns living within the boundaries of the Slovak state between the years 1939 and 1944 was greatly influenced by developments during the interwar period and most especially during the period of the Second Czecho-Slovak Republic in late 1938 and early 1939. The Rusyns, or as they are known today, Ukrainians, who inhabit the so-called Presov Region of present-day northeastern Slovakia, 1 had lived for centuries in harmony with neighboring Slovaks. Both groups were ruled by Hungary and both groups were characterized by general economic and social backwardness. 2 This situation changed after 1918 when Rusyns and Slovaks found themselves within the first Czechoslovak Republic. Both groups now had the opportunity to function as a political as well as cultural force whose demands had to be taken into consideration by the Czechoslovak state. This, however, led to friction between these otherwise friendly Slavic groups. Already toward the end of World War I Rusyn immigrants in the United States began to talk about autonomy, or even statehood, which they hoped to obtain for their Carpatho-Rusyn homeland at the close of the war. These leaders spoke of uniting all Rusyn-inhabited areas, including the northern portions of the old Hungarian counties of Spis, Saris, and Zemplin. This demand was opposed, however, by Slovak leaders who felt that all three of these counties should belong to Slovakia. 3 When the Rusyn province of Subcarpathian Rus' (Podkarpatska Rus) was established in 1919, its western border with Slovakia (along the Uz River) was initially only a provisional one, and Rusyn politicians both in Subcarpathian Rus' as well as in the Presov Region called upon the Prague administration to unite all Rusyn-inhabited areas into one autonomous province. But Slovaks adamantly opposed any proposed cession of Spis, Saris, and Zemplin counties. Finally in 1929, the • Paper presented as part of a panel on "14 March 1939 and the Slovak State," sponsored by the Slovak Studies Association in conjunction with the national convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, New Haven, October, 1979. 40 SLOVAKIA boundary of Subcarpathian Rus' was moved slightly westward, still leaving more than 90,000 Rusyns as a minority within the province of Slovakia.4 Rusyn leaders in Subcarpathian Rus' continued to lay claim to what became their Presov Region irredenta, but it was not until late 1938 that a new drive toward Rusyn unification was undertaken in earnest. After the Munich Crisis and the establishment of a federalized Czecho-Slovakia in October 1938, Presov Region Rusyn parliamentary deputies Ivan P 'escak and Petr Zidovskij supported the demands of the Rusyn National Committee in Presov (est. 1937) , which called for unification with the autonomous Subcarpathian Rus'. These efforts lasted barely a month, however, because in November, after a Ukrainophile government led by Avhustyn Volosyn came to power in Subcarpathian Rl,ls', Presov Region Rusyns, who were traditionally Russophile in national orientation, wanted nothing to do with the Carpatho-Ukrainian government farther east. Instead, the Rusyn National Committee in Presov supported elections to the Slovak Provincial Diet (to which two Rusyns were chosen) in December.5 Within a few months the question of unity with Subcarpathian Rus' became a moot issue. On March 15, 1939, Hitler decided to liquidate what remained of Czecho-Slovakia. Bohemia and Moravia were incorporated into the Third Reich; Slovakia (without its southern region annexed by Hungary in November, 1938) was allowed to become an independent but German-oriented state; and Subcarpathian Rus' was taken by Hungary. In late March, the anxious Hungarians sliced off a piece of land in eastern Slovakia leaving 36 Rusyn villages (20,000 people from the Presov Region) under Hungary for the duration of the war. As a result of these political changes, most Presov Region Rusyns were now under the control of a state governed by Slovaks in Bratislava. The Slovaks had struggled for more than two decades to gain greater autonomy from the Czech-dominated centralized Prague government. Now they finally had their own state, even if its existence depended on the good will of Hitler's German~. The new government in Bratislava was dominated by patriots whose goal was to Slovakize all aspects of the country. The Rusyns of the Presov Region were especially a target for discrimination, because just after the Munich Crisis they expressed a desire to unite with Subcarpathian Rus ' . Consequently, the Greek Catholic Church and especially its Bishop, Pavel Gojdic, were accused of disloyalty and pro-Hungarian feelings . For instance, in 1939 the President of Slovakia, Dr. Jozef Tiso, and in 1940 the Minister of Propaganda, Sano Mach, visited Presov and on two SLOVAKIA 41 separate occasions sligh_ted the Bishop in public and questioned his loyalty.6 Also in 1940, Apdrej Dudas was appointed to head the administrative district (Saris:.Zemplin iupa) for all of eastern Slovakia, a post he was to hold for the remainder of the war. Dudas was convinced that the idea of a Rusyn nationality was created by the Hungarians, and in 1943 he wrote a book on the subject and concluded that the "socalled Rusyn people (rusinsky l 'ud) in the Carpathian Basin are by origin and character Slovak. "7 It was in such an atmosphere that Presov Region Rusyns now found themselves. In early 1939, the Rusyn National Committee and Carpatho-Rusyn National Council were banned, the newspaper Prja~evskaja Rus' (Presov, 1938-39) was closed, and the activity of the local Rusyn cultural Duchnovyc Society was restricted. Rusyns were allowed one more deputy, Mychal Bon'ko, who was appointed to the Slovak Diet in 1941, but like his elected predecessors (Simko and Hornjak), he was expected to support the government's policy.8 Only the Greek Catholic Church led by Bishop Gojdic could effectively defend Rusyn national interests. As a result of Gojdic' s efforts, the Slovak government passed a decree in 1940 making all Rusyn elementary schools the responsibility of the Greek Catholic Church. This allowed for the maintenance of Rusyn teaching, and for that purpose four new textbooks were published. Other cultural activity was limited. The Slovaks wanted to remove Presov as the cultural center for Rusyns, and in that regard tried, though unsuccessfully, to have Bishop Gojdic' s residence transferred from Presov northward to Medzilaborce. One newspaper was permitted, Novoe vremja (Medzilaborce, 1940-44), which like the Greek Catholic school system used the so-called ''traditional Carpatho-Rusyn language" (i.e., Russian with local dialectisms) and propagated a Russophile national orientation.9 Presov Region authors were generally isolated from each other during the war years, although some cultural activity took place among Rusyn university students in Bratislava through their student club, the Dobrianskij Society (Obscestvo Dobrianskogo) and publications: Studenfeskij iurnal (Bratislava, 194041) and Jar' (Bratislava, 1942-43).10 The economic situation of the mass of Rusyn peasantry did not change from what it was during the interwar years, even though a few thousand went to Germany to work and some who remained home were able to take advantage of the aryanization laws (September, 1941) and receive proprietorship over former Jewish land and shops. Moreover, Slovakia suffered little destruction until the last months of the war, and 42 SLOVAKIA some improvements, especially in roads and communications, took place. It is beyond the scope of this presentation to discuss the partisan movement in any detail. Suffice it to say that the first partisan unit in the Presov Region was organized already in 1943, and an underground movement, the Carpatho-Russian Autonomous Union for National Liberation (Karpatorusskij Avtonomnyj Sojuz Nacionafnogo Osvobozdenija - KRASNO), was formed in 1944. The latter maintained contacts both with the Slovak underground movement and with the Czechoslovak Army Corps in the Soviet Union. KRASNO was dedicated to the principle of a liberated Chzechoslovakia, and it welcomed the October, 1944 declaration of the underground Slovak National Council that the ''new republic must be ... a fraternal republic of three equal nations - Czechs, Slovaks, and Carpatho-Rusyns. "11 In summary, the close and often supportive relations that existed for centuries between Slovaks and Presov Region Rusyns were replaced in the twentieth century by friction often caused by the opposed political and cultural goals of the two groups. Neither the First nor Second Czechoslovak Republic, nor the Slovak state contributed in any way to a lessening of political friction between Slovaks and Presov Region Rusyns, a situation, I might add, which has only worsened since World War II.12 NOTES 1 Rusyns living south of the Carpathian Mountains (i.e. , in the present-day Transcarpathian Oblast' of the Ukrainian SSR as well as the Pre§ov Region) have been known by various names , such as Carpatho-Ruthenian, Carpatho-Russian, and CarpathoUkrainian. It was not until the twentieth century that the name Ukrainian came to be accepted by certain segments of the population; and with regard specifically to the inhabitants of the Pre§ov Region, this did not occur until as late as the 1960s. The historic name of the group has always been Rusyn (o~ Rusnak in the Pre§ov Region), and this is the term that will be used here. The Pre§ov Region takes its name from the city of Pre§ov, the traditional religious and cultural center of the group, which is, however, located outside of Rusyn ethnographic territory. For a discussion of nomenclature, see Paul R. Magocsi, The Shaping of a National Identity: Subcarpathian Rus', 1848-1948 (Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 1978), pp. 277-281. 2 For a survey of socioeconomic and cultural developments in the nineteenth century among Rusyns, see Magocsi, ibid, pp. 9-76 ; I. G. Kolomiets, Sotsial'no-ekonomicheskie otnosheniia i obshchestvennoe dvizhenie v Zakarpat'e vo vtoroi polovine XIX, 2 vols. (Tomsk: lzd. Tomskogo universiteta, 1961-62) ; and Ivan Zeguc, Die national- SLOVAKIA 43 politischem Bestrebungen der Karpato-Ruthenen 1848-1914 (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1965). On the Slovaks, see R. W .~Seton-Watson, Racial Problems in Hungary (London, 1908); and Franti§ek Bokes, Dejiny Slovdkov a Slovenska od najstarJfch i!ias al po oslobodenie; Slovenska vlastiveda , Vol. IV (Bratislava, 1946), esp. pp. 130-339. On Slovak-Rusyn relations before 1918, see Mykhailo Mofnar, Slovaky i Ukraintsi (Bratislava and Pre§ov, 1966); and Helen Rudlovi!akova, " K otazkam vzajomnych kultumych stykov Slovakov a zakarpatskych Ukrajincov v polovici minuleho storocia,'' Sbomtk Sevi!enskovskj Filozoficky fakulty Univ. P. J. Safdrika, V (Bratislava, 1965) , pp. 149-166. 3 For further details on the immediate post-World War I developments, see Magocsi, Shaping of a National Identity , pp. 76-102 ; and Marian Mark Stolarik, " The Role of American Slovaks in the Creation of Czecho-Slovakia, 1914-1918, " Slovakia, VIIl (Cleveland and Rome, 1968), pp. 7-82 . 4 For details on the problem of the Slovak-Rusyn border during the interwar period, see the comprehensive recent monograph by Ivan Vanat, Narysy novitn 'oi istorii ukrain· tsiv Skhidnoi Slovachchyny , Vol. I: 1918-1988 (Bratislava and Pre§ov, 1979), pp. 103135 and 272-287. 5 There is controversy over the extent to which Rusyn leaders in the Pre§ov Region supported the call for unification with the autonomous Subcarpathian Rue'. Ukrainian writers in Pre§ov today, in an attempt to show that Rusyns in 1938 were in opposition to Slovak political activity at the same time that they were anxious to express solidarity with their " Carpatho-Ukrainian" brethren just to the east, argue that contemporary Slovak police reports revealed that support for unity with Subcarpathian Rue ' was widespread. Cf. Stefan Pazur, ''O vyvoji narodnostnych pomerov na vychodnom Slovensku v jesennych mesiacoch roku 1938," Nove obzory, X (Pre§ov, 1968), pp. 13-25. Indeed, this is true for the month of October and very early November. But I have read these same police reports (in the Statny Slovensky Ostredny Archiv - SSOA - in Bratislava), and they indicate by November a clear change in Pre§ov Region Rusyn public opinion against the idea of unity, because the "Ukrainian orientation is alien and in the end they (Pre§ov Region Rusyns) reject any kind of revision of borders in favor of Carpatho-Ukraine. " Prezidium Policajneho riaditel'stva v Pre§ove, January 11 , 1939 (SSOA , Fond Prezidium Krajinskeho uradu, carton 297, folder 310-1938). See · also carton 298, folder 62212-38. 6 These incidents are based on an unnamed eyewitness report and are given in Atanasii V. Pekar, Narysy istorii tserkvy Zakarpattia , Analecta OSBM, Series II, Sectio I (Rome , 1967) , pp. 144-146; and Julius Kubinyi, The History of PrjaJiv Eparchy, Editiones Universitatis Catholicae Ucrainorum S. Clementia Papae, Vol. XXXII (Rome, 1970) , pp . 161-163. 7 Andrej DudltA,Rustnskaotdzkaajej uzadie (Buenos Aires: Zahranii!na Matica slovenska, 1971) , p. 25. The Slovak denial of the existence of Rusyns in the Pre§ov Region was widespread already during the interwar period: ''These people (in northern Sari§ and Zemplin counties) are our Slovaks, who only because of the Greek Catholic faith inadvertently call themselves Rusnaks or of the Rusnak faith . But teachenJ infect them by saying that they are also of Rusyn nationality. This is ridiculous, but it is happening .... There are no Rusyns up there, nor Rusnaks, only Slovaks of the Greek Catholic faith. " Slovenska politika (Bratislava), September 2, 1928 - cited in Ivan Baji!ura, Ukrajinskaotdzka v CSSR (Ko§ice : Vychodoslovenske vyd. , 1967) , p. 44. The politically and emotionally charged questions of whether all Greek Catholics in eastern Slovakia are Rusyns or whether all or most are Slovaks has acquired an exten- 44 SLOVAKIA sive polemical and scholarly literature. Among the better works which present opposing views are: Volodymyr Hnatiuk, " Rusyny Priashivs'koi eparkhii i ikh hovory," Zapysky Nau.kouoho Touarystua im. Sheuchenka, XXXV (L'viv, 1900), pp. 1-25; and Ondrej R. Halaga, Slouanske osfdlenie potisia a uychodoslouenski greckokatolici (Ko§ice , 1947) . 8 For details on the policy of the Slovak autonomous government and later the Slovak state vis-a-vis the Pre§ov Region Rusyns, see Andrii Kovach, " Stanovyshche zakarpatis'kykh ukraintsiv (rusyniv) i zanepad pershoi ChSR," Nau.kouyi zbirnyk , VI, pt. 1 (Svidnik, Bratislava, and Pre§ov, 1972), esp. pp. 23-30 ; and his " Natsional'na polityka Slovats'koi Respubliky po vidnoshenniu do rusyniv-ukraintsiv (1939-1945 r.r.)," in Zhouten ' i ukrains'ka kul'tura (Pre§ov, 1968), pp. 132-143 . 9 Beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century and continuing down to as recently as the early 1950s, most members of the Pre§ov Region Rusyn intelligentsia considered themselves part of one Russian nationality which lived from the Carpathian Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. 10 On cultural developments during the war years, see Andrii Kovach, ''Ukraintsi Priashivshchyny i deiaki pytannia kul 'turnoi polityky Slovats'koi Respubliky," Naukouyi zbirnyk, IV, pt. 1 (Svidnik, Pre§ov, and Bratislava, 1969), pp . 401-412; and his " Ukraintsi Skhidnoi Slovachchyny naperedodni slovats'koho narodnoho povstannia, " Z mynuloho i suchasnoho ukraintsiu Chekhoslouachchyny, Pedahohichnyi zbirnyk, No. 3 (Bratislava, 1973), pp . 196-215. 11 Cited in Edo Fri§ , My§lienka a tin: uuahy o Ceskoslouensku 1938-1948 (Bratislava, 1968) , p. 104. For details on the Rusyn underground and partisan movement, see the studies by Stepan Pazhur, Vasyl' Horkovych, Andrii Kovach, as well as several eyewitness recollections from the period contained in Shliakh do uoli , in Naukouyi zbirnyk , II (Svidnik, Pre§ov, and Bratislava, 1966) . 12 For a discussion of Slovak-Rusyn relations between 1945 and the mid-1960s, see Baj<'!ura , Ukrajinska. ota.zka u CSSR; on the worsening of those relations after the Dubrek era in 1968-69, see Pavel Maro, " National Assimilation: The Case of the RusynUkrainians of Czechoslovakia," East Central Europe, II, 2 (Pittsburgh, 1975), pp . 101132.  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 Rusyns and the Slovak State Description An account of the resource Paul R. Magocsi Slovakia, Vol. 29 (No. 53-54), 1980-81 pp. 39-44 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Magocsi, Paul Robert, 1945- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1980-81 SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/1a60c191bc48ddd3af6567bc8637a46b.pdf eba3c243c04a4bfaecf93a40bc0bed0b PDF Text Text 76 SLOVAKIA Ruzena Svobodova's "Fcuilletons ou Slovakia" Prof. Joseph A. Mikus, M. C. L., J. D. After the proclamation of Czecho-Slovakia's independence in 1918, disputes arose between Czechs and Slovaks as to the nature of their political and cultural relations in the new state. While the Slovaks thought of partnership, brotherhood and family harmony, the Czechs, having lostafter the defeat of Germany-their Schweik inferiority complex, swung over to the other extreme: the complex of greatness. The Czecho-Slovakia of the Peace Treaties was imposed as "Czechoslovakia" on foreign countries, academies and encyclopedias, and was ruled as Great Czechia by the Prague Government. T. G. Masaryk, E. Benes, and nearly all Czech intellectuals considered Slovakia as a territorial acquisition of the Kingdom of Bohemia, as a generous gift made by the Allied and Associated Powers to the Czechs for their resistance against the Holy Roman Empire of the Germanic Nation during the Hussite wars, as a historical reparation of their defeat in the Battle at the White Mountain, 1620, and finally as an endurance prime for having withstood the onslaughts of Pan-Germanism in the 19th century. Among few Czech intellectuals and literary figures who sharply disagreed with the official Great Czechia concept of the new state, there was a lady, novelist and short story writer, Ruzena Svobodova (1868-1920). She had been informed on the problem of Slovakia by Milan Rastislav Stefanik (1880-1919) already during his studies at Charles University in Prague, i. e., before 1904. At that time her house in the capital of Bohemia was a meeting place for a literary and social group which was to play an important role in the Czecho-Slovak political rapprochement. F. X. salda, a prominent literary historian at Prague University, was there a frequent guest. Svobodova and salda became close friends of Stefanik. They visited with him in France as he was working as an astronomer at the Observatory of Meudon, near Paris. �SLOVAKIA 77 At the beginning of World War I, Stefanik enlisted in the French Army and reached the grade of General. At the end of the war, besides T. G. Masaryk and E. Benes, he is the only Slovak in the triumvirate of Czecho-Slovakia's liberators. He will become its first Minister of War. On May 4, 1919 the airplane, by which General Stefanik was returning from Italy to his native soil, was shot down by a Czech artillery unit stationed at Bratislava. Ruzena Svobodova must have been shaken by grief at such a horrible news, and particularly at the Government's suspicious refusal to publish all the facts of this accident. Thereafter, she travelled across Slovakia to pay-as it were-her last respect to Stefanik, and also to get acquainted with his homeland and its people. She then wrote a series of feuilletons dealing with several aspects of Slovak life and particularly with errors of the Czech official policy committed in Slovakia. They remained unpublished in her desk long after she died in 1920. No Czech magazine would accepted to give publicity to facts so shocking, while no Slovak periodical would have been allowed to do so without being victimized by the censor of the "democratic" regime represented by T . G. Masaryk and E. Benes. In 1930 it came to a Kulturkampf in Matica Slovenska, the Slovak Institute of Sciences and Arts, founded in 1863 in Turciansky Sv. Martin. According to official Czech designs aiming at cultural and linguistic assimilation of Slovakia, several important positions in that institution had been held by Czechs, among whom Frantisek Hermansky and Vaclav Vazny. How these Great Czechia promoters, hidden in the garb of professional linguists, had become leading officials in that old institution consecrated to national culture and language, may be a mystery for those who are not familiar with the devious methods of Benes' power politics. It was their purpose to gradually narrow the existing gap between the Czech and Slovak languages in bringing the Slovak vocabulatry< and style closer to the Czech. Their tendency was to find however, a definite opposition in the group of Slovak linguists: Jan Mihal, Anton Janosik, Henrik Bartek, Jozef Martinka, etc., led by the Director of the Matica, Prof. Jozef Skultety. This conflict produced an explosive cultural atmosphere and troubled considerably Czecho-Slovak political relations. �78 SLOVAKIA At that time, Stefan Krcmery, a renown Slovak poet, was editor in chief of Slovenske Pohl'ady, a literary review, founded in 1846. Trying to avoid personal polemics and decided to cast some light on the behavior of Czech officials in Slovakia, he thought the feuilletons of Ruzena Svobodova would serve very well his purpose. He prepared them for publication in Vol. 46 of Slovenske Pohl'ady, No. 5-8, 1930. From the repetition of certain issues it is evident that R. Svobodova did not intend to have them published at the same time. Krcmery, however, to give them a cumulative meaning, did do just so, or rather, he had the intention to do so. No sooner had that summer issue of Slovenske Pohl'ady left the presses of the Printing Corporation in Turciansky Sv. Martin, than the censor confiscated the whole edition. Those essays of Ruzena Svobodova apparently were menacing nothing less than the unity and the reason of the state. Since then, they have not been reprinted either in Czech or in Slovak. As we bring them here in an English translation, we would like hereby to honor the courage, friendship, honesty and perspicacity of Ruzena Svobodova, all these virtues displayed at the time, when nearly all the Czechs, following the example of T. G. Masaryk and E. Benes, were drunk of the Great Czechia dream and treated Slovakia as a conquerred territory. THE SOUL OF THE SLOVAK NATION We are confronted with the soul of a different nation. Have we ever been faced with a greater mystery? How shall we enter the temple which is not ours? Could it be otherwise than highest respect as it fits when approaching a different psyche, even though it may be a brother's psyche? Is it possible to penetrate with enough tenderness, enough respect, enough care a distinct soul or its spiritual temple, the greatest of its constructions? Only a man whose wiring with the mysterious soul of the world had been broken could have entirely lost or never accquired respect for human soul. For every human being is as meaningful as History itself; each soul is ankered in eternity; each one is determined by thousands of previous generations. �SLOVAKIA 79 We shouldn't have lightheartily thought of the soul of that nation, i. e., of something which is infinitely more complicated than the soul of an individual. We entered Slovakia as parvenus engrossed by our self-importance, without that respect, without that humility. We had believ-ed to bring salvation to the Slovaks and we had dispensed with the attention we owed to the mystery of their unknown and complicated reality. We do not know Slovakia, we do not know the soul of our sister. We have offended it. Therefore, it has closed itself for us. We have entered there as conquerors and a number of our people lacking delicacy call Slovakia a colony, an occupied territory, and tell it into the face of the Slovaks. Out of a series of psychological errors, this one is felt by the Slovaks as the most outrageous. "We had expected brothers, say the Slovaks, but instead there came rulers." Those Czechs of crude and domineering manners have sinned against the spirit; they have sinned by arrogance and contempt. They are guilty and cannot be excused. The selection of Czech public servants for Slovakia should have been better and more careful. People should have been sent there so noble as not to touch even the dust on a butterfly's wings. The Government should have sent there spiritual observers. A manual should have been written and without its message no one should ever have entered this land. It should have contained a gospel of love, respect and tenderness; a message that would not hurt, that would teach how to approach another people without prejudice: a sort of Decalogue of noble principles. Those who were privileged enough to be sent to Slovakia and have sinned there, must straighten out their attitude, correct their behavior, must learn to confront the unexplored soul of the Slovak nation with deference. They must abandon their messianistic slogans. Otherwise they should be revoked. The only important task is to win the love of the Slovaks. This may be difficult for someone who does not have the highest philosophical culture and is unable to keep silent. No there is work over there for a special type of men: for reserved wise men without self-conceit �80 SLOVAKIA and egotism; for those who can keep their mouth shut. Neither people nor man of noble mind are garrulous . Garrulousnes s is the symton of half-educatio n. There are many unbearable people, unable to evolve, who impose their cheap opinions upon their fellow-men be it in religion, culture or politics; who believe in their intellectual superiority; who are convinced that there is nothing above them, for they have achieved the top of their escension. And should circumstance s enhance their belief of bein apostles, woe to those to whom they preach their sad "self-evident truths". Slovakia has been invaded by a number of such people. Uninstructed and unable to learn, they met the soul of that nation, they intruded in it without tact and with false conviction that it was their task to lift up that soul to their own level. False prophets and preachers lacking modesty and introspection , do you realize what kind of people are you dealing with? Can you imagine what is the spiritual key-board of that nation, a key-board on which sound as the highest tone the limitless greatness of Milan R. stefanik's spirit, and as its most natural tone the song of an innocent girl of Zvolen? Can you imagine the spiritual depth of a nation whose soul smiles in suffering and which hides its cristal-line purity behind humor? If you approach the soul of that nation with humbleness, respect and faith, what depth you will discover, what clarity of mind, what wealth! The closer the contact we have with it, the more purified we become. If you meet the soul of that nation with humility, the old Slovakia will reward you with her mysterious beauty, accumulated throughout centuries. To get acquainted with her, to perceive her multiple facets, to stand in rapture before her, must become for us joy. I have never seen a more majestic spectacle. EDUCATED SLOVAKS The human nature of educated Slovaks has so-to-say a key-board by some scales wider than ours. Each one of them displays the sophisticatio n of a Parisian and the naturalness of a shepherd. They are closer to wordly life �SLOVAKIA 81 on a higher level, while they are closer to nature. They are nearer to culture and at the same time to the people. Even though they may be hunters used to strolling through woods, and during hunting periods to staying in huts, they have an external elegance. They speak foreign languages while they enjoy singing the shepherds's songs of their kinsmen, nostalgical calling on their fellow-men from the top of one mountain to another. They live with a music which stems from the mysterious noise of a lonely forest, from the desire to meet people around a stone fireplace burning day and night . They know how to be exhuberant in their merriments, to drink champagne, to enjoy themselves, to break into group singing. They also can spend the whole evening in talking their poetry. They know by heart many pieces of it. And whenever one of them touches a chord, it will resound in another. They recite Sladkovic, Hviezdoslav, Razus . Whenever our performing artists go to Slovakia, they should not think they go to a village. Only real masters, not those of second category, shall venture to go there. The Slovak intelligentsia had seen in Budapest worldfamous artists, an internationally renowned and highly selected art. They will judge our performers by these criteria. Pretentious dilettantes are wrong if they think they go to Asia and behave accordingly. There, they will be scrutinized more severely than they are used to be in our own land and cannot than do harm to our cause. The resentment that prevails now in Slovakia on our behalf will find no complacency' for our dilettantism, and if there is anyone who may help our cause there, it can be only someone able to fascinate the Slovaks and make them overcome their feelings . THE SLOVAK PEOPLE The Slovak is not sentimental; he is tough and does not want to be pitied. He is full of humour, shining with smile. By his witty answers he always puts a fence around himself, thus keeping you at a distance and preventing you from getting at him. �82 SLOVAKIA In a village we spoke at a house corner under the roof shelter with a young woman, mother of seven children. On her arms, she kept her youngest baby, just 6 months. The latter was dressed in a minuscule shirt. She talks and smiles and women and children from the neighborhood, gathered around her, smile at everything they say. There is with me a young lady who would like to have children. I tell it to that young Slovak woman proposing jokingly: "Couldn't you give this youngest baby of yours to her?" The not say answers we shall Slovak woman does not betray her feeling, does she will never give up her baby. Smiling, she she will do it with pleasure and adds: "Yes, and soon have another one!" I look into her bright, full, and healthy face under a white coif. Her smile had spread contagion in that Sunday crowd. Even if she had thirty children, she still would not accept to be pitied. Nobody in Slovakia, either collectively or individually, wants to be pitied. And this inborn pride serves as psychological explanation of many qualities, alleged sensitivities and attitudes difficult to understand. Nor want the Slovaks to be pitied for the Magyar domination. The people is comparatively uninhibited, and not only in the Vah valley. This is not bad. They are a highly intelligent, vivid, smart, humorous and gay people. Their conscience is like a clean sheet of paper. Be careful as you are trying to write on it. You have to approach them with the purest mind. In this respect, God has been more gracious to me than I deserve. He has given me the opportunity to get acquainted there with the souls, the most beautiful souls I have ever met. Long ago, very long ago, He had granted me the privilege of meeting Milan Rastislav Stefanik. He had allowed me to look into his soul that was reflecting dolor, love, despair, tenderness and generosity. As if provided with a magic key, I approached through his soul the soul of his nation, I opened it and gazed into �SLOVAKIA 83 its folds. I do not say I have penetrated inside. I do not affirm I know it; I perhaps shall never reach that point. Whatever I have been allowed to see is enough for me to spend the rest of my life in light and joy. I have watched a people closely related in their minds, united by the juices and delicacies of life, by their homeland, forests, and rivers, by their kinship and friendliness. Over there, in Slovakia, overwhelmed by noble beings, the soul gets calmed and touched with humility. I do not pretend to know much about Slovakia. I ignore whether I shall ever be able to learn more. Yet, I have well known the soul of one of its greatest sons, the . soul of Milan, as they simply call there the dead General Stefanik. His soul had displayed the biggest variety of facets of all the persons I have ever got in contact with in my life. It resounded with vigor and tenderness. It radiated limitless love and strict justice. It was clear, simple, like a child's; it was smiling and innocent. It belonged at the same time to a ruler and to a servant. It was religious and wordly, believing and respectful, inventive and quick-minded. I don't dare to assert I am a specialist on Slovakia: but I have found there the individual components of Milan's soul, the soul which has become for me the key to the soul of his whole nation. There is no genius whose soul would not represent to a high degree all the best qualities with which his nation is endowed, and there is no nation in which it would be impossible to discover the embryo, a sleeping embryo, of its genius' soul. We enter a village and stop in front of the church. The villagers gather around our driver and ask who we are. "They are Americans", answers the driver, thereafter presenting his appologies: "I simply could not tell them you are Czechs, for nobody here likes Czechs." When I was speaking with educated city ladies, and after having realized that in towns there was the same mood as in villages, I felt hurt and told them: �84 SLOVAKIA "We, too, had suffered from hunger for five years during the war and after. And should it be necessary to suffer for two years more in order to share our destiny with you, we would accept that ordeal. Such is our love for you. Why then do you not like us? Whenever we speak about Slovakia, we do it with tears in our eyes. Why do you not love us?" A young girl gave me a thousand-fold answer, she and her group . And if I had to state the contents of that conversation in some short precepts, they would run like this : "You should leave us to live and die in our own way. Do not impose yourselves upon us. Do not overpower us. Do not take from us and our people what we worship and love. Do not offend our feelings. Do not send here third rate officials. Bring here what we are lacking in exchange for our own services." And upon her anwer, I could not do otherwise than lower my head and realize why they do not like us: Well, simply because we have been doing just the oposite. Yes, we have lost any sympathy and the feeling toward Czechs there is nearing the point of hatred. The Slovak intelligentsia is fed up with Czech excesses. inconsistenci es, chaos in jurisdiction, overlookings, in one word, with Czech imperialism. They are tired from tactlessness and arrogance. What they have received is not what they had expected. That someone is responsible for it, it can hardly be denied. And every day passing by without straightening out committed faults cannot but multiply their consequences . The first error consists in that we tried to approach the mysterious soul of that nation with our mechanical concept of life, that we made efforts to force upon them cheap enlightenmen t as a remedy. There may be two sister-nations here; there may be closely related languages; there even may be the same Slav trunk. Yet, how many distinctions! A cliff in the Germanic sea, the Czech lands had throughout centuries been washed up by its waves, while Slovakia is a bridge eastwards. After a period of independ- �SLOVAKIA 85 ence we had lived under the German yoke, while the Slovaks had, nearly during the entire span of their active history, been politically tight up with the Magyars, i. e., a people who have distinct traditions, and whose political and cultural development differs in content and level; with a people-in one word-who are marked by a particular mentality. Since Slovakia was for us a land prohibited, we had been on all sides separated from the Slav race. The Slovaks, instead, had benefited largely by a direct contact with the Slav world, have been, in fact, united with it, and represent its continuation, something like the tail of a multi-colored East-Slav rainbow. What instruction and education should have been given to those Czechs who went to that noble, spiritually richer and brighter land of Slovakia which in this respect towers high above us? What tests of selection should have been applied in order to choose best from among us to be assigned there and pay their respects to the sacred mystery of that country reflecting a shy, non spoiled, creative soul? What should we have done to increase our joy, our own and Slovakia's happiness? For the time being, besides very few good Czechs, there are many pretentious individuals in the military as well as among the various officials who had trampled down a number of serious personalities, institutions and accomplishments. Those Czechs have thereby inflicted considerable damages to Slovakia. As we go around, we hear constantly of an endless series of such sad and regrettable cases. Slovak men tell me about the injustices committed on them by Czechs. A Slovak lady, good looking and of slender stature, listens to them. She evidently suffers that I have to hear those indictments against my nation, and she accasionally interrupts that conversation with polite words. Her husband explains what had been done by soldiers. A group of them entered a restaurant where a highly artistic picture of Empress Maria Theresa was hanging from the wall. They took that picture down, cut it into pieces and caused the private owner a damage amounting to several thousand crowns. �SLOVAKIA 86 The Slovak lady comments: "Perhaps the picture seemed offending to them; but they should have asked the owner to put it away. It was a private object of high value and they should never have cut it into pieces. This is not the question of substance, but of form" - says politely that lady as if she were trying to excuse the malfeasors. Her husband continues: "A soldier enters an inn and orders a sandwich. The innkeeper asks four crowns for it. The soldier refuses to pay protesting against the price. He was right to do so. The innkeeper defends himself: 'The County Administrator had fixed that price!' The soldier, however, does not know what the powers of a County Administrator are. He ignores entirely local conditions. He aggressively adds: 'That Administrator of yours, he is a Magyar sympathiser just as you are!' The County Administrator, a Slovak patriot, is just passing by and learns about the incident. He then addresses himself to the Captain asking for investigation. The Captain, however, rejects his request and takes the soldier under protection. Soldiers had done many ugly things in Slovakia; but you will perhaps say it was a consequence of five year war demoralization. This, of course, may be an explanation; but it is no excuse. Another example : A lower official was sent as mills supervisor to a county in Eastern Slovakia. Instead of taking care of his assignment, that man started spying on every step of the County Administrator and every word of the County Counsel. He went so far as to organize a personal boycott against them. He ran to the Post Office, announced that emergency measures had been taken against the County Administrator and his Counsel, and insisted their telephone connection be cut off. A never heard of, but a real, case! As he was being interrogated, he said: "That's our nature, of us Czechs. We think we must control everybody!" By the investigation of the performance of this supervisor �SLOVAKIA 87 it was proven that he had misappropriated a carload of flour and was keeping two bags of it in his household. A higher official in Prague was sending his organization agent to Slovakia with these words: "He is too rude for Prague; therefore I am sending him to Slovakia." A higher official who ignores what Slovakia is, ignores what her soul is, is then assigning there an executive of whom he knows in advance that the latter lacks the ability of matching that soul. Only those people shall be sent to Slovakia who realize that they will be guests in their brother's family, who will not desecrate, not even by the twinkle of their eyelids, the sanctity of that family; men who have faith, are tolerant and tactful; persons of limitless soul which embraces everything, understands all; those !Who, when confronted with a noble feeling would stand with respect without starting polemics. WHAT ARE OUR SINS Why did our people go to Slovakia? Idealists went there from love, pragmatists with expectations of higher profits. There is still a comperative lack of intelligentsia in Slovakia. It will take one or two generations to fill out this gap. Therefore, to go there, to help them in offices and schools, seems to be quite plausible. What are the principles of this aid? That is a big question! Chaos in this respect is what the Slovaks are strongly complaining about. Administrative offices are being organized. For hiring there must be an alternative requirement: either professionnal qualification or talent and experience. The boss who hires petitioners does not have himself professional qualification. The Slovaks think then that experience should be enough. Lower positions are to be filled out, positions of foresters, for instance. A prominent Slovak politician says: "Forests are state-owned and under the Hungarian regime foresters had been our great enemies. The people live from forestry and foresters had fostered Magyarization. �88 SLOVAKIA Do fill out those positions with reliable people. Put there veteran legionnaires!" He sent to the respective office some Slovak legionnaires who had faught with the American Army and would have been glad to stay in their homeland. Their applications were rejected for lack of qualification. "Well", said the politician, "here there is nothing to be done." The County is subdivided into four forest circuits. In the four Forest Administrative offices there had been an Engineer in Forestry, all of them men about fifty . Above these four engineers, there had been a Head-Administrator, also with higher technical education. The Head died. One of the four engineers, a Slovak and good specialist, came up with the application to succeed. Yet, to the surprise of everybody, a 30-year old Czech with only a secondary education in Forestry, was appointed. Next day, all four Forrest Office administrators resigned and refused to serve under a younger and unqualified man. The prominent politician commented: "If it was possible to disregard qualification requirements in the case of the Head of the County Forest Office, it certainly will be easier to do the same with foresters." As he had learned that 12 positions were open, he advised some veteran legionnaires to petition. The Office rejected them for lack of qualification. It hired instead Czechs, letting Slovak legionnaires return to America. Normally, Czechs are supposed to help, if there is no Slovak candidate. Yet, it is unwise to impose an unqualified public servant, if they have their own candidate. Not only that! It is offending. The above mentioned case is Hersek's. Under the Hungarian regime, no county official could be appointed without the County Administrator's consent. Public Law specialist say that County autonomy has never berm more perfect than at the time of Hungary. And now, in the Czecho-Slovak Republic, the following happens: �SLOVAKIA 89 A man lives in the County. He is an attorney, a Jew, an old Magyar sympathizer, an agent of the Hungarian Government, dangerous to the Czecho-Slovak State, a person whose hands are not clean. Everybody there would think it twice before shaking hands with this individual. He has been under observation in his residence. He does not have permission even to leave for another county, because the County Administrator intends to put him into confinment. And this man appears in the County Administrator's Office and shows him triumphantly his appointment from Prague as organizer and supervisor of the whole liquor industry in Slovakia. Consequently, a man has been appointed of whom the high Czech authority had never been informed. He has been appointed so-to-say behind the back and against the will of the County Administrator. What channel must have been left open to this man, and what means he must have used to conquer a moral and economic power position in Slovakia? All his antecedents must have been disregarded from the beginning until the end. What is the real power of a Slovak County Administrator, when a simple soldier, protected by his Captain, can throw into his face the accusation of being a Magyar sympathizer, and when an outspoken traitor to the nation can sarcastically parade his appointment decree from Prague before the Administrator's eyes? Do you think there are reasons in Slovakia to like Czechs? Out of the people who for longtime had been under foreign yoke, there are no good statesmen. They sin by reckless speed and narrowmindedness. They construct anywhere, even on sands. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is dedicated to works of charity, materially and morally aids Slovaks, here and abroad, who may be in need of such aid; it supports the American Red Cross, United Fund Campaigns and other American charitable projects. � 76 SLOVAKIA Ruzena Svobodova's "Fcuilletons ou Slovakia" Prof. Joseph A. Mikus, M. C. L., J. D. After the proclamation of Czecho-Slovakia's independence in 1918, disputes arose between Czechs and Slovaks as to the nature of their political and cultural relations in the new state. While the Slovaks thought of partnership, brotherhood and family harmony, the Czechs, having lostafter the defeat of Germany-their Schweik inferiority complex, swung over to the other extreme: the complex of greatness. The Czecho-Slovakia of the Peace Treaties was imposed as "Czechoslovakia" on foreign countries, academies and encyclopedias, and was ruled as Great Czechia by the Prague Government. T. G. Masaryk, E. Benes, and nearly all Czech intellectuals considered Slovakia as a territorial acquisition of the Kingdom of Bohemia, as a generous gift made by the Allied and Associated Powers to the Czechs for their resistance against the Holy Roman Empire of the Germanic Nation during the Hussite wars, as a historical reparation of their defeat in the Battle at the White Mountain, 1620, and finally as an endurance prime for having withstood the onslaughts of Pan-Germanism in the 19th century. Among few Czech intellectuals and literary figures who sharply disagreed with the official Great Czechia concept of the new state, there was a lady, novelist and short story writer, Ruzena Svobodova (1868-1920). She had been informed on the problem of Slovakia by Milan Rastislav Stefanik (1880-1919) already during his studies at Charles University in Prague, i. e., before 1904. At that time her house in the capital of Bohemia was a meeting place for a literary and social group which was to play an important role in the Czecho-Slovak political rapprochement. F. X. salda, a prominent literary historian at Prague University, was there a frequent guest. Svobodova and salda became close friends of Stefanik. They visited with him in France as he was working as an astronomer at the Observatory of Meudon, near Paris. �SLOVAKIA 77 At the beginning of World War I, Stefanik enlisted in the French Army and reached the grade of General. At the end of the war, besides T. G. Masaryk and E. Benes, he is the only Slovak in the triumvirate of Czecho-Slovakia's liberators. He will become its first Minister of War. On May 4, 1919 the airplane, by which General Stefanik was returning from Italy to his native soil, was shot down by a Czech artillery unit stationed at Bratislava. Ruzena Svobodova must have been shaken by grief at such a horrible news, and particularly at the Government's suspicious refusal to publish all the facts of this accident. Thereafter, she travelled across Slovakia to pay-as it were-her last respect to Stefanik, and also to get acquainted with his homeland and its people. She then wrote a series of feuilletons dealing with several aspects of Slovak life and particularly with errors of the Czech official policy committed in Slovakia. They remained unpublished in her desk long after she died in 1920. No Czech magazine would accepted to give publicity to facts so shocking, while no Slovak periodical would have been allowed to do so without being victimized by the censor of the "democratic" regime represented by T . G. Masaryk and E. Benes. In 1930 it came to a Kulturkampf in Matica Slovenska, the Slovak Institute of Sciences and Arts, founded in 1863 in Turciansky Sv. Martin. According to official Czech designs aiming at cultural and linguistic assimilation of Slovakia, several important positions in that institution had been held by Czechs, among whom Frantisek Hermansky and Vaclav Vazny. How these Great Czechia promoters, hidden in the garb of professional linguists, had become leading officials in that old institution consecrated to national culture and language, may be a mystery for those who are not familiar with the devious methods of Benes' power politics. It was their purpose to gradually narrow the existing gap between the Czech and Slovak languages in bringing the Slovak vocabulatry< and style closer to the Czech. Their tendency was to find however, a definite opposition in the group of Slovak linguists: Jan Mihal, Anton Janosik, Henrik Bartek, Jozef Martinka, etc., led by the Director of the Matica, Prof. Jozef Skultety. This conflict produced an explosive cultural atmosphere and troubled considerably Czecho-Slovak political relations. �78 SLOVAKIA At that time, Stefan Krcmery, a renown Slovak poet, was editor in chief of Slovenske Pohl'ady, a literary review, founded in 1846. Trying to avoid personal polemics and decided to cast some light on the behavior of Czech officials in Slovakia, he thought the feuilletons of Ruzena Svobodova would serve very well his purpose. He prepared them for publication in Vol. 46 of Slovenske Pohl'ady, No. 5-8, 1930. From the repetition of certain issues it is evident that R. Svobodova did not intend to have them published at the same time. Krcmery, however, to give them a cumulative meaning, did do just so, or rather, he had the intention to do so. No sooner had that summer issue of Slovenske Pohl'ady left the presses of the Printing Corporation in Turciansky Sv. Martin, than the censor confiscated the whole edition. Those essays of Ruzena Svobodova apparently were menacing nothing less than the unity and the reason of the state. Since then, they have not been reprinted either in Czech or in Slovak. As we bring them here in an English translation, we would like hereby to honor the courage, friendship, honesty and perspicacity of Ruzena Svobodova, all these virtues displayed at the time, when nearly all the Czechs, following the example of T. G. Masaryk and E. Benes, were drunk of the Great Czechia dream and treated Slovakia as a conquerred territory. THE SOUL OF THE SLOVAK NATION We are confronted with the soul of a different nation. Have we ever been faced with a greater mystery? How shall we enter the temple which is not ours? Could it be otherwise than highest respect as it fits when approaching a different psyche, even though it may be a brother's psyche? Is it possible to penetrate with enough tenderness, enough respect, enough care a distinct soul or its spiritual temple, the greatest of its constructions? Only a man whose wiring with the mysterious soul of the world had been broken could have entirely lost or never accquired respect for human soul. For every human being is as meaningful as History itself; each soul is ankered in eternity; each one is determined by thousands of previous generations. �SLOVAKIA 79 We shouldn't have lightheartily thought of the soul of that nation, i. e., of something which is infinitely more complicated than the soul of an individual. We entered Slovakia as parvenus engrossed by our self-importance, without that respect, without that humility. We had believ-ed to bring salvation to the Slovaks and we had dispensed with the attention we owed to the mystery of their unknown and complicated reality. We do not know Slovakia, we do not know the soul of our sister. We have offended it. Therefore, it has closed itself for us. We have entered there as conquerors and a number of our people lacking delicacy call Slovakia a colony, an occupied territory, and tell it into the face of the Slovaks. Out of a series of psychological errors, this one is felt by the Slovaks as the most outrageous. "We had expected brothers, say the Slovaks, but instead there came rulers." Those Czechs of crude and domineering manners have sinned against the spirit; they have sinned by arrogance and contempt. They are guilty and cannot be excused. The selection of Czech public servants for Slovakia should have been better and more careful. People should have been sent there so noble as not to touch even the dust on a butterfly's wings. The Government should have sent there spiritual observers. A manual should have been written and without its message no one should ever have entered this land. It should have contained a gospel of love, respect and tenderness; a message that would not hurt, that would teach how to approach another people without prejudice: a sort of Decalogue of noble principles. Those who were privileged enough to be sent to Slovakia and have sinned there, must straighten out their attitude, correct their behavior, must learn to confront the unexplored soul of the Slovak nation with deference. They must abandon their messianistic slogans. Otherwise they should be revoked. The only important task is to win the love of the Slovaks. This may be difficult for someone who does not have the highest philosophical culture and is unable to keep silent. No there is work over there for a special type of men: for reserved wise men without self-conceit �80 SLOVAKIA and egotism; for those who can keep their mouth shut. Neither people nor man of noble mind are garrulous . Garrulousnes s is the symton of half-educatio n. There are many unbearable people, unable to evolve, who impose their cheap opinions upon their fellow-men be it in religion, culture or politics; who believe in their intellectual superiority; who are convinced that there is nothing above them, for they have achieved the top of their escension. And should circumstance s enhance their belief of bein apostles, woe to those to whom they preach their sad "self-evident truths". Slovakia has been invaded by a number of such people. Uninstructed and unable to learn, they met the soul of that nation, they intruded in it without tact and with false conviction that it was their task to lift up that soul to their own level. False prophets and preachers lacking modesty and introspection , do you realize what kind of people are you dealing with? Can you imagine what is the spiritual key-board of that nation, a key-board on which sound as the highest tone the limitless greatness of Milan R. stefanik's spirit, and as its most natural tone the song of an innocent girl of Zvolen? Can you imagine the spiritual depth of a nation whose soul smiles in suffering and which hides its cristal-line purity behind humor? If you approach the soul of that nation with humbleness, respect and faith, what depth you will discover, what clarity of mind, what wealth! The closer the contact we have with it, the more purified we become. If you meet the soul of that nation with humility, the old Slovakia will reward you with her mysterious beauty, accumulated throughout centuries. To get acquainted with her, to perceive her multiple facets, to stand in rapture before her, must become for us joy. I have never seen a more majestic spectacle. EDUCATED SLOVAKS The human nature of educated Slovaks has so-to-say a key-board by some scales wider than ours. Each one of them displays the sophisticatio n of a Parisian and the naturalness of a shepherd. They are closer to wordly life �SLOVAKIA 81 on a higher level, while they are closer to nature. They are nearer to culture and at the same time to the people. Even though they may be hunters used to strolling through woods, and during hunting periods to staying in huts, they have an external elegance. They speak foreign languages while they enjoy singing the shepherds's songs of their kinsmen, nostalgical calling on their fellow-men from the top of one mountain to another. They live with a music which stems from the mysterious noise of a lonely forest, from the desire to meet people around a stone fireplace burning day and night . They know how to be exhuberant in their merriments, to drink champagne, to enjoy themselves, to break into group singing. They also can spend the whole evening in talking their poetry. They know by heart many pieces of it. And whenever one of them touches a chord, it will resound in another. They recite Sladkovic, Hviezdoslav, Razus . Whenever our performing artists go to Slovakia, they should not think they go to a village. Only real masters, not those of second category, shall venture to go there. The Slovak intelligentsia had seen in Budapest worldfamous artists, an internationally renowned and highly selected art. They will judge our performers by these criteria. Pretentious dilettantes are wrong if they think they go to Asia and behave accordingly. There, they will be scrutinized more severely than they are used to be in our own land and cannot than do harm to our cause. The resentment that prevails now in Slovakia on our behalf will find no complacency' for our dilettantism, and if there is anyone who may help our cause there, it can be only someone able to fascinate the Slovaks and make them overcome their feelings . THE SLOVAK PEOPLE The Slovak is not sentimental; he is tough and does not want to be pitied. He is full of humour, shining with smile. By his witty answers he always puts a fence around himself, thus keeping you at a distance and preventing you from getting at him. �82 SLOVAKIA In a village we spoke at a house corner under the roof shelter with a young woman, mother of seven children. On her arms, she kept her youngest baby, just 6 months. The latter was dressed in a minuscule shirt. She talks and smiles and women and children from the neighborhood, gathered around her, smile at everything they say. There is with me a young lady who would like to have children. I tell it to that young Slovak woman proposing jokingly: "Couldn't you give this youngest baby of yours to her?" The not say answers we shall Slovak woman does not betray her feeling, does she will never give up her baby. Smiling, she she will do it with pleasure and adds: "Yes, and soon have another one!" I look into her bright, full, and healthy face under a white coif. Her smile had spread contagion in that Sunday crowd. Even if she had thirty children, she still would not accept to be pitied. Nobody in Slovakia, either collectively or individually, wants to be pitied. And this inborn pride serves as psychological explanation of many qualities, alleged sensitivities and attitudes difficult to understand. Nor want the Slovaks to be pitied for the Magyar domination. The people is comparatively uninhibited, and not only in the Vah valley. This is not bad. They are a highly intelligent, vivid, smart, humorous and gay people. Their conscience is like a clean sheet of paper. Be careful as you are trying to write on it. You have to approach them with the purest mind. In this respect, God has been more gracious to me than I deserve. He has given me the opportunity to get acquainted there with the souls, the most beautiful souls I have ever met. Long ago, very long ago, He had granted me the privilege of meeting Milan Rastislav Stefanik. He had allowed me to look into his soul that was reflecting dolor, love, despair, tenderness and generosity. As if provided with a magic key, I approached through his soul the soul of his nation, I opened it and gazed into �SLOVAKIA 83 its folds. I do not say I have penetrated inside. I do not affirm I know it; I perhaps shall never reach that point. Whatever I have been allowed to see is enough for me to spend the rest of my life in light and joy. I have watched a people closely related in their minds, united by the juices and delicacies of life, by their homeland, forests, and rivers, by their kinship and friendliness. Over there, in Slovakia, overwhelmed by noble beings, the soul gets calmed and touched with humility. I do not pretend to know much about Slovakia. I ignore whether I shall ever be able to learn more. Yet, I have well known the soul of one of its greatest sons, the . soul of Milan, as they simply call there the dead General Stefanik. His soul had displayed the biggest variety of facets of all the persons I have ever got in contact with in my life. It resounded with vigor and tenderness. It radiated limitless love and strict justice. It was clear, simple, like a child's; it was smiling and innocent. It belonged at the same time to a ruler and to a servant. It was religious and wordly, believing and respectful, inventive and quick-minded. I don't dare to assert I am a specialist on Slovakia: but I have found there the individual components of Milan's soul, the soul which has become for me the key to the soul of his whole nation. There is no genius whose soul would not represent to a high degree all the best qualities with which his nation is endowed, and there is no nation in which it would be impossible to discover the embryo, a sleeping embryo, of its genius' soul. We enter a village and stop in front of the church. The villagers gather around our driver and ask who we are. "They are Americans", answers the driver, thereafter presenting his appologies: "I simply could not tell them you are Czechs, for nobody here likes Czechs." When I was speaking with educated city ladies, and after having realized that in towns there was the same mood as in villages, I felt hurt and told them: �84 SLOVAKIA "We, too, had suffered from hunger for five years during the war and after. And should it be necessary to suffer for two years more in order to share our destiny with you, we would accept that ordeal. Such is our love for you. Why then do you not like us? Whenever we speak about Slovakia, we do it with tears in our eyes. Why do you not love us?" A young girl gave me a thousand-fold answer, she and her group . And if I had to state the contents of that conversation in some short precepts, they would run like this : "You should leave us to live and die in our own way. Do not impose yourselves upon us. Do not overpower us. Do not take from us and our people what we worship and love. Do not offend our feelings. Do not send here third rate officials. Bring here what we are lacking in exchange for our own services." And upon her anwer, I could not do otherwise than lower my head and realize why they do not like us: Well, simply because we have been doing just the oposite. Yes, we have lost any sympathy and the feeling toward Czechs there is nearing the point of hatred. The Slovak intelligentsia is fed up with Czech excesses. inconsistenci es, chaos in jurisdiction, overlookings, in one word, with Czech imperialism. They are tired from tactlessness and arrogance. What they have received is not what they had expected. That someone is responsible for it, it can hardly be denied. And every day passing by without straightening out committed faults cannot but multiply their consequences . The first error consists in that we tried to approach the mysterious soul of that nation with our mechanical concept of life, that we made efforts to force upon them cheap enlightenmen t as a remedy. There may be two sister-nations here; there may be closely related languages; there even may be the same Slav trunk. Yet, how many distinctions! A cliff in the Germanic sea, the Czech lands had throughout centuries been washed up by its waves, while Slovakia is a bridge eastwards. After a period of independ- �SLOVAKIA 85 ence we had lived under the German yoke, while the Slovaks had, nearly during the entire span of their active history, been politically tight up with the Magyars, i. e., a people who have distinct traditions, and whose political and cultural development differs in content and level; with a people-in one word-who are marked by a particular mentality. Since Slovakia was for us a land prohibited, we had been on all sides separated from the Slav race. The Slovaks, instead, had benefited largely by a direct contact with the Slav world, have been, in fact, united with it, and represent its continuation, something like the tail of a multi-colored East-Slav rainbow. What instruction and education should have been given to those Czechs who went to that noble, spiritually richer and brighter land of Slovakia which in this respect towers high above us? What tests of selection should have been applied in order to choose best from among us to be assigned there and pay their respects to the sacred mystery of that country reflecting a shy, non spoiled, creative soul? What should we have done to increase our joy, our own and Slovakia's happiness? For the time being, besides very few good Czechs, there are many pretentious individuals in the military as well as among the various officials who had trampled down a number of serious personalities, institutions and accomplishments. Those Czechs have thereby inflicted considerable damages to Slovakia. As we go around, we hear constantly of an endless series of such sad and regrettable cases. Slovak men tell me about the injustices committed on them by Czechs. A Slovak lady, good looking and of slender stature, listens to them. She evidently suffers that I have to hear those indictments against my nation, and she accasionally interrupts that conversation with polite words. Her husband explains what had been done by soldiers. A group of them entered a restaurant where a highly artistic picture of Empress Maria Theresa was hanging from the wall. They took that picture down, cut it into pieces and caused the private owner a damage amounting to several thousand crowns. �SLOVAKIA 86 The Slovak lady comments: "Perhaps the picture seemed offending to them; but they should have asked the owner to put it away. It was a private object of high value and they should never have cut it into pieces. This is not the question of substance, but of form" - says politely that lady as if she were trying to excuse the malfeasors. Her husband continues: "A soldier enters an inn and orders a sandwich. The innkeeper asks four crowns for it. The soldier refuses to pay protesting against the price. He was right to do so. The innkeeper defends himself: 'The County Administrator had fixed that price!' The soldier, however, does not know what the powers of a County Administrator are. He ignores entirely local conditions. He aggressively adds: 'That Administrator of yours, he is a Magyar sympathiser just as you are!' The County Administrator, a Slovak patriot, is just passing by and learns about the incident. He then addresses himself to the Captain asking for investigation. The Captain, however, rejects his request and takes the soldier under protection. Soldiers had done many ugly things in Slovakia; but you will perhaps say it was a consequence of five year war demoralization. This, of course, may be an explanation; but it is no excuse. Another example : A lower official was sent as mills supervisor to a county in Eastern Slovakia. Instead of taking care of his assignment, that man started spying on every step of the County Administrator and every word of the County Counsel. He went so far as to organize a personal boycott against them. He ran to the Post Office, announced that emergency measures had been taken against the County Administrator and his Counsel, and insisted their telephone connection be cut off. A never heard of, but a real, case! As he was being interrogated, he said: "That's our nature, of us Czechs. We think we must control everybody!" By the investigation of the performance of this supervisor �SLOVAKIA 87 it was proven that he had misappropriated a carload of flour and was keeping two bags of it in his household. A higher official in Prague was sending his organization agent to Slovakia with these words: "He is too rude for Prague; therefore I am sending him to Slovakia." A higher official who ignores what Slovakia is, ignores what her soul is, is then assigning there an executive of whom he knows in advance that the latter lacks the ability of matching that soul. Only those people shall be sent to Slovakia who realize that they will be guests in their brother's family, who will not desecrate, not even by the twinkle of their eyelids, the sanctity of that family; men who have faith, are tolerant and tactful; persons of limitless soul which embraces everything, understands all; those !Who, when confronted with a noble feeling would stand with respect without starting polemics. WHAT ARE OUR SINS Why did our people go to Slovakia? Idealists went there from love, pragmatists with expectations of higher profits. There is still a comperative lack of intelligentsia in Slovakia. It will take one or two generations to fill out this gap. Therefore, to go there, to help them in offices and schools, seems to be quite plausible. What are the principles of this aid? That is a big question! Chaos in this respect is what the Slovaks are strongly complaining about. Administrative offices are being organized. For hiring there must be an alternative requirement: either professionnal qualification or talent and experience. The boss who hires petitioners does not have himself professional qualification. The Slovaks think then that experience should be enough. Lower positions are to be filled out, positions of foresters, for instance. A prominent Slovak politician says: "Forests are state-owned and under the Hungarian regime foresters had been our great enemies. The people live from forestry and foresters had fostered Magyarization. �88 SLOVAKIA Do fill out those positions with reliable people. Put there veteran legionnaires!" He sent to the respective office some Slovak legionnaires who had faught with the American Army and would have been glad to stay in their homeland. Their applications were rejected for lack of qualification. "Well", said the politician, "here there is nothing to be done." The County is subdivided into four forest circuits. In the four Forest Administrative offices there had been an Engineer in Forestry, all of them men about fifty . Above these four engineers, there had been a Head-Administrator, also with higher technical education. The Head died. One of the four engineers, a Slovak and good specialist, came up with the application to succeed. Yet, to the surprise of everybody, a 30-year old Czech with only a secondary education in Forestry, was appointed. Next day, all four Forrest Office administrators resigned and refused to serve under a younger and unqualified man. The prominent politician commented: "If it was possible to disregard qualification requirements in the case of the Head of the County Forest Office, it certainly will be easier to do the same with foresters." As he had learned that 12 positions were open, he advised some veteran legionnaires to petition. The Office rejected them for lack of qualification. It hired instead Czechs, letting Slovak legionnaires return to America. Normally, Czechs are supposed to help, if there is no Slovak candidate. Yet, it is unwise to impose an unqualified public servant, if they have their own candidate. Not only that! It is offending. The above mentioned case is Hersek's. Under the Hungarian regime, no county official could be appointed without the County Administrator's consent. Public Law specialist say that County autonomy has never berm more perfect than at the time of Hungary. And now, in the Czecho-Slovak Republic, the following happens: �SLOVAKIA 89 A man lives in the County. He is an attorney, a Jew, an old Magyar sympathizer, an agent of the Hungarian Government, dangerous to the Czecho-Slovak State, a person whose hands are not clean. Everybody there would think it twice before shaking hands with this individual. He has been under observation in his residence. He does not have permission even to leave for another county, because the County Administrator intends to put him into confinment. And this man appears in the County Administrator's Office and shows him triumphantly his appointment from Prague as organizer and supervisor of the whole liquor industry in Slovakia. Consequently, a man has been appointed of whom the high Czech authority had never been informed. He has been appointed so-to-say behind the back and against the will of the County Administrator. What channel must have been left open to this man, and what means he must have used to conquer a moral and economic power position in Slovakia? All his antecedents must have been disregarded from the beginning until the end. What is the real power of a Slovak County Administrator, when a simple soldier, protected by his Captain, can throw into his face the accusation of being a Magyar sympathizer, and when an outspoken traitor to the nation can sarcastically parade his appointment decree from Prague before the Administrator's eyes? Do you think there are reasons in Slovakia to like Czechs? Out of the people who for longtime had been under foreign yoke, there are no good statesmen. They sin by reckless speed and narrowmindedness. They construct anywhere, even on sands. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is dedicated to works of charity, materially and morally aids Slovaks, here and abroad, who may be in need of such aid; it supports the American Red Cross, United Fund Campaigns and other American charitable projects. � 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 76 SLOVAKIA Ruzena Svobodova's "Fcuilletons ou Slovakia" Prof. Joseph A. Mikus, M. C. L., J. D. After the proclamation of Czecho-Slovakia's independence in 1918, disputes arose between Czechs and Slovaks as to the nature of their political and cultural relations in the new state. While the Slovaks thought of partnership, brotherhood and family harmony, the Czechs, having lostafter the defeat of Germany-their Schweik inferiority complex, swung over to the other extreme: the complex of greatness. The Czecho-Slovakia of the Peace Treaties was imposed as "Czechoslovakia" on foreign countries, academies and encyclopedias, and was ruled as Great Czechia by the Prague Government. T. G. Masaryk, E. Benes, and nearly all Czech intellectuals considered Slovakia as a territorial acquisition of the Kingdom of Bohemia, as a generous gift made by the Allied and Associated Powers to the Czechs for their resistance against the Holy Roman Empire of the Germanic Nation during the Hussite wars, as a historical reparation of their defeat in the Battle at the White Mountain, 1620, and finally as an endurance prime for having withstood the onslaughts of Pan-Germanism in the 19th century. Among few Czech intellectuals and literary figures who sharply disagreed with the official Great Czechia concept of the new state, there was a lady, novelist and short story writer, Ruzena Svobodova (1868-1920). She had been informed on the problem of Slovakia by Milan Rastislav Stefanik (1880-1919) already during his studies at Charles University in Prague, i. e., before 1904. At that time her house in the capital of Bohemia was a meeting place for a literary and social group which was to play an important role in the Czecho-Slovak political rapprochement. F. X. salda, a prominent literary historian at Prague University, was there a frequent guest. Svobodova and salda became close friends of Stefanik. They visited with him in France as he was working as an astronomer at the Observatory of Meudon, near Paris. SLOVAKIA 77 At the beginning of World War I, Stefanik enlisted in the French Army and reached the grade of General. At the end of the war, besides T. G. Masaryk and E. Benes, he is the only Slovak in the triumvirate of Czecho-Slovakia's liberators. He will become its first Minister of War. On May 4, 1919 the airplane, by which General Stefanik was returning from Italy to his native soil, was shot down by a Czech artillery unit stationed at Bratislava. Ruzena Svobodova must have been shaken by grief at such a horrible news, and particularly at the Government's suspicious refusal to publish all the facts of this accident. Thereafter, she travelled across Slovakia to pay-as it were-her last respect to Stefanik, and also to get acquainted with his homeland and its people. She then wrote a series of feuilletons dealing with several aspects of Slovak life and particularly with errors of the Czech official policy committed in Slovakia. They remained unpublished in her desk long after she died in 1920. No Czech magazine would accepted to give publicity to facts so shocking, while no Slovak periodical would have been allowed to do so without being victimized by the censor of the "democratic" regime represented by T . G. Masaryk and E. Benes. In 1930 it came to a Kulturkampf in Matica Slovenska, the Slovak Institute of Sciences and Arts, founded in 1863 in Turciansky Sv. Martin. According to official Czech designs aiming at cultural and linguistic assimilation of Slovakia, several important positions in that institution had been held by Czechs, among whom Frantisek Hermansky and Vaclav Vazny. How these Great Czechia promoters, hidden in the garb of professional linguists, had become leading officials in that old institution consecrated to national culture and language, may be a mystery for those who are not familiar with the devious methods of Benes' power politics. It was their purpose to gradually narrow the existing gap between the Czech and Slovak languages in bringing the Slovak vocabulatry< and style closer to the Czech. Their tendency was to find however, a definite opposition in the group of Slovak linguists: Jan Mihal, Anton Janosik, Henrik Bartek, Jozef Martinka, etc., led by the Director of the Matica, Prof. Jozef Skultety. This conflict produced an explosive cultural atmosphere and troubled considerably Czecho-Slovak political relations. 78 SLOVAKIA At that time, Stefan Krcmery, a renown Slovak poet, was editor in chief of Slovenske Pohl'ady, a literary review, founded in 1846. Trying to avoid personal polemics and decided to cast some light on the behavior of Czech officials in Slovakia, he thought the feuilletons of Ruzena Svobodova would serve very well his purpose. He prepared them for publication in Vol. 46 of Slovenske Pohl'ady, No. 5-8, 1930. From the repetition of certain issues it is evident that R. Svobodova did not intend to have them published at the same time. Krcmery, however, to give them a cumulative meaning, did do just so, or rather, he had the intention to do so. No sooner had that summer issue of Slovenske Pohl'ady left the presses of the Printing Corporation in Turciansky Sv. Martin, than the censor confiscated the whole edition. Those essays of Ruzena Svobodova apparently were menacing nothing less than the unity and the reason of the state. Since then, they have not been reprinted either in Czech or in Slovak. As we bring them here in an English translation, we would like hereby to honor the courage, friendship, honesty and perspicacity of Ruzena Svobodova, all these virtues displayed at the time, when nearly all the Czechs, following the example of T. G. Masaryk and E. Benes, were drunk of the Great Czechia dream and treated Slovakia as a conquerred territory. THE SOUL OF THE SLOVAK NATION We are confronted with the soul of a different nation. Have we ever been faced with a greater mystery? How shall we enter the temple which is not ours? Could it be otherwise than highest respect as it fits when approaching a different psyche, even though it may be a brother's psyche? Is it possible to penetrate with enough tenderness, enough respect, enough care a distinct soul or its spiritual temple, the greatest of its constructions? Only a man whose wiring with the mysterious soul of the world had been broken could have entirely lost or never accquired respect for human soul. For every human being is as meaningful as History itself; each soul is ankered in eternity; each one is determined by thousands of previous generations. SLOVAKIA 79 We shouldn't have lightheartily thought of the soul of that nation, i. e., of something which is infinitely more complicated than the soul of an individual. We entered Slovakia as parvenus engrossed by our self-importance, without that respect, without that humility. We had believ-ed to bring salvation to the Slovaks and we had dispensed with the attention we owed to the mystery of their unknown and complicated reality. We do not know Slovakia, we do not know the soul of our sister. We have offended it. Therefore, it has closed itself for us. We have entered there as conquerors and a number of our people lacking delicacy call Slovakia a colony, an occupied territory, and tell it into the face of the Slovaks. Out of a series of psychological errors, this one is felt by the Slovaks as the most outrageous. "We had expected brothers, say the Slovaks, but instead there came rulers." Those Czechs of crude and domineering manners have sinned against the spirit; they have sinned by arrogance and contempt. They are guilty and cannot be excused. The selection of Czech public servants for Slovakia should have been better and more careful. People should have been sent there so noble as not to touch even the dust on a butterfly's wings. The Government should have sent there spiritual observers. A manual should have been written and without its message no one should ever have entered this land. It should have contained a gospel of love, respect and tenderness; a message that would not hurt, that would teach how to approach another people without prejudice: a sort of Decalogue of noble principles. Those who were privileged enough to be sent to Slovakia and have sinned there, must straighten out their attitude, correct their behavior, must learn to confront the unexplored soul of the Slovak nation with deference. They must abandon their messianistic slogans. Otherwise they should be revoked. The only important task is to win the love of the Slovaks. This may be difficult for someone who does not have the highest philosophical culture and is unable to keep silent. No there is work over there for a special type of men: for reserved wise men without self-conceit 80 SLOVAKIA and egotism; for those who can keep their mouth shut. Neither people nor man of noble mind are garrulous . Garrulousnes s is the symton of half-educatio n. There are many unbearable people, unable to evolve, who impose their cheap opinions upon their fellow-men be it in religion, culture or politics; who believe in their intellectual superiority; who are convinced that there is nothing above them, for they have achieved the top of their escension. And should circumstance s enhance their belief of bein apostles, woe to those to whom they preach their sad "self-evident truths". Slovakia has been invaded by a number of such people. Uninstructed and unable to learn, they met the soul of that nation, they intruded in it without tact and with false conviction that it was their task to lift up that soul to their own level. False prophets and preachers lacking modesty and introspection , do you realize what kind of people are you dealing with? Can you imagine what is the spiritual key-board of that nation, a key-board on which sound as the highest tone the limitless greatness of Milan R. stefanik's spirit, and as its most natural tone the song of an innocent girl of Zvolen? Can you imagine the spiritual depth of a nation whose soul smiles in suffering and which hides its cristal-line purity behind humor? If you approach the soul of that nation with humbleness, respect and faith, what depth you will discover, what clarity of mind, what wealth! The closer the contact we have with it, the more purified we become. If you meet the soul of that nation with humility, the old Slovakia will reward you with her mysterious beauty, accumulated throughout centuries. To get acquainted with her, to perceive her multiple facets, to stand in rapture before her, must become for us joy. I have never seen a more majestic spectacle. EDUCATED SLOVAKS The human nature of educated Slovaks has so-to-say a key-board by some scales wider than ours. Each one of them displays the sophisticatio n of a Parisian and the naturalness of a shepherd. They are closer to wordly life SLOVAKIA 81 on a higher level, while they are closer to nature. They are nearer to culture and at the same time to the people. Even though they may be hunters used to strolling through woods, and during hunting periods to staying in huts, they have an external elegance. They speak foreign languages while they enjoy singing the shepherds's songs of their kinsmen, nostalgical calling on their fellow-men from the top of one mountain to another. They live with a music which stems from the mysterious noise of a lonely forest, from the desire to meet people around a stone fireplace burning day and night . They know how to be exhuberant in their merriments, to drink champagne, to enjoy themselves, to break into group singing. They also can spend the whole evening in talking their poetry. They know by heart many pieces of it. And whenever one of them touches a chord, it will resound in another. They recite Sladkovic, Hviezdoslav, Razus . Whenever our performing artists go to Slovakia, they should not think they go to a village. Only real masters, not those of second category, shall venture to go there. The Slovak intelligentsia had seen in Budapest worldfamous artists, an internationally renowned and highly selected art. They will judge our performers by these criteria. Pretentious dilettantes are wrong if they think they go to Asia and behave accordingly. There, they will be scrutinized more severely than they are used to be in our own land and cannot than do harm to our cause. The resentment that prevails now in Slovakia on our behalf will find no complacency' for our dilettantism, and if there is anyone who may help our cause there, it can be only someone able to fascinate the Slovaks and make them overcome their feelings . THE SLOVAK PEOPLE The Slovak is not sentimental; he is tough and does not want to be pitied. He is full of humour, shining with smile. By his witty answers he always puts a fence around himself, thus keeping you at a distance and preventing you from getting at him. 82 SLOVAKIA In a village we spoke at a house corner under the roof shelter with a young woman, mother of seven children. On her arms, she kept her youngest baby, just 6 months. The latter was dressed in a minuscule shirt. She talks and smiles and women and children from the neighborhood, gathered around her, smile at everything they say. There is with me a young lady who would like to have children. I tell it to that young Slovak woman proposing jokingly: "Couldn't you give this youngest baby of yours to her?" The not say answers we shall Slovak woman does not betray her feeling, does she will never give up her baby. Smiling, she she will do it with pleasure and adds: "Yes, and soon have another one!" I look into her bright, full, and healthy face under a white coif. Her smile had spread contagion in that Sunday crowd. Even if she had thirty children, she still would not accept to be pitied. Nobody in Slovakia, either collectively or individually, wants to be pitied. And this inborn pride serves as psychological explanation of many qualities, alleged sensitivities and attitudes difficult to understand. Nor want the Slovaks to be pitied for the Magyar domination. The people is comparatively uninhibited, and not only in the Vah valley. This is not bad. They are a highly intelligent, vivid, smart, humorous and gay people. Their conscience is like a clean sheet of paper. Be careful as you are trying to write on it. You have to approach them with the purest mind. In this respect, God has been more gracious to me than I deserve. He has given me the opportunity to get acquainted there with the souls, the most beautiful souls I have ever met. Long ago, very long ago, He had granted me the privilege of meeting Milan Rastislav Stefanik. He had allowed me to look into his soul that was reflecting dolor, love, despair, tenderness and generosity. As if provided with a magic key, I approached through his soul the soul of his nation, I opened it and gazed into SLOVAKIA 83 its folds. I do not say I have penetrated inside. I do not affirm I know it; I perhaps shall never reach that point. Whatever I have been allowed to see is enough for me to spend the rest of my life in light and joy. I have watched a people closely related in their minds, united by the juices and delicacies of life, by their homeland, forests, and rivers, by their kinship and friendliness. Over there, in Slovakia, overwhelmed by noble beings, the soul gets calmed and touched with humility. I do not pretend to know much about Slovakia. I ignore whether I shall ever be able to learn more. Yet, I have well known the soul of one of its greatest sons, the . soul of Milan, as they simply call there the dead General Stefanik. His soul had displayed the biggest variety of facets of all the persons I have ever got in contact with in my life. It resounded with vigor and tenderness. It radiated limitless love and strict justice. It was clear, simple, like a child's; it was smiling and innocent. It belonged at the same time to a ruler and to a servant. It was religious and wordly, believing and respectful, inventive and quick-minded. I don't dare to assert I am a specialist on Slovakia: but I have found there the individual components of Milan's soul, the soul which has become for me the key to the soul of his whole nation. There is no genius whose soul would not represent to a high degree all the best qualities with which his nation is endowed, and there is no nation in which it would be impossible to discover the embryo, a sleeping embryo, of its genius' soul. We enter a village and stop in front of the church. The villagers gather around our driver and ask who we are. "They are Americans", answers the driver, thereafter presenting his appologies: "I simply could not tell them you are Czechs, for nobody here likes Czechs." When I was speaking with educated city ladies, and after having realized that in towns there was the same mood as in villages, I felt hurt and told them: 84 SLOVAKIA "We, too, had suffered from hunger for five years during the war and after. And should it be necessary to suffer for two years more in order to share our destiny with you, we would accept that ordeal. Such is our love for you. Why then do you not like us? Whenever we speak about Slovakia, we do it with tears in our eyes. Why do you not love us?" A young girl gave me a thousand-fold answer, she and her group . And if I had to state the contents of that conversation in some short precepts, they would run like this : "You should leave us to live and die in our own way. Do not impose yourselves upon us. Do not overpower us. Do not take from us and our people what we worship and love. Do not offend our feelings. Do not send here third rate officials. Bring here what we are lacking in exchange for our own services." And upon her anwer, I could not do otherwise than lower my head and realize why they do not like us: Well, simply because we have been doing just the oposite. Yes, we have lost any sympathy and the feeling toward Czechs there is nearing the point of hatred. The Slovak intelligentsia is fed up with Czech excesses. inconsistenci es, chaos in jurisdiction, overlookings, in one word, with Czech imperialism. They are tired from tactlessness and arrogance. What they have received is not what they had expected. That someone is responsible for it, it can hardly be denied. And every day passing by without straightening out committed faults cannot but multiply their consequences . The first error consists in that we tried to approach the mysterious soul of that nation with our mechanical concept of life, that we made efforts to force upon them cheap enlightenmen t as a remedy. There may be two sister-nations here; there may be closely related languages; there even may be the same Slav trunk. Yet, how many distinctions! A cliff in the Germanic sea, the Czech lands had throughout centuries been washed up by its waves, while Slovakia is a bridge eastwards. After a period of independ- SLOVAKIA 85 ence we had lived under the German yoke, while the Slovaks had, nearly during the entire span of their active history, been politically tight up with the Magyars, i. e., a people who have distinct traditions, and whose political and cultural development differs in content and level; with a people-in one word-who are marked by a particular mentality. Since Slovakia was for us a land prohibited, we had been on all sides separated from the Slav race. The Slovaks, instead, had benefited largely by a direct contact with the Slav world, have been, in fact, united with it, and represent its continuation, something like the tail of a multi-colored East-Slav rainbow. What instruction and education should have been given to those Czechs who went to that noble, spiritually richer and brighter land of Slovakia which in this respect towers high above us? What tests of selection should have been applied in order to choose best from among us to be assigned there and pay their respects to the sacred mystery of that country reflecting a shy, non spoiled, creative soul? What should we have done to increase our joy, our own and Slovakia's happiness? For the time being, besides very few good Czechs, there are many pretentious individuals in the military as well as among the various officials who had trampled down a number of serious personalities, institutions and accomplishments. Those Czechs have thereby inflicted considerable damages to Slovakia. As we go around, we hear constantly of an endless series of such sad and regrettable cases. Slovak men tell me about the injustices committed on them by Czechs. A Slovak lady, good looking and of slender stature, listens to them. She evidently suffers that I have to hear those indictments against my nation, and she accasionally interrupts that conversation with polite words. Her husband explains what had been done by soldiers. A group of them entered a restaurant where a highly artistic picture of Empress Maria Theresa was hanging from the wall. They took that picture down, cut it into pieces and caused the private owner a damage amounting to several thousand crowns. SLOVAKIA 86 The Slovak lady comments: "Perhaps the picture seemed offending to them; but they should have asked the owner to put it away. It was a private object of high value and they should never have cut it into pieces. This is not the question of substance, but of form" - says politely that lady as if she were trying to excuse the malfeasors. Her husband continues: "A soldier enters an inn and orders a sandwich. The innkeeper asks four crowns for it. The soldier refuses to pay protesting against the price. He was right to do so. The innkeeper defends himself: 'The County Administrator had fixed that price!' The soldier, however, does not know what the powers of a County Administrator are. He ignores entirely local conditions. He aggressively adds: 'That Administrator of yours, he is a Magyar sympathiser just as you are!' The County Administrator, a Slovak patriot, is just passing by and learns about the incident. He then addresses himself to the Captain asking for investigation. The Captain, however, rejects his request and takes the soldier under protection. Soldiers had done many ugly things in Slovakia; but you will perhaps say it was a consequence of five year war demoralization. This, of course, may be an explanation; but it is no excuse. Another example : A lower official was sent as mills supervisor to a county in Eastern Slovakia. Instead of taking care of his assignment, that man started spying on every step of the County Administrator and every word of the County Counsel. He went so far as to organize a personal boycott against them. He ran to the Post Office, announced that emergency measures had been taken against the County Administrator and his Counsel, and insisted their telephone connection be cut off. A never heard of, but a real, case! As he was being interrogated, he said: "That's our nature, of us Czechs. We think we must control everybody!" By the investigation of the performance of this supervisor SLOVAKIA 87 it was proven that he had misappropriated a carload of flour and was keeping two bags of it in his household. A higher official in Prague was sending his organization agent to Slovakia with these words: "He is too rude for Prague; therefore I am sending him to Slovakia." A higher official who ignores what Slovakia is, ignores what her soul is, is then assigning there an executive of whom he knows in advance that the latter lacks the ability of matching that soul. Only those people shall be sent to Slovakia who realize that they will be guests in their brother's family, who will not desecrate, not even by the twinkle of their eyelids, the sanctity of that family; men who have faith, are tolerant and tactful; persons of limitless soul which embraces everything, understands all; those !Who, when confronted with a noble feeling would stand with respect without starting polemics. WHAT ARE OUR SINS Why did our people go to Slovakia? Idealists went there from love, pragmatists with expectations of higher profits. There is still a comperative lack of intelligentsia in Slovakia. It will take one or two generations to fill out this gap. Therefore, to go there, to help them in offices and schools, seems to be quite plausible. What are the principles of this aid? That is a big question! Chaos in this respect is what the Slovaks are strongly complaining about. Administrative offices are being organized. For hiring there must be an alternative requirement: either professionnal qualification or talent and experience. The boss who hires petitioners does not have himself professional qualification. The Slovaks think then that experience should be enough. Lower positions are to be filled out, positions of foresters, for instance. A prominent Slovak politician says: "Forests are state-owned and under the Hungarian regime foresters had been our great enemies. The people live from forestry and foresters had fostered Magyarization. 88 SLOVAKIA Do fill out those positions with reliable people. Put there veteran legionnaires!" He sent to the respective office some Slovak legionnaires who had faught with the American Army and would have been glad to stay in their homeland. Their applications were rejected for lack of qualification. "Well", said the politician, "here there is nothing to be done." The County is subdivided into four forest circuits. In the four Forest Administrative offices there had been an Engineer in Forestry, all of them men about fifty . Above these four engineers, there had been a Head-Administrator, also with higher technical education. The Head died. One of the four engineers, a Slovak and good specialist, came up with the application to succeed. Yet, to the surprise of everybody, a 30-year old Czech with only a secondary education in Forestry, was appointed. Next day, all four Forrest Office administrators resigned and refused to serve under a younger and unqualified man. The prominent politician commented: "If it was possible to disregard qualification requirements in the case of the Head of the County Forest Office, it certainly will be easier to do the same with foresters." As he had learned that 12 positions were open, he advised some veteran legionnaires to petition. The Office rejected them for lack of qualification. It hired instead Czechs, letting Slovak legionnaires return to America. Normally, Czechs are supposed to help, if there is no Slovak candidate. Yet, it is unwise to impose an unqualified public servant, if they have their own candidate. Not only that! It is offending. The above mentioned case is Hersek's. Under the Hungarian regime, no county official could be appointed without the County Administrator's consent. Public Law specialist say that County autonomy has never berm more perfect than at the time of Hungary. And now, in the Czecho-Slovak Republic, the following happens: SLOVAKIA 89 A man lives in the County. He is an attorney, a Jew, an old Magyar sympathizer, an agent of the Hungarian Government, dangerous to the Czecho-Slovak State, a person whose hands are not clean. Everybody there would think it twice before shaking hands with this individual. He has been under observation in his residence. He does not have permission even to leave for another county, because the County Administrator intends to put him into confinment. And this man appears in the County Administrator's Office and shows him triumphantly his appointment from Prague as organizer and supervisor of the whole liquor industry in Slovakia. Consequently, a man has been appointed of whom the high Czech authority had never been informed. He has been appointed so-to-say behind the back and against the will of the County Administrator. What channel must have been left open to this man, and what means he must have used to conquer a moral and economic power position in Slovakia? All his antecedents must have been disregarded from the beginning until the end. What is the real power of a Slovak County Administrator, when a simple soldier, protected by his Captain, can throw into his face the accusation of being a Magyar sympathizer, and when an outspoken traitor to the nation can sarcastically parade his appointment decree from Prague before the Administrator's eyes? Do you think there are reasons in Slovakia to like Czechs? Out of the people who for longtime had been under foreign yoke, there are no good statesmen. They sin by reckless speed and narrowmindedness. They construct anywhere, even on sands. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is dedicated to works of charity, materially and morally aids Slovaks, here and abroad, who may be in need of such aid; it supports the American Red Cross, United Fund Campaigns and other American charitable projects.  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 Ružena Svobodová's "Feuilletons on Slovakia" Description An account of the resource Prof. Joseph A. Mikus, M.C.L., J.D. Slovakia, Vol. 20 (No. 43), 1970 pp. 76-89 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mikuš, Joseph A., 1909-2005 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1970 LCNAF+dates https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/a69c481a67fc36517452bab3674963dd.pdf 564073c57c0039e40b17f4e6621fbcd6 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 151 Scientific Literature by Slovaks Abroad* J. M. Ki r s c h b au m In the three waves of emigres who left Slovakia since the end of the Second World War, there have been many more scientists and a greater number of books published from various scientific fields than is generally known. The Slovak press abroad, including almanacs and kalendars, paid attention mostly to books, essays and articles which deal with humanities and social sciences or, in other words, with history, political science, philology, philosophy, th::ology, and so on. The vast field of applied science usually escaped the attention of the Slovak press abroad, except for the names and works of some scientists whose participation in international congresses or the results of their research were recorded on the pages of Slovak newpapers. Sometimes, the Slovak press, including periodicals, ignored even works from the field of history and political science if they dealt with Slovakia only indirectly. For instance, a successful book by Dr. Stefan Osusky, The Way of the Free , (New York, 1951), which was published also in Italian and Japanese translations, was never reviewed in Slovak publications. Another interesting book, The United States and Central Eastern Europe, by Prof. V. Mamatey (Princeton University Press, 1957), and his essay on Woodrow Wilson's policy, did not receive the attention they deserved. A number of books by Prof. Eugen Lobl, published in German and English, also remained known only to a limited number of Slovak intellectuals abroad, even though they attracted the attention of scholarly publications and political circles in Europe and on the American Continent. Theological and historical writings by Msgr. Joseph Tomko, well received • A summary of a paper delivered at the General Meeting of th e Slovak World Congress on June 28, 1973 in Chicago, Ill. �152 SLOVAKIA by critics in Europe, are also much less known among Slovaks than they deserve. The responsibility for the fact that scientific literature by Slovaks abroad is unknown, quite often to Slovaks themselves, lies in the first place in the lack of any organization of Slovak scientists and cultural workers . The Association of Slovak Writers and Artists undoubtedly deserves recognition for keeping alive Slovak literature abroad in one of the most crucial periods of Slovak literary life. The members of the Association are, however, mostly poets, writers and authors of books from political and literary history. The Slovak Institute in Cleveland and Rome performs the meritorious function of a library, and publishes especially in the field of humanities or belles lettres. Since scientists from the vast field of applied sciences remained unorganized, they have no publication which would record the results of their research or publish reviews of their writings. Two bibliographies - Slovak Bibliography Abroad 1945-1965, compiled by Prof. M. Lacko, and Literdrny Almanach Slovdka v Amerike, edited and published by Dr. J. Pauco in 1967 and 1968, contain some basic information on Slovak scientists and their work abroad. They do not, however, give an exhaustive picture either of Slovaks active in various scientific disciplines or of their published writings. Besides, since 1967, when the Bibliography and Almanachs were published, the ranks of Slovak scientists were enlarged not only by those who left Slovakia in 1968 and became active in academic life or scientific research, but also by a new generation of graduates of American, European and South American universities who made science their field of professional activity. The largest number of books, essays and articles in foreign languages by Slovaks abroad, covers the disciplines which belong to the category of the humanities and the social sciences. It is especially history, political science, literary history and philology which were cultivated by Slovak intellectuals abroad and attracted the attention of the Slovak press in a greater degree that other disciplines. While in 1945 there was hardly a book in foreign languages on Slovakia and the Slovaks, today there are a number of �SLOVAKIA 153 book, essays and articles in foreign language periodicals which have been accepted by critics in Europe as well as on the American Continent as "standard works ." The names of the authors in this field are better known, as I mentioned, than the names of scientists in other fields. In alphabetical order, we should mention at least those who published their writings in book form. In History : s. B. Bue, V. Bucko, J . Cieker, J . Cincik, K . c ulen, F. t:>urcansky, M. St. t:>urica, A. Grebert, s. Glejdura, F . Hrobak, F. Hrusovsky, J.M. Kirschbaum, M. Lacko, J . Lettrich, A. Macek, V. Mamatey, J. A. Mikus, s. Nahalka, J. Pauco, M. Stolarik, J. Tomko, F. Vnuk, G. Woytko and others. In Literary History and Linguistics: Prof. H . Bartek, J.M. Kirschbaum, J . Konus, I. Kruzliak, M. Lacko, J. Lihani, L. Luzbetak, s. Meciar, J. Mest'ancik, A. Pir, c. Potocek, J. Rekem, J. Vavrovic, F. Vnuk, J. E. Bor-Zat'ko. In Social Sciences : F. t:>urcansky, s. Glejdura, J. M. Kirschbaum, E . Lobl, J. Mikus, s. Polakovic, s. Osusky, J. Rudinsky, J. Stasko, James Zat'ko, T. G. Zubek. All these names, except for Luzbetak who published essays on the language of the residents of New Guinea, are generally known to the Slovak press. As far as Prof. M. Novak is concerned, we should perhaps mention that this author published a dozen books from the field of theology, philosophy and other social sciences, but he became well known to Slovaks a few years ago when he wrote about his Slovak origin in his successful book: The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics. There is no doubt that as time passes, we will have other similar cases among American Slovaks. The number of published books, essays and articles of the above-mentioned authors would amount to hundreds, the major part of which has been recorded in L9-cko 's Bibliography and in the two issues of the Literarny Almanach Slovaka v Amerike. Books and essays of some authors were recorded, however, also in bibliographies published in Germany, the United States and Canada.* Bibliographies * Daniel Dorotich, A Bibliography of Canadian Slavist s, University of Saskatchewan (1972) ; Sudosteuropa Bibliographie (Munich, 1934); A. Gregorowich, Canadian Ethnic Bibliography (Toronto, 1972). �154 SLOVAKIA published in Slovakia - and there is a considerable number of them - did not, of course, mention books by Slovaks abroad except for one or two authors. Scientific works from the field of philosophy, theology, and religion in the broad sense of the word follows in the number of published books and articles on history and the social sciences. The important center in this respect has been Rome where a great number of foreign language studies were published by professors of universities in tha eternal city. Among the best known are Prof. Daniel Foltin, M. Lacko, Felix Litva, s . Nahalka, V. Pavlovsky, s . Porubcan, F . skoda, s . Smrzik, J. Tomko, F. Zeman and others. Rome will be remembered also for the series of Slovak Studi es published by the Slovak Institute and edited by some of the above mentioned authors. On the American Continent we have to mention especially the writings by the well-known theologian, Prof. Jaroslav Pelikan, J. Dieska, I:. Gleiman, K. Murin who published some of his studies also in France, Prof. F. Zeman, A. Zan, T. G. Zubek and Prof. J . Papin who became known as the editor of two volumes of papers delivered by prominent theologians at a symposium organized at Villanova University. The least known among Slovak intellectuals abroad remained those active in applied science even though r, number of Slovak scientists excelled in this field. The Bibliography compiled by Prof. Lacko recorded about 300 items published before 1965 in book form or as contributions to scientific periodicals and symposia. The Bibliography gives the names only of twenty authors. There is no doubt that already before 1965 and since that time, many more Slave.ks made their nam~ in these disciplines, especially in the United States, Canada and Europe. An interesting example in this respect is the successful book: Reliability Theory and Practice by Igor Bazovsky, published in Prentice-Hall Spaca Technology series in 1962. The book was published the same year in Japan, in 1965 in the Soviet Union, in 1966 in France, and in 1969 in Italy. Translations into other languages are in course of preparation. Bazovsky also published a number of studies in scientific periodicals and delivered papers at international conferences and congresses. Since 1963, he has been lecturing on Reliability Engineering at the University of Arizona, Tuscon, Arizona. �SLOVAKIA 155 Another example of a successful Slovak scientist hardly known among Slovaks is Prof. John P. Zubek (born in Slovakia in 1925), who made quite an impressive contribution in psychology as a professor, researcher and author of many academic papers. In cooperation with Peter A. Solberg, Prof. Zubek published two books : Doukhobors at War (1952) and Human Development (1954). His list of published scholarly articles and contributions to scientific periodicals and encyclopedias which he prepared alone or in cooperation with known scientists, contains 49 items. Together with T. J. Meyers, he has prepared a symposium: Censory Deprivation recently published in New York. He came to Canada at the age of 5 and was educated first at the University of British Columbia and later at the University of Toronto and at John Hopkins University . From 19G) he held academic positions at McGill University and the University of Manitoba as professor and chairman of the Department of Psychology. No doubt there are other similar cases. The number of Slovak scientists active in various disciplines from astronomy to nuclear physics who were not recorded by Slovak periodicals and newspapers would be surprising. Among those who are well-known through the Slovak press we have to mention Prof. A. Bugan, Prof. G. Bakos, Dr. J. Barboriak, Prof. J . Fabianek, G. Lazarcik, Prof. Julius Rudinsky, Prof. Otto , Anna Sirek, Prof. A. iitnak and others. The writings and names of many others remained unnoticed by the Slovak press even though they have been recognized by international scientific authorities. Writings by Slovak scientists active in applied science were mostly published in English, French, German and Swedish (Milan J. Simak) in scientific periodicals and occasionally also in book form. This survey does not aim, of course, at the evaluation of scientific works by Slovaks abroad. The fact that many of them were published in academic periodicals of wellknown universities, scientific institutions, or were delivered at international congresses and published in symposia, is perhaps sufficient proof that they satisfied scientific criteria. �156 SLOVAKIA Works by several Slovak authors were, however, reviewed and favorably evaluated also by foreign critics in the United States and Europe, and the list of books of some Slovak writers is impressive. Prof. Michael Novak, whom it he senior class at Stanford voted in 1967 one of the three most outstanding professors and in 1972 "distinguished lecturer" at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is the best known American Slovak author. He also taught at Harvard University epistemology and ethics. The list of his publications reads as follows: BOOKS .A New Generation: American and Catholic (Herder & Herder: February, 1964). A collection of essays on American Catholicism. The Open Church: Vatican II: Act II (Macmillan: May, 1964) . The Experience of Marriage (Macmillan: Oct., 1964). Editor. Belief and Unbelief (Macmillan: 1965). Paperback edition published by New American Library, 1967. There is also a German edition. The Rise of Unmeltable Ethnics (Macmillan, 1972). A Book of Elements, with Karen Laub-Novak (Herder & Herder, 1972) . A Time to Build (Macmillan, 1967). American Philosophy and the Future (editor.). To appear. (Scribner's, 1968). ASCENT OF THE MOUNTAIN, FLIGHT OF THE DOVE: An Invitation to Religious Studies (Harper and Row, 1971) . POLITICS: Realism and Imagination (Herder & Herder, 1971) . Mr. Novak's books have appeared in overseas editions since 1962: France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain and England. CHAPTERS IN BOOKS Spirit as Inquiry ed. Frederick E . Crowe; Studies in honor of Bernard Lonergan, S. J. "Lonergan's Starting Place; The Performance of Asking Questions," pp. 82-101. Also in Continuum, Winter, 1965. ·"God in the Colleges: The Dehumanization of the University," in The New Student Left: An Anthology, Ed. by Mitchell Cohen and Dennis Hale, Beacon Press, Boston: 1966, pp. 258-270. Also in American Colloquy, Ed. by Leonard Liek and David Hawke, Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis: 1963, pp. 690-702. Reprinted also in Commitment Vol. 1, 4 (Nov. 22, 1966) , pp. 1-7. ·"Moral Society and Immoral Man," in Church-State Relations in Ec1imenical Prospective. Ed. by Elwyn A. Smith, Duquesne University Press, Pittsburgh: 1966, pp. 92-109. ·"The New Nuns," (abridged version) in The New Nuns, ed. by Sister �SLOVAKIA 157 M. Charles Borromeo, C.S.C., New American Library, New York : 1967, pp. 13-30. "The Christian and the Atheist,"· in The Meaning of the Death of GOlt , ed. by Berna rd Murchland, Random House, New York: 1937. MONOGRAPHS Editor of series of booklets Men Who Make the Council (portra its of Vatican II leaders), University of Notre Dame Press, 1964. A Lay View of the World We L ive I n; Reflections on the I nstitutional Church; The Gospels and the World. Chicago: Mundelein College, Sisters of the BVM, 1966, 67 pages. Vi etnam: Crisis of Conscience. New York : Association Press, Behrman House, and Herder & Herder; in collaboration with Robert McAfce Brown and Abraham Heschcl, 1967. Th e Secdar Saint, DeYoung lectures given at the Illinois State Univer- sity March 29 -31, 1967; to appear. " Toward a Positive Sexual Morality," in What Catholics Thi;ik About Birth Control, ed. by William Birmingham, Signet, 1964, pp. 109-128. "The Ever-Changi ng, Fallible Church" in Generation of the Third Eye, ed. by Daniel Callahan, Sheed and Ward : 1965, pp. 162-172. "Diversity of Structures and Freedom Within Structures of th e Church," in Concilium Dogma Vol. 1 The Church and Mankind, ed. by Edward Schi!lebeecky, O.P., Paulist Press: 1964, pp. 103-113. "The Break wit h Platonic Religion," The Church in the World , ed . by J ohn Deedey, 1965. Prof. Eugene Lobl (also Loe bl), who teaches economics at Vassar College, has an interesting career behind him in Government service of Czecho-Slovakia which ended in his five years solitary confinement by the Communist regime . After the Soviet invasion he left Slovakia and lectured in Germany, and in the United States at Princeton and som e twenty American universities before he settled at Vassar College, where he teaches "Critique of Theory and Practic~ of Marxist Thought," "Man and Society" and "Humanistic Economics." Among his writings published in exile are the following : In 1967, Dr. Lobl's manuscript, prepared while in soli tary confinement, was published under the title, M ental Worlc as the Re .1! Source of Wealth in: Czecho-Slovakia by the Academy of Sci ence. In Germany, by Econ Verlag, Dilsseldorf under the title Geistige Arbeit die wahre Quelle des Reichtums. He also published an analysis of the Soviet trials. In Czecho-Slovakia, the book was published shortly before the Soviet inva ::ion and became a bestseller. It has been translated and published in: AUSTRIA by Europa Verlag under the title: Die Revolution Rehabilitiert ihre Kinder (The Revolution Reh abilitates its Children). �158 SLOVAKIA BRAZIL, by Editora Laudes, Rio de Janeiro. FRANCE, by Editions Stock under the title: Proces ii Prague. GREAT BRITAIN, by Elek Publishing Company under the title: Sentenced and Tried. ITALY, by Vallecchi Editore under the titI,e, Testimonianza sui processo al centoro do conspirazione antistate capeggiatto da Rudolf Slansky. JAPAN, by Tuttle. UNITED STATES, by Grove Press under the title, Stalinism in Prague, The Loebl Story. Further, an analysis of the background of the Prague spring has been published in : Austria ·a nd Germany by Europa Verlag under the title : Die Intellectualle Revolution. It was also published in Izrael. Dr. Lobl's book, dealing with the problems of the student movement in the United States in the sixties, and exposing their philosophical shortcoming as the roots of the problems of contemporary society, has been published in: AUSTRIA and GERMANY by Econ Verlag, Diisseldorf under the title: Gesprache mit den Ratlosen. GREAT BRITAIN, by Allen and Unwin under the title: Conversations with the Bewildered. UNITED STATES, by Schenkman in Bo3ton und er the same title. An analysis and confrontation of theory and practice of applied Marxism has been published in: GERMANY, by Econ Verlag under the title : Marxismus Wegweiser und Irrweg (Marxism the Signpost and Dead End ). His manuscript on "A Few Blades of Grass," a recollection is being edited for publishing in 1974. Economics and Our Future, a critique of contemporary economics and an outline for a humanistic orientation of the economy, is in print in Germany. The English manuscript is being edited. Prof. Msgr. Jozef Tomko, who alternatively taught at the International University of Social Sciences, tlB Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana and Diplomatic Academy in Rome, is foremost Slovak scholar in Rome. His works in Latin and German were reviewed in several European countries. He also published in Slovak. Among his foreign language works we should mention the following: BOOKS De inhabitatione Spiritus Sancti ir anima iusti secundum B. Petrum de Tarantasia, Roma, 1951. Il rapporto di larnro in Cecoslovacchia negii anni 1945-1954, Roma, 1956. Die Errichtung der Diozesen Zips, Neusohl und Rosenau (1776) und da s konigliche Patronatsrecht in Ungarn, Wien, Herder, 1968. It w.1s �SLOVAKIA 159 reviewed in Archiv fur katholisches Kirchenrecht, Zeitschrift fur katholische Theologie, Theol.-prakt. Quartalschrift Linz, Archiv fur Kirchenrecht, Sudostdeutsches Archiv, Bollettino bibliografico internazionale, Bibliographica de Salamanca. De Litteris Apostolicis "Matrimonia mixta," Napoli, D'Auria , 1970. Matrimoni misti, Napoli, Edizioni Dehoniane, 1971. The book was reviewed in La Civilta Cattolica, Apollinaris, La Famiglia, Rassegna di teologia, L'Osservatore Romano, A1;venire, La lib erte (Fribourg), Theologische Revue, Catholic Herald (London), etc. Svetlo narodov (The Light of Nations), Rome, 1972. Blazenstva, (Rome, 1973). Krest'an a svet (Christian and the World), Rome, 1974. CHAPTERS IN BOOKS EDITED IN COOPERATION WITH OTHER AUTHORS "Aspetti teologici della problematica dei matrimoni misti," in La collegialita episcopale per it futuro della Chiesa, Firenze, Valleccni, 1969, pp. 445-479. "II matrimonio dei battezzati non credenti," in Matrimonio famiglia e diverzio, Napoli, Edizioni Dehoniane, 1971 (Second edition 1973) , pp. 347-367. "De Sacra Congregatione pro Doctrina fidei," in Adnotationes Professorum, Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana, Cursus renovationis canonicae, Roma, 1971, pp. 411-426. "De causis circa fidei privilegium," in Adnotationes Professorum, Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana, Rome, 1972, pp. 379-406. ARTICLES "Celebrazioni rnmana in onore degli Apostoli degli Slavi," Rivista diocesana di Roma, 1963, pp. 634-637. "Historicko-pravna problematika a pramene k dejinam slovenskych diecez," Most 9 (1962), pp. 27-36. "Cirkevna pravomoc sv. Stefana, uhorskeho kral'a," Most 11 (1964), pp. 33-48. "La nuova disciplina dei matrimoni misti," L'Osservatore Romano, 1. maggio 1970. "S. Congregatio pro doctrina fidei, Agendi ratio in doctrinarum examine," Monitor Ecclesiasticus, 96 (1971). "La riforma del Sant' Uffizio," Rassegna di teologia 12 (1971) 4, pp. 209-215. "11 nuovo ve·golamento per l'esame delle dottrine," Vita consacrata 7 (1971) 5, pp. 404-409. Contributions in Lexikon fur Theologie and Kirche and Bibliographisches Lexikon zur Geschichte Sudosteuropas (Mtinchen, 1973: L. Bartholomaeides). � SLOVAKIA 151 Scientific Literature by Slovaks Abroad* J. M. Ki r s c h b au m In the three waves of emigres who left Slovakia since the end of the Second World War, there have been many more scientists and a greater number of books published from various scientific fields than is generally known. The Slovak press abroad, including almanacs and kalendars, paid attention mostly to books, essays and articles which deal with humanities and social sciences or, in other words, with history, political science, philology, philosophy, th::ology, and so on. The vast field of applied science usually escaped the attention of the Slovak press abroad, except for the names and works of some scientists whose participation in international congresses or the results of their research were recorded on the pages of Slovak newpapers. Sometimes, the Slovak press, including periodicals, ignored even works from the field of history and political science if they dealt with Slovakia only indirectly. For instance, a successful book by Dr. Stefan Osusky, The Way of the Free , (New York, 1951), which was published also in Italian and Japanese translations, was never reviewed in Slovak publications. Another interesting book, The United States and Central Eastern Europe, by Prof. V. Mamatey (Princeton University Press, 1957), and his essay on Woodrow Wilson's policy, did not receive the attention they deserved. A number of books by Prof. Eugen Lobl, published in German and English, also remained known only to a limited number of Slovak intellectuals abroad, even though they attracted the attention of scholarly publications and political circles in Europe and on the American Continent. Theological and historical writings by Msgr. Joseph Tomko, well received • A summary of a paper delivered at the General Meeting of th e Slovak World Congress on June 28, 1973 in Chicago, Ill. �152 SLOVAKIA by critics in Europe, are also much less known among Slovaks than they deserve. The responsibility for the fact that scientific literature by Slovaks abroad is unknown, quite often to Slovaks themselves, lies in the first place in the lack of any organization of Slovak scientists and cultural workers . The Association of Slovak Writers and Artists undoubtedly deserves recognition for keeping alive Slovak literature abroad in one of the most crucial periods of Slovak literary life. The members of the Association are, however, mostly poets, writers and authors of books from political and literary history. The Slovak Institute in Cleveland and Rome performs the meritorious function of a library, and publishes especially in the field of humanities or belles lettres. Since scientists from the vast field of applied sciences remained unorganized, they have no publication which would record the results of their research or publish reviews of their writings. Two bibliographies - Slovak Bibliography Abroad 1945-1965, compiled by Prof. M. Lacko, and Literdrny Almanach Slovdka v Amerike, edited and published by Dr. J. Pauco in 1967 and 1968, contain some basic information on Slovak scientists and their work abroad. They do not, however, give an exhaustive picture either of Slovaks active in various scientific disciplines or of their published writings. Besides, since 1967, when the Bibliography and Almanachs were published, the ranks of Slovak scientists were enlarged not only by those who left Slovakia in 1968 and became active in academic life or scientific research, but also by a new generation of graduates of American, European and South American universities who made science their field of professional activity. The largest number of books, essays and articles in foreign languages by Slovaks abroad, covers the disciplines which belong to the category of the humanities and the social sciences. It is especially history, political science, literary history and philology which were cultivated by Slovak intellectuals abroad and attracted the attention of the Slovak press in a greater degree that other disciplines. While in 1945 there was hardly a book in foreign languages on Slovakia and the Slovaks, today there are a number of �SLOVAKIA 153 book, essays and articles in foreign language periodicals which have been accepted by critics in Europe as well as on the American Continent as "standard works ." The names of the authors in this field are better known, as I mentioned, than the names of scientists in other fields. In alphabetical order, we should mention at least those who published their writings in book form. In History : s. B. Bue, V. Bucko, J . Cieker, J . Cincik, K . c ulen, F. t:>urcansky, M. St. t:>urica, A. Grebert, s. Glejdura, F . Hrobak, F. Hrusovsky, J.M. Kirschbaum, M. Lacko, J . Lettrich, A. Macek, V. Mamatey, J. A. Mikus, s. Nahalka, J. Pauco, M. Stolarik, J. Tomko, F. Vnuk, G. Woytko and others. In Literary History and Linguistics: Prof. H . Bartek, J.M. Kirschbaum, J . Konus, I. Kruzliak, M. Lacko, J. Lihani, L. Luzbetak, s. Meciar, J. Mest'ancik, A. Pir, c. Potocek, J. Rekem, J. Vavrovic, F. Vnuk, J. E. Bor-Zat'ko. In Social Sciences : F. t:>urcansky, s. Glejdura, J. M. Kirschbaum, E . Lobl, J. Mikus, s. Polakovic, s. Osusky, J. Rudinsky, J. Stasko, James Zat'ko, T. G. Zubek. All these names, except for Luzbetak who published essays on the language of the residents of New Guinea, are generally known to the Slovak press. As far as Prof. M. Novak is concerned, we should perhaps mention that this author published a dozen books from the field of theology, philosophy and other social sciences, but he became well known to Slovaks a few years ago when he wrote about his Slovak origin in his successful book: The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics. There is no doubt that as time passes, we will have other similar cases among American Slovaks. The number of published books, essays and articles of the above-mentioned authors would amount to hundreds, the major part of which has been recorded in L9-cko 's Bibliography and in the two issues of the Literarny Almanach Slovaka v Amerike. Books and essays of some authors were recorded, however, also in bibliographies published in Germany, the United States and Canada.* Bibliographies * Daniel Dorotich, A Bibliography of Canadian Slavist s, University of Saskatchewan (1972) ; Sudosteuropa Bibliographie (Munich, 1934); A. Gregorowich, Canadian Ethnic Bibliography (Toronto, 1972). �154 SLOVAKIA published in Slovakia - and there is a considerable number of them - did not, of course, mention books by Slovaks abroad except for one or two authors. Scientific works from the field of philosophy, theology, and religion in the broad sense of the word follows in the number of published books and articles on history and the social sciences. The important center in this respect has been Rome where a great number of foreign language studies were published by professors of universities in tha eternal city. Among the best known are Prof. Daniel Foltin, M. Lacko, Felix Litva, s . Nahalka, V. Pavlovsky, s . Porubcan, F . skoda, s . Smrzik, J. Tomko, F. Zeman and others. Rome will be remembered also for the series of Slovak Studi es published by the Slovak Institute and edited by some of the above mentioned authors. On the American Continent we have to mention especially the writings by the well-known theologian, Prof. Jaroslav Pelikan, J. Dieska, I:. Gleiman, K. Murin who published some of his studies also in France, Prof. F. Zeman, A. Zan, T. G. Zubek and Prof. J . Papin who became known as the editor of two volumes of papers delivered by prominent theologians at a symposium organized at Villanova University. The least known among Slovak intellectuals abroad remained those active in applied science even though r, number of Slovak scientists excelled in this field. The Bibliography compiled by Prof. Lacko recorded about 300 items published before 1965 in book form or as contributions to scientific periodicals and symposia. The Bibliography gives the names only of twenty authors. There is no doubt that already before 1965 and since that time, many more Slave.ks made their nam~ in these disciplines, especially in the United States, Canada and Europe. An interesting example in this respect is the successful book: Reliability Theory and Practice by Igor Bazovsky, published in Prentice-Hall Spaca Technology series in 1962. The book was published the same year in Japan, in 1965 in the Soviet Union, in 1966 in France, and in 1969 in Italy. Translations into other languages are in course of preparation. Bazovsky also published a number of studies in scientific periodicals and delivered papers at international conferences and congresses. Since 1963, he has been lecturing on Reliability Engineering at the University of Arizona, Tuscon, Arizona. �SLOVAKIA 155 Another example of a successful Slovak scientist hardly known among Slovaks is Prof. John P. Zubek (born in Slovakia in 1925), who made quite an impressive contribution in psychology as a professor, researcher and author of many academic papers. In cooperation with Peter A. Solberg, Prof. Zubek published two books : Doukhobors at War (1952) and Human Development (1954). His list of published scholarly articles and contributions to scientific periodicals and encyclopedias which he prepared alone or in cooperation with known scientists, contains 49 items. Together with T. J. Meyers, he has prepared a symposium: Censory Deprivation recently published in New York. He came to Canada at the age of 5 and was educated first at the University of British Columbia and later at the University of Toronto and at John Hopkins University . From 19G) he held academic positions at McGill University and the University of Manitoba as professor and chairman of the Department of Psychology. No doubt there are other similar cases. The number of Slovak scientists active in various disciplines from astronomy to nuclear physics who were not recorded by Slovak periodicals and newspapers would be surprising. Among those who are well-known through the Slovak press we have to mention Prof. A. Bugan, Prof. G. Bakos, Dr. J. Barboriak, Prof. J . Fabianek, G. Lazarcik, Prof. Julius Rudinsky, Prof. Otto , Anna Sirek, Prof. A. iitnak and others. The writings and names of many others remained unnoticed by the Slovak press even though they have been recognized by international scientific authorities. Writings by Slovak scientists active in applied science were mostly published in English, French, German and Swedish (Milan J. Simak) in scientific periodicals and occasionally also in book form. This survey does not aim, of course, at the evaluation of scientific works by Slovaks abroad. The fact that many of them were published in academic periodicals of wellknown universities, scientific institutions, or were delivered at international congresses and published in symposia, is perhaps sufficient proof that they satisfied scientific criteria. �156 SLOVAKIA Works by several Slovak authors were, however, reviewed and favorably evaluated also by foreign critics in the United States and Europe, and the list of books of some Slovak writers is impressive. Prof. Michael Novak, whom it he senior class at Stanford voted in 1967 one of the three most outstanding professors and in 1972 "distinguished lecturer" at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is the best known American Slovak author. He also taught at Harvard University epistemology and ethics. The list of his publications reads as follows: BOOKS .A New Generation: American and Catholic (Herder & Herder: February, 1964). A collection of essays on American Catholicism. The Open Church: Vatican II: Act II (Macmillan: May, 1964) . The Experience of Marriage (Macmillan: Oct., 1964). Editor. Belief and Unbelief (Macmillan: 1965). Paperback edition published by New American Library, 1967. There is also a German edition. The Rise of Unmeltable Ethnics (Macmillan, 1972). A Book of Elements, with Karen Laub-Novak (Herder & Herder, 1972) . A Time to Build (Macmillan, 1967). American Philosophy and the Future (editor.). To appear. (Scribner's, 1968). ASCENT OF THE MOUNTAIN, FLIGHT OF THE DOVE: An Invitation to Religious Studies (Harper and Row, 1971) . POLITICS: Realism and Imagination (Herder & Herder, 1971) . Mr. Novak's books have appeared in overseas editions since 1962: France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain and England. CHAPTERS IN BOOKS Spirit as Inquiry ed. Frederick E . Crowe; Studies in honor of Bernard Lonergan, S. J. "Lonergan's Starting Place; The Performance of Asking Questions," pp. 82-101. Also in Continuum, Winter, 1965. ·"God in the Colleges: The Dehumanization of the University," in The New Student Left: An Anthology, Ed. by Mitchell Cohen and Dennis Hale, Beacon Press, Boston: 1966, pp. 258-270. Also in American Colloquy, Ed. by Leonard Liek and David Hawke, Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis: 1963, pp. 690-702. Reprinted also in Commitment Vol. 1, 4 (Nov. 22, 1966) , pp. 1-7. ·"Moral Society and Immoral Man," in Church-State Relations in Ec1imenical Prospective. Ed. by Elwyn A. Smith, Duquesne University Press, Pittsburgh: 1966, pp. 92-109. ·"The New Nuns," (abridged version) in The New Nuns, ed. by Sister �SLOVAKIA 157 M. Charles Borromeo, C.S.C., New American Library, New York : 1967, pp. 13-30. "The Christian and the Atheist,"· in The Meaning of the Death of GOlt , ed. by Berna rd Murchland, Random House, New York: 1937. MONOGRAPHS Editor of series of booklets Men Who Make the Council (portra its of Vatican II leaders), University of Notre Dame Press, 1964. A Lay View of the World We L ive I n; Reflections on the I nstitutional Church; The Gospels and the World. Chicago: Mundelein College, Sisters of the BVM, 1966, 67 pages. Vi etnam: Crisis of Conscience. New York : Association Press, Behrman House, and Herder & Herder; in collaboration with Robert McAfce Brown and Abraham Heschcl, 1967. Th e Secdar Saint, DeYoung lectures given at the Illinois State Univer- sity March 29 -31, 1967; to appear. " Toward a Positive Sexual Morality," in What Catholics Thi;ik About Birth Control, ed. by William Birmingham, Signet, 1964, pp. 109-128. "The Ever-Changi ng, Fallible Church" in Generation of the Third Eye, ed. by Daniel Callahan, Sheed and Ward : 1965, pp. 162-172. "Diversity of Structures and Freedom Within Structures of th e Church," in Concilium Dogma Vol. 1 The Church and Mankind, ed. by Edward Schi!lebeecky, O.P., Paulist Press: 1964, pp. 103-113. "The Break wit h Platonic Religion," The Church in the World , ed . by J ohn Deedey, 1965. Prof. Eugene Lobl (also Loe bl), who teaches economics at Vassar College, has an interesting career behind him in Government service of Czecho-Slovakia which ended in his five years solitary confinement by the Communist regime . After the Soviet invasion he left Slovakia and lectured in Germany, and in the United States at Princeton and som e twenty American universities before he settled at Vassar College, where he teaches "Critique of Theory and Practic~ of Marxist Thought," "Man and Society" and "Humanistic Economics." Among his writings published in exile are the following : In 1967, Dr. Lobl's manuscript, prepared while in soli tary confinement, was published under the title, M ental Worlc as the Re .1! Source of Wealth in: Czecho-Slovakia by the Academy of Sci ence. In Germany, by Econ Verlag, Dilsseldorf under the title Geistige Arbeit die wahre Quelle des Reichtums. He also published an analysis of the Soviet trials. In Czecho-Slovakia, the book was published shortly before the Soviet inva ::ion and became a bestseller. It has been translated and published in: AUSTRIA by Europa Verlag under the title: Die Revolution Rehabilitiert ihre Kinder (The Revolution Reh abilitates its Children). �158 SLOVAKIA BRAZIL, by Editora Laudes, Rio de Janeiro. FRANCE, by Editions Stock under the title: Proces ii Prague. GREAT BRITAIN, by Elek Publishing Company under the title: Sentenced and Tried. ITALY, by Vallecchi Editore under the titI,e, Testimonianza sui processo al centoro do conspirazione antistate capeggiatto da Rudolf Slansky. JAPAN, by Tuttle. UNITED STATES, by Grove Press under the title, Stalinism in Prague, The Loebl Story. Further, an analysis of the background of the Prague spring has been published in : Austria ·a nd Germany by Europa Verlag under the title : Die Intellectualle Revolution. It was also published in Izrael. Dr. Lobl's book, dealing with the problems of the student movement in the United States in the sixties, and exposing their philosophical shortcoming as the roots of the problems of contemporary society, has been published in: AUSTRIA and GERMANY by Econ Verlag, Diisseldorf under the title: Gesprache mit den Ratlosen. GREAT BRITAIN, by Allen and Unwin under the title: Conversations with the Bewildered. UNITED STATES, by Schenkman in Bo3ton und er the same title. An analysis and confrontation of theory and practice of applied Marxism has been published in: GERMANY, by Econ Verlag under the title : Marxismus Wegweiser und Irrweg (Marxism the Signpost and Dead End ). His manuscript on "A Few Blades of Grass," a recollection is being edited for publishing in 1974. Economics and Our Future, a critique of contemporary economics and an outline for a humanistic orientation of the economy, is in print in Germany. The English manuscript is being edited. Prof. Msgr. Jozef Tomko, who alternatively taught at the International University of Social Sciences, tlB Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana and Diplomatic Academy in Rome, is foremost Slovak scholar in Rome. His works in Latin and German were reviewed in several European countries. He also published in Slovak. Among his foreign language works we should mention the following: BOOKS De inhabitatione Spiritus Sancti ir anima iusti secundum B. Petrum de Tarantasia, Roma, 1951. Il rapporto di larnro in Cecoslovacchia negii anni 1945-1954, Roma, 1956. Die Errichtung der Diozesen Zips, Neusohl und Rosenau (1776) und da s konigliche Patronatsrecht in Ungarn, Wien, Herder, 1968. It w.1s �SLOVAKIA 159 reviewed in Archiv fur katholisches Kirchenrecht, Zeitschrift fur katholische Theologie, Theol.-prakt. Quartalschrift Linz, Archiv fur Kirchenrecht, Sudostdeutsches Archiv, Bollettino bibliografico internazionale, Bibliographica de Salamanca. De Litteris Apostolicis "Matrimonia mixta," Napoli, D'Auria , 1970. Matrimoni misti, Napoli, Edizioni Dehoniane, 1971. The book was reviewed in La Civilta Cattolica, Apollinaris, La Famiglia, Rassegna di teologia, L'Osservatore Romano, A1;venire, La lib erte (Fribourg), Theologische Revue, Catholic Herald (London), etc. Svetlo narodov (The Light of Nations), Rome, 1972. Blazenstva, (Rome, 1973). Krest'an a svet (Christian and the World), Rome, 1974. CHAPTERS IN BOOKS EDITED IN COOPERATION WITH OTHER AUTHORS "Aspetti teologici della problematica dei matrimoni misti," in La collegialita episcopale per it futuro della Chiesa, Firenze, Valleccni, 1969, pp. 445-479. "II matrimonio dei battezzati non credenti," in Matrimonio famiglia e diverzio, Napoli, Edizioni Dehoniane, 1971 (Second edition 1973) , pp. 347-367. "De Sacra Congregatione pro Doctrina fidei," in Adnotationes Professorum, Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana, Cursus renovationis canonicae, Roma, 1971, pp. 411-426. "De causis circa fidei privilegium," in Adnotationes Professorum, Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana, Rome, 1972, pp. 379-406. ARTICLES "Celebrazioni rnmana in onore degli Apostoli degli Slavi," Rivista diocesana di Roma, 1963, pp. 634-637. "Historicko-pravna problematika a pramene k dejinam slovenskych diecez," Most 9 (1962), pp. 27-36. "Cirkevna pravomoc sv. Stefana, uhorskeho kral'a," Most 11 (1964), pp. 33-48. "La nuova disciplina dei matrimoni misti," L'Osservatore Romano, 1. maggio 1970. "S. Congregatio pro doctrina fidei, Agendi ratio in doctrinarum examine," Monitor Ecclesiasticus, 96 (1971). "La riforma del Sant' Uffizio," Rassegna di teologia 12 (1971) 4, pp. 209-215. "11 nuovo ve·golamento per l'esame delle dottrine," Vita consacrata 7 (1971) 5, pp. 404-409. Contributions in Lexikon fur Theologie and Kirche and Bibliographisches Lexikon zur Geschichte Sudosteuropas (Mtinchen, 1973: L. Bartholomaeides). � 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 151 Scientific Literature by Slovaks Abroad* J. M. Ki r s c h b au m In the three waves of emigres who left Slovakia since the end of the Second World War, there have been many more scientists and a greater number of books published from various scientific fields than is generally known. The Slovak press abroad, including almanacs and kalendars, paid attention mostly to books, essays and articles which deal with humanities and social sciences or, in other words, with history, political science, philology, philosophy, th::ology, and so on. The vast field of applied science usually escaped the attention of the Slovak press abroad, except for the names and works of some scientists whose participation in international congresses or the results of their research were recorded on the pages of Slovak newpapers. Sometimes, the Slovak press, including periodicals, ignored even works from the field of history and political science if they dealt with Slovakia only indirectly. For instance, a successful book by Dr. Stefan Osusky, The Way of the Free , (New York, 1951), which was published also in Italian and Japanese translations, was never reviewed in Slovak publications. Another interesting book, The United States and Central Eastern Europe, by Prof. V. Mamatey (Princeton University Press, 1957), and his essay on Woodrow Wilson's policy, did not receive the attention they deserved. A number of books by Prof. Eugen Lobl, published in German and English, also remained known only to a limited number of Slovak intellectuals abroad, even though they attracted the attention of scholarly publications and political circles in Europe and on the American Continent. Theological and historical writings by Msgr. Joseph Tomko, well received • A summary of a paper delivered at the General Meeting of th e Slovak World Congress on June 28, 1973 in Chicago, Ill. 152 SLOVAKIA by critics in Europe, are also much less known among Slovaks than they deserve. The responsibility for the fact that scientific literature by Slovaks abroad is unknown, quite often to Slovaks themselves, lies in the first place in the lack of any organization of Slovak scientists and cultural workers . The Association of Slovak Writers and Artists undoubtedly deserves recognition for keeping alive Slovak literature abroad in one of the most crucial periods of Slovak literary life. The members of the Association are, however, mostly poets, writers and authors of books from political and literary history. The Slovak Institute in Cleveland and Rome performs the meritorious function of a library, and publishes especially in the field of humanities or belles lettres. Since scientists from the vast field of applied sciences remained unorganized, they have no publication which would record the results of their research or publish reviews of their writings. Two bibliographies - Slovak Bibliography Abroad 1945-1965, compiled by Prof. M. Lacko, and Literdrny Almanach Slovdka v Amerike, edited and published by Dr. J. Pauco in 1967 and 1968, contain some basic information on Slovak scientists and their work abroad. They do not, however, give an exhaustive picture either of Slovaks active in various scientific disciplines or of their published writings. Besides, since 1967, when the Bibliography and Almanachs were published, the ranks of Slovak scientists were enlarged not only by those who left Slovakia in 1968 and became active in academic life or scientific research, but also by a new generation of graduates of American, European and South American universities who made science their field of professional activity. The largest number of books, essays and articles in foreign languages by Slovaks abroad, covers the disciplines which belong to the category of the humanities and the social sciences. It is especially history, political science, literary history and philology which were cultivated by Slovak intellectuals abroad and attracted the attention of the Slovak press in a greater degree that other disciplines. While in 1945 there was hardly a book in foreign languages on Slovakia and the Slovaks, today there are a number of SLOVAKIA 153 book, essays and articles in foreign language periodicals which have been accepted by critics in Europe as well as on the American Continent as "standard works ." The names of the authors in this field are better known, as I mentioned, than the names of scientists in other fields. In alphabetical order, we should mention at least those who published their writings in book form. In History : s. B. Bue, V. Bucko, J . Cieker, J . Cincik, K . c ulen, F. t:>urcansky, M. St. t:>urica, A. Grebert, s. Glejdura, F . Hrobak, F. Hrusovsky, J.M. Kirschbaum, M. Lacko, J . Lettrich, A. Macek, V. Mamatey, J. A. Mikus, s. Nahalka, J. Pauco, M. Stolarik, J. Tomko, F. Vnuk, G. Woytko and others. In Literary History and Linguistics: Prof. H . Bartek, J.M. Kirschbaum, J . Konus, I. Kruzliak, M. Lacko, J. Lihani, L. Luzbetak, s. Meciar, J. Mest'ancik, A. Pir, c. Potocek, J. Rekem, J. Vavrovic, F. Vnuk, J. E. Bor-Zat'ko. In Social Sciences : F. t:>urcansky, s. Glejdura, J. M. Kirschbaum, E . Lobl, J. Mikus, s. Polakovic, s. Osusky, J. Rudinsky, J. Stasko, James Zat'ko, T. G. Zubek. All these names, except for Luzbetak who published essays on the language of the residents of New Guinea, are generally known to the Slovak press. As far as Prof. M. Novak is concerned, we should perhaps mention that this author published a dozen books from the field of theology, philosophy and other social sciences, but he became well known to Slovaks a few years ago when he wrote about his Slovak origin in his successful book: The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics. There is no doubt that as time passes, we will have other similar cases among American Slovaks. The number of published books, essays and articles of the above-mentioned authors would amount to hundreds, the major part of which has been recorded in L9-cko 's Bibliography and in the two issues of the Literarny Almanach Slovaka v Amerike. Books and essays of some authors were recorded, however, also in bibliographies published in Germany, the United States and Canada.* Bibliographies * Daniel Dorotich, A Bibliography of Canadian Slavist s, University of Saskatchewan (1972) ; Sudosteuropa Bibliographie (Munich, 1934); A. Gregorowich, Canadian Ethnic Bibliography (Toronto, 1972). 154 SLOVAKIA published in Slovakia - and there is a considerable number of them - did not, of course, mention books by Slovaks abroad except for one or two authors. Scientific works from the field of philosophy, theology, and religion in the broad sense of the word follows in the number of published books and articles on history and the social sciences. The important center in this respect has been Rome where a great number of foreign language studies were published by professors of universities in tha eternal city. Among the best known are Prof. Daniel Foltin, M. Lacko, Felix Litva, s . Nahalka, V. Pavlovsky, s . Porubcan, F . skoda, s . Smrzik, J. Tomko, F. Zeman and others. Rome will be remembered also for the series of Slovak Studi es published by the Slovak Institute and edited by some of the above mentioned authors. On the American Continent we have to mention especially the writings by the well-known theologian, Prof. Jaroslav Pelikan, J. Dieska, I:. Gleiman, K. Murin who published some of his studies also in France, Prof. F. Zeman, A. Zan, T. G. Zubek and Prof. J . Papin who became known as the editor of two volumes of papers delivered by prominent theologians at a symposium organized at Villanova University. The least known among Slovak intellectuals abroad remained those active in applied science even though r, number of Slovak scientists excelled in this field. The Bibliography compiled by Prof. Lacko recorded about 300 items published before 1965 in book form or as contributions to scientific periodicals and symposia. The Bibliography gives the names only of twenty authors. There is no doubt that already before 1965 and since that time, many more Slave.ks made their nam~ in these disciplines, especially in the United States, Canada and Europe. An interesting example in this respect is the successful book: Reliability Theory and Practice by Igor Bazovsky, published in Prentice-Hall Spaca Technology series in 1962. The book was published the same year in Japan, in 1965 in the Soviet Union, in 1966 in France, and in 1969 in Italy. Translations into other languages are in course of preparation. Bazovsky also published a number of studies in scientific periodicals and delivered papers at international conferences and congresses. Since 1963, he has been lecturing on Reliability Engineering at the University of Arizona, Tuscon, Arizona. SLOVAKIA 155 Another example of a successful Slovak scientist hardly known among Slovaks is Prof. John P. Zubek (born in Slovakia in 1925), who made quite an impressive contribution in psychology as a professor, researcher and author of many academic papers. In cooperation with Peter A. Solberg, Prof. Zubek published two books : Doukhobors at War (1952) and Human Development (1954). His list of published scholarly articles and contributions to scientific periodicals and encyclopedias which he prepared alone or in cooperation with known scientists, contains 49 items. Together with T. J. Meyers, he has prepared a symposium: Censory Deprivation recently published in New York. He came to Canada at the age of 5 and was educated first at the University of British Columbia and later at the University of Toronto and at John Hopkins University . From 19G) he held academic positions at McGill University and the University of Manitoba as professor and chairman of the Department of Psychology. No doubt there are other similar cases. The number of Slovak scientists active in various disciplines from astronomy to nuclear physics who were not recorded by Slovak periodicals and newspapers would be surprising. Among those who are well-known through the Slovak press we have to mention Prof. A. Bugan, Prof. G. Bakos, Dr. J. Barboriak, Prof. J . Fabianek, G. Lazarcik, Prof. Julius Rudinsky, Prof. Otto , Anna Sirek, Prof. A. iitnak and others. The writings and names of many others remained unnoticed by the Slovak press even though they have been recognized by international scientific authorities. Writings by Slovak scientists active in applied science were mostly published in English, French, German and Swedish (Milan J. Simak) in scientific periodicals and occasionally also in book form. This survey does not aim, of course, at the evaluation of scientific works by Slovaks abroad. The fact that many of them were published in academic periodicals of wellknown universities, scientific institutions, or were delivered at international congresses and published in symposia, is perhaps sufficient proof that they satisfied scientific criteria. 156 SLOVAKIA Works by several Slovak authors were, however, reviewed and favorably evaluated also by foreign critics in the United States and Europe, and the list of books of some Slovak writers is impressive. Prof. Michael Novak, whom it he senior class at Stanford voted in 1967 one of the three most outstanding professors and in 1972 "distinguished lecturer" at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is the best known American Slovak author. He also taught at Harvard University epistemology and ethics. The list of his publications reads as follows: BOOKS .A New Generation: American and Catholic (Herder & Herder: February, 1964). A collection of essays on American Catholicism. The Open Church: Vatican II: Act II (Macmillan: May, 1964) . The Experience of Marriage (Macmillan: Oct., 1964). Editor. Belief and Unbelief (Macmillan: 1965). Paperback edition published by New American Library, 1967. There is also a German edition. The Rise of Unmeltable Ethnics (Macmillan, 1972). A Book of Elements, with Karen Laub-Novak (Herder & Herder, 1972) . A Time to Build (Macmillan, 1967). American Philosophy and the Future (editor.). To appear. (Scribner's, 1968). ASCENT OF THE MOUNTAIN, FLIGHT OF THE DOVE: An Invitation to Religious Studies (Harper and Row, 1971) . POLITICS: Realism and Imagination (Herder & Herder, 1971) . Mr. Novak's books have appeared in overseas editions since 1962: France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain and England. CHAPTERS IN BOOKS Spirit as Inquiry ed. Frederick E . Crowe; Studies in honor of Bernard Lonergan, S. J. "Lonergan's Starting Place; The Performance of Asking Questions," pp. 82-101. Also in Continuum, Winter, 1965. ·"God in the Colleges: The Dehumanization of the University," in The New Student Left: An Anthology, Ed. by Mitchell Cohen and Dennis Hale, Beacon Press, Boston: 1966, pp. 258-270. Also in American Colloquy, Ed. by Leonard Liek and David Hawke, Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis: 1963, pp. 690-702. Reprinted also in Commitment Vol. 1, 4 (Nov. 22, 1966) , pp. 1-7. ·"Moral Society and Immoral Man," in Church-State Relations in Ec1imenical Prospective. Ed. by Elwyn A. Smith, Duquesne University Press, Pittsburgh: 1966, pp. 92-109. ·"The New Nuns," (abridged version) in The New Nuns, ed. by Sister SLOVAKIA 157 M. Charles Borromeo, C.S.C., New American Library, New York : 1967, pp. 13-30. "The Christian and the Atheist,"· in The Meaning of the Death of GOlt , ed. by Berna rd Murchland, Random House, New York: 1937. MONOGRAPHS Editor of series of booklets Men Who Make the Council (portra its of Vatican II leaders), University of Notre Dame Press, 1964. A Lay View of the World We L ive I n; Reflections on the I nstitutional Church; The Gospels and the World. Chicago: Mundelein College, Sisters of the BVM, 1966, 67 pages. Vi etnam: Crisis of Conscience. New York : Association Press, Behrman House, and Herder & Herder; in collaboration with Robert McAfce Brown and Abraham Heschcl, 1967. Th e Secdar Saint, DeYoung lectures given at the Illinois State Univer- sity March 29 -31, 1967; to appear. " Toward a Positive Sexual Morality," in What Catholics Thi;ik About Birth Control, ed. by William Birmingham, Signet, 1964, pp. 109-128. "The Ever-Changi ng, Fallible Church" in Generation of the Third Eye, ed. by Daniel Callahan, Sheed and Ward : 1965, pp. 162-172. "Diversity of Structures and Freedom Within Structures of th e Church," in Concilium Dogma Vol. 1 The Church and Mankind, ed. by Edward Schi!lebeecky, O.P., Paulist Press: 1964, pp. 103-113. "The Break wit h Platonic Religion," The Church in the World , ed . by J ohn Deedey, 1965. Prof. Eugene Lobl (also Loe bl), who teaches economics at Vassar College, has an interesting career behind him in Government service of Czecho-Slovakia which ended in his five years solitary confinement by the Communist regime . After the Soviet invasion he left Slovakia and lectured in Germany, and in the United States at Princeton and som e twenty American universities before he settled at Vassar College, where he teaches "Critique of Theory and Practic~ of Marxist Thought," "Man and Society" and "Humanistic Economics." Among his writings published in exile are the following : In 1967, Dr. Lobl's manuscript, prepared while in soli tary confinement, was published under the title, M ental Worlc as the Re .1! Source of Wealth in: Czecho-Slovakia by the Academy of Sci ence. In Germany, by Econ Verlag, Dilsseldorf under the title Geistige Arbeit die wahre Quelle des Reichtums. He also published an analysis of the Soviet trials. In Czecho-Slovakia, the book was published shortly before the Soviet inva ::ion and became a bestseller. It has been translated and published in: AUSTRIA by Europa Verlag under the title: Die Revolution Rehabilitiert ihre Kinder (The Revolution Reh abilitates its Children). 158 SLOVAKIA BRAZIL, by Editora Laudes, Rio de Janeiro. FRANCE, by Editions Stock under the title: Proces ii Prague. GREAT BRITAIN, by Elek Publishing Company under the title: Sentenced and Tried. ITALY, by Vallecchi Editore under the titI,e, Testimonianza sui processo al centoro do conspirazione antistate capeggiatto da Rudolf Slansky. JAPAN, by Tuttle. UNITED STATES, by Grove Press under the title, Stalinism in Prague, The Loebl Story. Further, an analysis of the background of the Prague spring has been published in : Austria ·a nd Germany by Europa Verlag under the title : Die Intellectualle Revolution. It was also published in Izrael. Dr. Lobl's book, dealing with the problems of the student movement in the United States in the sixties, and exposing their philosophical shortcoming as the roots of the problems of contemporary society, has been published in: AUSTRIA and GERMANY by Econ Verlag, Diisseldorf under the title: Gesprache mit den Ratlosen. GREAT BRITAIN, by Allen and Unwin under the title: Conversations with the Bewildered. UNITED STATES, by Schenkman in Bo3ton und er the same title. An analysis and confrontation of theory and practice of applied Marxism has been published in: GERMANY, by Econ Verlag under the title : Marxismus Wegweiser und Irrweg (Marxism the Signpost and Dead End ). His manuscript on "A Few Blades of Grass," a recollection is being edited for publishing in 1974. Economics and Our Future, a critique of contemporary economics and an outline for a humanistic orientation of the economy, is in print in Germany. The English manuscript is being edited. Prof. Msgr. Jozef Tomko, who alternatively taught at the International University of Social Sciences, tlB Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana and Diplomatic Academy in Rome, is foremost Slovak scholar in Rome. His works in Latin and German were reviewed in several European countries. He also published in Slovak. Among his foreign language works we should mention the following: BOOKS De inhabitatione Spiritus Sancti ir anima iusti secundum B. Petrum de Tarantasia, Roma, 1951. Il rapporto di larnro in Cecoslovacchia negii anni 1945-1954, Roma, 1956. Die Errichtung der Diozesen Zips, Neusohl und Rosenau (1776) und da s konigliche Patronatsrecht in Ungarn, Wien, Herder, 1968. It w.1s SLOVAKIA 159 reviewed in Archiv fur katholisches Kirchenrecht, Zeitschrift fur katholische Theologie, Theol.-prakt. Quartalschrift Linz, Archiv fur Kirchenrecht, Sudostdeutsches Archiv, Bollettino bibliografico internazionale, Bibliographica de Salamanca. De Litteris Apostolicis "Matrimonia mixta," Napoli, D'Auria , 1970. Matrimoni misti, Napoli, Edizioni Dehoniane, 1971. The book was reviewed in La Civilta Cattolica, Apollinaris, La Famiglia, Rassegna di teologia, L'Osservatore Romano, A1;venire, La lib erte (Fribourg), Theologische Revue, Catholic Herald (London), etc. Svetlo narodov (The Light of Nations), Rome, 1972. Blazenstva, (Rome, 1973). Krest'an a svet (Christian and the World), Rome, 1974. CHAPTERS IN BOOKS EDITED IN COOPERATION WITH OTHER AUTHORS "Aspetti teologici della problematica dei matrimoni misti," in La collegialita episcopale per it futuro della Chiesa, Firenze, Valleccni, 1969, pp. 445-479. "II matrimonio dei battezzati non credenti," in Matrimonio famiglia e diverzio, Napoli, Edizioni Dehoniane, 1971 (Second edition 1973) , pp. 347-367. "De Sacra Congregatione pro Doctrina fidei," in Adnotationes Professorum, Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana, Cursus renovationis canonicae, Roma, 1971, pp. 411-426. "De causis circa fidei privilegium," in Adnotationes Professorum, Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana, Rome, 1972, pp. 379-406. ARTICLES "Celebrazioni rnmana in onore degli Apostoli degli Slavi," Rivista diocesana di Roma, 1963, pp. 634-637. "Historicko-pravna problematika a pramene k dejinam slovenskych diecez," Most 9 (1962), pp. 27-36. "Cirkevna pravomoc sv. Stefana, uhorskeho kral'a," Most 11 (1964), pp. 33-48. "La nuova disciplina dei matrimoni misti," L'Osservatore Romano, 1. maggio 1970. "S. Congregatio pro doctrina fidei, Agendi ratio in doctrinarum examine," Monitor Ecclesiasticus, 96 (1971). "La riforma del Sant' Uffizio," Rassegna di teologia 12 (1971) 4, pp. 209-215. "11 nuovo ve·golamento per l'esame delle dottrine," Vita consacrata 7 (1971) 5, pp. 404-409. Contributions in Lexikon fur Theologie and Kirche and Bibliographisches Lexikon zur Geschichte Sudosteuropas (Mtinchen, 1973: L. Bartholomaeides).  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 Scientific Literature by Slovaks Abroad Description An account of the resource J. M. Kirschbaum Slovakia, Vol. 25 (No. 48), 1975 pp. 151-159 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kirschbaum, Jozef M., 1913-2001 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1975 SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/b49f58106e26d9b609f40427f2a0c22d.pdf 5013aa35164ccd986cee7bb9e2e6c268 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 73 SEEMING AND BEING: CONTEXTUALIZING THE HISTORY OF POST - COMMUNIST SLOVAKIA Juraj Hocman The year 1989 marked the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia and the beginning of Slovakia's road to independence. For the Slovaks this year also revealed the gap between their perception of national history and how it was viewed from the outside. In the 1990s, a new generation of western scholars contrasted the post-communist change of Czechoslovakia' s two nations. In their studies of modem Slovak society they rarely went beyond 1918. They relied very much on general accounts and traditional dichotomies between the Czechs and Slovaks, such as 'industrial' versus 'rural,' 'secular' versus 'religious,' ' progressive' versus 'backward.' 1 This was why in the 1990s the Slovaks continued to be seen as a "non-historic" nation hastily modernized during the communist era. Since it was mostly invisible in Austria-Hungary and Czechoslovakia, Slovak history automatically appeared as ruptured and fragmented. Following the downfall of the communist regime and the creation of the independent Slovak Republic in January of 1993, the country's image was primarily associated with radical nationalism, intolerance towards its minorities and an unstable domestic political scene. All of these seemed to have been sufficient to explain Slovakia' s failure to achieve a functioning democracy in the mid-1990s. In the early 2000s, a secondwave of scholarly interest in Slovakia began. Attracted by the country' s economic progress and an overall social and political stability, western scholars turned their attention to what had seemed in the 1990s as a satisfactory explanation for the peculiarities of Slovakia's evolution as a post-communist state. Some of them came to the conclusion that the existing stereotypes stemmed from preconceived methodological approaches, even unfamiliarity with the facts .2 The1 Abby Innes, Czechoslovakia: The Short Goodbye (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001 ), ix-xi. 2 Karen Henderson, "Evaluating the Slovak Transition : What Creates the Image of Slovakia?" In Slovakia after Communism and Meciarism, ed. Kieran Williams (London: School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies, 2000), 26. �74 SLOVAKIA refore, a better understanding of what was happening in the country since its creation requires a broader historical approach. 1. Seeming and Being in the History of East and West. The self-challenging motto of the Andrassy family of Hungarian nobles, Non videri, sed esse (Not Seeming but Being), which inspired medieval and early modern societies, stands in direct opposition to modem approaches to social reality that tend to place image over substance.3 In this regard small nations are at greater risk of being overlooked, even misjudged by bigger nations. 4 While it is hardly imaginable that the views of a Slovak or a Czech scholar on the history of Great Britain, the United States or Canada would have the same resonance and impact on the international image of those countries, western scholars have scrutinized the history of Czechoslovakia and its two nations with significant consequences.5 This could happen since the capacity of Slovak historians to conduct independent research and publish the results during the communist era was subject to ideological indoctrination and political constraints. Moreover, Slovak historians, in contrast to their Czech colleagues, until recently did not work systematically on a conceptualization of Slovak history and the minimalization of its invisibility. Such a course would have helped to "sell" their cause abroad - the legitimacy and viability of the existence of Slovakia as a sovereign state - long after its creation. In the 1990s this gap was filled by foreign scholars and the media in a way that simplified and, in some cases, distorted the mostly unknown Slovak history waiting for its reinterpretation at home and rediscovery abroad. The Slovaks were depicted, in terms of their 3 Eva Smelkova and Julius Barczi, "Andrassyovci a Rozi\ava," Forum Historiae 2/2008, p.5. Accessed at www.forumhistoriae.sk/FH 2/smelkova. df 4 See the interview with the Norwegian publicist and writer Egil Lejon "Slovensko prikladom" on the parallels between the historical evolution of the Slovaks and the small Scandinavian nations in the 19th century. Literarny tyidennik, August 12, 1994, pp. I and 11. 5 Even large states are vulnerable to intrusions into their national histories that contradict domestic interpretations. See the internet article "Russia Will Never Let Anyone Falsify [the] History of [the] Second World War" which refers to the image of the soldiers of the Red Army in WW II as looters and rapists . Russia has created a special committee to counteract the "attempts at distorting history to the detriment of Russi a's interest. " Pravda (Moscow). Accessed at www.pravda.ru, May 20, 2009 . �SLOVAKIA 75 missing statehood, as a non-historic nation, which, after the creation of the Slovak Republic in 1993, cured its historical complexes and democratic deficiencies at the expense of their advanced neighbors with whom they shared a common history - the Czechs and the Magyars. 6 To that, some Slovak scholars and politicians reacted with fervor instead of providing a systemic and efficient alternative.7 Consequently, they created solitary and isolated interprettations of Slovak history that clashed with stereotypes and automatically brought about the risk of being viewed either as hard-core nationalists or revisionists.8 In the early 2000s, western scholars such as Karen Henderson, Abby Innes, Cas Mudde and others expressed their doubts concerning cliches linked to Slovak history. The progress in the rediscovery of Slovak history in the West since the beginning of the 2000s cannot be overlooked as the new generation of scholars did their fieldwork in the Slovak Republic and critically examined the earlier interpretations of Slovak history emerging in the 1990s. 9 Although the trend of foreign and Slovak historians coming closer in their interpretations is growing, a lot of work remains to be done by both sides.10 6 George Schopflin, Nations, Identity, Power (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 280-297 ("The Slovak case study"). 7 Looking for internationally-known personalities with Slovak origins at any cost to improve the image of Slovakia could result in quite opposite effects. See Greg Steinmetz's article, "Slovaks desperately searching for famous countrymen," The Globe and Mail, April 27, 1996. Similarly, the publishing of another variant of the multi-volume "History of Slovakia" in the Slovak language with short resumes in German, English, French and Russian, and picture books with descriptive texts designed for common readers are hardly ways to provide a conceptual and critical synthesis of Slovak history known and accepted internationally. 8 Franti~ek Vnuk, Milan Durica and other historians grouped around the Matica slovens/ca. 9 Next to Karen Henderson and Abby Innes, the best examples are the recent works by Tim Haughton and John A. Scherpereel cited in this article. The British scholar George Schopflin sees a great challenge for historians of East Central Europe to become familiar with the Anglo-Saxon, German, French, Russian, and Italian scholarly literature. For consequences regarding Slovak history see George Schopflin, "Vytvaranie eur6pskej kulturnej identity? Stredna Europa v rozfaenej Eur6pskej unii," Listy SFPA, March-April 2003 , pp.2-3. 10 " .. . it is hardly surprising that any effort to straighten the Slovak spine is seen as nationalism, the equivalent of n[N]azism, fascism and the oppression of minorities. It may be hard to believe but the greatest enemies of Slovakia are Slovaks themselves. On several occasions, I have had an opportunity to witness the way in which Slovak historians have given lectures on Slovakia to foreign audiences. Nearly all of �76 SLOVAKIA Furthermore, in the modem era the role of the media in building popular perceptions on the basis of simplified interpretations of historical developments has been increasing. A reasonable objection can be made as to why a scholarly study should be bothered by what the media say. In short, the media can popularize history more effectively than scholars who create their interpretations only after years of studying a particular problem. Thus, in creating a public image, it is the media which paints the larger picture, not scholars. 11 Paraphrasing Clausewitz, the media may be seen as the continuation of historiography and social science by other means. 12 This was evident in the case of Slovakia's image as hyper-nationalist in the early 1990s and during the country's quasi-miraculous instant awakening in 1998. Views by the media helped to reduce this phase in modem Slovak history to the Manichean conflict between 'evil' and 'good' politicians, and, implicitly, between the 'progressive' and 'backward' electorates and segments of Slovak society. 13 them have had one thing in common: they present the Slovaks as a nation without a history, without culture and traditions - and surprise - as the oppressor of minorities. Nor do they neglect to mention Slovakia's facist and Nazi past. Their spiritual kin in the West have gone so far in their blind, ignorant hatred as to blame the Slovaks for the hanging of Communists and Jews in Kosice in January of 1945. According to one German commentator, the massacres in Kosice were ' one of the last abominations of the fascist Slovak state and ally of Adolf Hitler. ' The fact that Kosice belonged to Hungary at that time and that this sad, vile act was committed by the Hungarian fascists "Wild Rose Crosses," is apparently of interest to no one, the least to our own historians." Darina Vergesova, "Dajte Duricovi pokoj," Kritika & Kon text, nos. 2-3 ( 1997), pp.59-60. 11 "A separate chapter in our [Slovak] media is that of the methodical loss of national memory," Pavo! Dinka, S/ovenske media: Met6dy manipulacie (Bratislava: PPA, 2008), 21. Due to its image inherited from the 1990s, Slovakia was depicted in three films - "Hostel" (2004), "Eurotrip" (2004) and "Hostel 2" (2007) - as a nest of danf:erous and perverted criminals and mafia. For details see www.imdb.com 2 On the shift of the media in the time of globalization from being the Fourth Power (provider of information) to the Fifth Power (manipulator of information) see the article by Ignacio Ramonet, "Le cinquieme pouvoir," Le Monde Diplomatique, Apri l-Mai (2005), pp.74-78 "Dans la nouvelle guerre ideologique qu 'impose la mondialisation, !es medias sont utilisees comme une arme de combat. L' information, en raison de son explosion, de sa multiplication, de sa surabondance, de ses partis pris, se trouve litteralement contaminee, empoisonnee par toute sorte des mensonges, pollue par !es rumeurs, !es distorsions, !es manipulations." Ibid., p.77. 13 Lubomir Kopecek, Demokracie, diktatury a politicke stranictvi na Slovensku (Brno: CDK, 2006), p.308. A survey conducted in Slovakia in the mid- l 990s focused on the degree of tolerance towards minorities, disrespect for the law by politi- �SLOVAKIA 77 Next to the risk of perspectives based on simplified portrayals of reality stands the problem of divergent approaches towards the same phenomena in the history of the East and West. The classic saying goes "if disease is beautiful, it is generally someone else's disease." 14 Apart from its complimentary aspect, Chesterton's aphorism can be applied to nationalism and its negative characteristics associated primarily with the East. In the 1990s, the resurrected nationalism of East Central Europe gained a negative image linked to the ethnocentric nationalism of the 19th century. This resulted in the categorization of post-communist states into progressive ones and those which lagged behind. It is true that the downfall of Communism and the subsequent disintegration of the Communist Bloc resulted in an explosion of ethnic tensions. When examining the roots of nationalism and its capacity for political and social mobilezation, it should become clear that the same primordial instincts attributed to the East had existed among western literati in the 19th century. In multiethnic Britain the same elements of linguistic and ethnic tensions shaped by romantic nationalism can be found in historical novels designed with the same purpose as those by writers in East Central Europe. 15 The similarities between the nation-building processes in W estem and East Central Europe can particularly be observed in the creation of multi-ethnic Great Britain as a political nation during the period 1707-1837, where the impact of external threats helped her to overcome the historical centripetal tendencies based on ethnic diversity. 16 What worked in Great Britain did not work in Austria- cians, positive opinions on the communist regime before its fall and engagement in civic association activities. 14 Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Orthodoxy (London: The Bodley Head, 1949), p.12. 15 On the Norman-Saxon ethno-linguistic division and societal hierarchy in medieval England see Sir Walter Scott's historical novel Ivanhoe (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998). 16 Linda Colley, Britons: Forg ing the Nation 1707-/837 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992). For the major argument of the book see the introduction, pp.1-9. See also the comparison of the Magyars with the English "who have violently Anglicized ten millions of Irishmen and Scottsmen" made by a Magyar Deputy in the Hungarian Diet in 1879 in justification of the forced Magyarization . R.W. Seton-Watson, Racial Problems in Hungary (London: Archibald Constable, 1908; reprinted in New York by Howard Fertig, 1972), 217 . There is a significant difference. Whereas Great Britain made, at least formally, its Compromise in 1707, the radical part of Magyar political elites failed to do it until it was too late. �78 SLOVAKIA Hungary from 1848 to 1918 and in Czechoslovakia, where centripetal tendencies eventually prevailed. Recalling the indication by Cas Mudde of double standards in explaining ' bad' and 'good' nationalism in Slovakia during the period 1989-1992, 17 nationalism, in general, appeared as progressive when it had helped to create nation-states in the West from the 16th to the 19th centuries, whereas it became perverted in state-building processes in post-communist Eastern Europe in the 1990s. 18 Though the concerns of multi-ethnic states about the possible consequences of various forms of nationalism, past and future, to which modem historiography and political science have legitimately pointed, are understandable, the common roots of nationalism should not be forgotten. This will help us to avoid the traps of nationalism's general recrimination in post-communist East Central Europe, including Slovakia, regardless of the context within which it emerged and had been shaped. 19 In addition to the perception of the Slovaks as intolerant nationalists, the image of the country has been that of a non-historic nation due to the viewing of unexplored parts of Slovak history as myths. Robert Pynsent suggests that a myth can appear either as a "normal neutral narrative of concem," 20 or it can be a "bridge too far" in re17 Cas Mudde, "Civil society in post-communist Europe: Lessons from the ' dark side,"' In Uncivil society? Contentious politics in post-communist Europe, eds. Petr Kopecky and Cas Mudde (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 161. 18 For the opposite view see Egil Lejon who sees the creation of the Slovak Republic in 1993 as a result of Slovak historical traditions and an emancipation movement which accelerated in 1848 and later. Interview with Egil Lejon "Slovensko prikladom," Literarny tyzdennik, August 12, 1994, p.11. Lejon suggests that the Slovaks are not nationalistic enough in terms of what modem nationalism requires: cultural self-confidence, national pride, and loyalty. 19 See Kedourie on the selective use of the antonyms 'progressive ' - ' regressive ' in regard to nationalism in the Marxist interpretation of history ('progressive' during the advent of capitalism replacing fe udalism, ' progressive' in the fight of colonial and post-colonial nations against imperialism, and ' regressive' within capitalism resisting socialism). Elie Kedourie, Nationalism (London: Hutchinson & Co Ltd., 1966), 90-91. Applying Mudde 's observation, the 'bad ' case of nationalism in the early 1990s was the split of Czechoslovakia, whereas the 'good' cases were the dismemberments of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. In contrast to the two latter, Slovak nationalism did not involve violence. 20 Robert Pynsent, Questions of Identity: Czech and Slovak Ideas of Nationality and Personality (Budapest-London-New York: Central European University Press, 1994), 87. �SLOVAKIA 79 gard to its practical implications in nation and state-building processes in Slovak history as implicated by G. Eyal, S.J. Cohen and T. Haughton. 2 1 While applying the first flexible definition, it may be postulated that myths are constantly emerging. An effective way to understand the essence of a myth in terms of its value as a possible source of historical facts is to compare both of its forms. The official mythology of the European Union is that it was born out of a sudden inspiration that had fallen upon Jean Monnet - a Romulus to the European Community - during his trip to the Alps. The idea was apparently instrumental in reconciling France and Germany during the meeting of Robert Schumann and Konrad Adenauer in May of 1950, which gave birth to the European Coal and Steel Community. 22 Others see this process in an all-European myth-deconstructing perspective as the outcome of the decisive involvement of the United States, tired of the French-German reluctance to reach an agreement. 23 Concurrently, some scholars have viewed the creation of the European Union in the early 1990s as the culmination of the tireless work of lobbyists, who had effectively executed the wishes of great corporations to create a common market which was about to grant the architects of the EU even greater eco- 21 See Gil Eyal, The Origins of Post-Communist Elites: from the Prague Spring to the Breakup of Czechoslovakia (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), 131 , and Tim Haughton, Constraints and Opportunities of Leadership in Post-Communist Europe (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 4-5. This is also the leitmotif of Shari J. Cohen's book Politics Without A Past: The Absence Of History In Postcommunist Nationalism (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1999). 22 "Chaque annee, si je le peux, je vais faire de grandes courses dans les Alpes .. .J'y retrouve l'expression de l'inquietude qui opressait l'Europe cinq ans apres la guerre: une autre guerre est proche devant nous si nous ne faisons rien. L' Allemagne n' en sera pas la cause, mais elle en sera l'enjeu. II faut qu'elle cesse d'etre un enjeu, qu 'elle devienne au contraire un lien. Seule la France peut actuellement prendre une initiative." Jean Monnet, Memoires (Paris: Fayard, 1997), 342. 23 John Gillingham, Coal, Steel and the Rebirth of Europe, 1945-1955: The Germans and French from Ruhr Conflict to Economic Community (Cambridge University Press, 1991 ). Particularly explicative is the role of the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany John McCloy in bringing the French and Germans together to the signing of the Treaty of Paris (April 18, 1951 ), which instituted the European Coal and Steel Community. Gillingham stressed the fact that McCloy "summoned" the German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer to his office for a "dressing down" for his unwillingness to sign the document. Ibid, 280. �80 SLOVAKIA nomic profits. 24 A different group of authors opposed such ignoble motives with their hagiographic vision of the institutional emergence of the European Community and the later European Union as the outcome of exceptional negotiating and diplomatic skills of supranational executives who were serving the citizens of Europe.25 It is clear that each perspective has its merits and this adds to the perplexing complexity of the issue and resulting interpretations. This variety of opinions points to the core of the problem linked to the non-historicity of Slovaks and their questionable ability to cope with more recent problems in the transformation of their society. The skeptically insinuated ' mythical' legacy of 9th century Great Moravia and the invisible link from it to modem Slovak politics, apart from its distance from the present, which partially legitimizes its appearance as a myth, disregards the simple fact that to the Slovaks it was a lighthouse, not a matrix blindly to follow in the creation of a sovereign modem Slovakia. There is no difference in this regard between small and big nations who honor their historical traditions that often blend with myths. Most importantly, it is not Great Moravia itself, but the connection between it and the 19th and 20th centuries that matters in the discourse on the historicity of Slovaks. This link was hardly reflected, let alone examined, by western scholars in the 1990s in contrast to their predecessors - the historians R.W. Seton-Watson, Robert A. Kann, Oscar Halecki, and C.A. Macartney.26 After the extinction of the Arpad dynasty (1301 ), which had represented the ethnic Magyars, the foreign rulers of the Kingdom of 24 Belen Balanya, Ann Doherty, Olivier Hoedeman, Adam Ma' anit and Erik Wesselius, Europe Inc.: Regional and Global Restructuring and the Rise of Corporate Power (London-Sterling, Virginia: Pluto Press, 2000). The authors stress their perception of the creation of the European Union as the result of a plan made by the European Roundtable of Industrialists (ERT) composed of 45 captains of the largest European transnational corporations. See Preface of the book, xi-xv. 25 Ken Endo, The Presidency of the Europ ean Commission under Jacques De/ors. The Politics of Shared Leadership (London : Macmillan, 1999). Helen Drake, Jacques De/ors. Perspectives on a European Leader (London-New York: Routledge, 2000). 26 For an attempt to see Slovak history in historical continuity by a foreign scholar see the chapter by the Austrian historian Arnold Suppan, "Die Slowakei zwischen Grossmahrischen Reich und Europaischer Union: Kontinuitaten und Diskontinui taten," in Plus Ultra. Die Welt Der Neuzeit. Festschrift far Alfred Kohler zum 65. Geburtstag, eds. F. Edelmayer, M. Fuchs, G. Heilingsetler, P. Rauscher (Munster: Aschendorf, 2008), 331-68. �SLOVAKIA 81 Hungary - the Anjous, the Luxembourgs, the Jagiellons, the Hahsburgs - were wisely and clairvoyantly tolerant towards the ethnic groups of Hungary as the state otherwise would have not survived for the next seven centuries.27 Once the glory of the Kingdom of Hungary and the privileges of a political nation were attributed to one nationality (the Magyars) in the 18th and 19th centuries, there was no choice for others, who felt degraded to second-class citizens, than to nourish and strengthen their own identities - linguistic, cultural, social, and political. Paradoxically, a tendency to be suspicious of the interpretations of Slovak history as an indivisible part of the history of the Kingdom of Hungary still prevails. Until a shift in this perception happens, Slovaks may be further viewed as a non-historic entity despite empirical and heuristic evidence that testifies to their genuine participation in the societal and institutional life of the kingdom they shared with others in times when language and ethnicity meant less than social status and class affiliation. 28 The myth versus 'myth' ambiguity in the interpretations of the history of East and West testifies to the existence of a wide range of applicable perspectives and alternative interpretations. A better awareness of this ambiguity, which exists in both East and West, may help us to also understand the reasons for the ruptures in Slovak history, fractured into its being and seeming. The most visible anoma- 27 Disregarding the multi-ethnic aspects and dynastic ruptures in the medieval and modern history of Hungary would be the same as excluding the early Plantagenets from the history of England due to their appearance as non-Anglo-Saxon, FrancoNorman, elements. The history of England would have to begin anew with the Tudors . The rupture progressive versus regressive (see Kedourie) in the history of the United States is observable in the interpretations of the reasons for the Civil War and its aftermath. A similar rupture (totalitarian+-+democratic) exists in the history of Germany before it became a democratic state. 28 "The Slovaks on their side lost their national existence [after the defeat of Great Moravia] in that of their Asiatic conquerors, entered into their ranks as soldiers, and participated thence-forward in all their fortunes .. .Their language however is the only remnant of their national existence which the Slovaks have preserved; in every other respect they belong to the Hungarian nation, of which they form an ingredient part, as the Magyars form another; and on the glory of whose valiant deeds they have an equal claim." Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson, Historical View of the Language and Literature of the Slavic Nation (New York: BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2006) (Reprint of the original version published by George P. Putnam in New York in 1851), 186-7. �82 SLOVAKIA lies of this split consequently appeared either as 'betrayals' or 'awakenings.' 2. Seeming and Being in Slovak History as a Part of the History of Czechoslovakia and Hungary. In 1991 Slovak historian Anton Hmko pointed out that the book by Slovak politician Ivan Derer on the rulings of the National Court in the First Czechoslovak Republic,29 written from the perspective of an ardent unitarist and "Czechoslovak," was conveniently accepted by Marxist historiography. The reason was obvious as the adversary was the same - the Slovak autonomist movement and the legacy of the wartime Slovak Republic (1939-1945). Having provided statistical data on the topics of the studies published by Slovak historians, Hrnko argued that the history of interwar Czechoslovakia ( 19181938) belonged to one of its most ideologically distorted segments. 30 This vacuum was filled by the works of court historians who helped to create myths as the politically and ideologically "subjective projection of desirable horizons." 31 If a 'myth' could emerge relatively recently with plenty of primary documents, one can ask the question - are there more of them? To respond to it at least in part, it is necessary to return to the early 1990s, when ideological constraints were removed from scholarship and academia and the attention of scholars and media turned towards nationalism. Miroslav Hroch's classification of nationalities in East Central Europe on their advancement in the national reawakening, which was published in the year when Czechoslovakia broke up, put the Slovaks a step behind the Czechs and the Magyars, without providing details, except for a very general reference. 32 This article suggests that, until the revolution of 1848, Slovaks did not lag behind 29 Ivan Derer, Slovensky vyvin a l'udacka zrada (Praha: Kvasnicka a Hamp!, I 946). Anton Hmko, "Zatemnene dejiny: Obraz medzivojnovej slovenskej spolocnosti v fracach slovenskych historikov," Literarny tyidennik, June 28, 1991 , p.10. 1 Marianna Oravcova, "The Ethnic and Cultural Dimension of National Emancipation: The Evocation of the Slovak Nation," in Language, Values and the Slovak Nation, eds. Tibor Pichler and Jana Gasparikova (Washington: Paideia Press, 1994), 11 . In the last sentence Oravcova refers to the article by Pavo! Horvath, "K niektorym otazkam historickych tradicii na Slovensku," Slovensky narodopis 1-2 (1986), 60-65 . 32 Miloslav Hroch, "From National Movement to the Fully-Formed Nation: The Nation-Building Process in Europe," New Left Review, 1/198 (March-April 1993), 64. 30 �SLOVAKIA 83 the Czechs in terms of the press, programs, the creation of a literary language and the petition movements. Hroch was more accurate when pointing to the forced Magyarization that started after 1867 as a major hindrance to Slovak national progress, including its social and economic aspects. Yet even that historical period has to be reexamined as it had not been a time of complete silence, although it would be convenient to see it in that way. Communist historiography in the 1950s gladly embraced the earlier idea that Slovaks had been saved by the Czechs from extinction as a nation, a concept which slipped into western scholarship. This hypothesis was based on censuses which showed the decreasing number of Slovak intelligentsia and schools as the 19th century progressed. These scholars concluded that the Slovaks would have been assimilated by the Magyars in one or two generations. 33 There had previously been two generations of Slovaks living under Magyarization from 1875 to 1914, yet the Slovak press, though under censorship and constant pressure, was full of political articles and calls for national, social and cultural progress. 34 Magyar elites knew very well that Slovak identity did not depend solely on schooling in their native language, but also on the family environment. Therefore, they forcibly took Slovak children from poor families and transported them to regions where Magyar was spoken. 35 The unrest in Turiec and Zvolen County in Central Slovakia that led to attacks on local Magyar authorities was a mixture of social and national elements. They testified to the continuing, even increasing Slovak resilience against Magyarization as observed by R. W. Seton-Watson. 36 Final33 For an argument against the traditional view that the Slovaks could not create their intelligentsia because of harsh Magyarization see Dusan Kovac, Roman Holec, Elena Jakesova, Elena Mannova, Milan Podrimavsky, Na zaciatku storocia, 19011914 (Bratislava: Veda, 2004), 44. 34 Milan Krajcovic, "Slovaci v emancipacnom pohybe nemad'arskych narodov," in Slovensko na zaciatku storocia: Spolocnost'. stat a narod v suradniciach doby, eds. Milan Podrimavsky and Dusan Kovac (Bratislava: Hu SA V, 1999), 48-65 . 35 "By the Law of 1891 , the State has deliberately assumed the attitude of the Sultans in earlier centuries. Just as the Christian rayah was regarded as a breedingmachine to supply janissaries, so to-day non-Magyars of Hungary are breedingmachines whose children must be taught Magyar from the earliest age in the hope that they may become renegades to the traditions of their ancestors." R.W. SetonWatson, Racial Problems in Hungary , 222. 36 Ibid., 394. Seton-Watson stressed that 92 .5% of the Liptov county inhabitants were Slovaks and 90.6% understood no Magyar. Ibid. , 332. �84 SLOVAKIA ly, in 1918, it was the masses of peasants and lower strata of Slovak society that had preserved, as lsmo Nurmi suggested, a high degree of self-consciousness. 37 They were instrumental in embracing the idea of their future coexistence with the Czechs under the provisions of the Pittsburgh Agreement, but under no circumstances with the Magyars. Without this support the few intellectuals at home and abroad could hardly have reached their political goals in October and November of 1918 when the Czechoslovak Republic was born. It is equally true that significant numbers of Slovak Magyarones gave up their ethnicity for the sake of their careers while following the example of the Slovak nobility and gentry which were "easily and gladly" Magyarized in the 19th century. 38 Still, it is hard to believe that three million Slovaks at home and abroad, with the most resistant of them in North America, would have been completely Magyarzsed even if Hungary had been preserved in its prewar boundaries . A possible analogy with the Irish resistance, underscored by the role played in national emancipation by leaders such as Milan R. Stefanik and Stefan Osusky, who left Hungary and vehemently fought for the Slovak cause abroad, comes to mind. Their work, done at the highest political and diplomatic levels, was supplemented by dozens of zealous Slovak national activists in the United States. 39 37 Ismo Nurmi, Slovakia - A Playground for Nationalism and National Identity, 1918-1920: Manifestations of the National identity of Slovaks (Helsinki : Suomen Historiallinen Seura, 1999), 45. 38 C.A . Macartney, Hungary and Her Successors. The Treaty of Trianon and its Consequences 1919-1937 (London : Oxford University Press, 1937), 91. 39 The Slovak press in North America - 30 newspapers with a circulation of 150,000 in 1914 - was such a force that the Hungarian government as early as in 1890 had banned the imports of some of them and began subsidi zing pro-Hungarian publications in the United States. M. Mark Stolarik, "The Slovak-American Press," in Sally M. Miller ed. , The Ethnic Press in the United States: A Historical Analysis and Handbook (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987), 365. Count Albert Apponyi, one of the main protagonists of Magyarization and a representative of the Hungarian government on his visit to the United States attempted to present Hungary as a ftee and democratic country. He was denounced as a tyrant and pressed by a huge mob comprising members of "Slavic nationalities and Hungarian socialists" during his lectures. In Chicago, Apponyi escaped the fury of the mob and fled to his car only with the protection provided by the police. See The New York Times, February 25, 1911 , p. 3. For the Slovak resistence against the territorial aspirations of fascist Hungary see the boastful statement by Gustav Husak on February 28, 1945: "I openly declare that Slovakia' s frontiers [with Hungary] as they had existed in the [prewar] Czechoslovak Republic are stable. Slovakia is united and non-divisible. Any �SLOVAKIA 85 After World War II, Konstantin Culen, a Slovak publicist in exile, suggested that living with the Czechs was for the Slovaks a rather negative experience. 4°Culen's arguments were based on the constant rejection of Slovak autonomy in Czechoslovakia by President Edvard Benes, who had never shown any particular affection for the Slovaks, and the post-war execution of Msgr. Jozef Tiso, President of the wartime Slovak Republic. With the situation of the Slovaks in southern Slovakia ceded to Hungary by the Vienna Award of November 1938 in mind, it is legitimate to assume that cohabitation with the Czechs, though far from being idyllic, included fewer risks for the completion of Slovak national emancipation than their hypothetical existence in Hungary after WW I. Furthermore, the Czechs in 1918 were already significantly ahead of the Slovaks as far as societal cohesion and socio-economic progress of their societies were concerned. The animosity started with the Czech disrespect toward the Catholic Church and with their disregard for the continuing socio-economic underdevelopment of Slovakia. The problem became acute in the 1930s, when the Slovak intelligentsia, which had remarkably increased by that time, as well as ordinary citizens, could not find work in Slovakia because the best jobs were filled by the Czechs. In contrast to the situation that had existed in the 1920s, Slovaks were ready to become executives, administrators, teachers, lawyers and doctors. This happened in 1939 and after. Unfortunately, after WW II Czech political leaders, both civic and communist, were not willing to admit that the Slovaks had grown up and were able to govern themselves.41 The Czech historical experience was strongly influenced by the Protestant Reformation, secularism and greater industrial advancement due to their proximity to and cohabitation with the Germans. With the creation of Czechoslovakia after WW I, the Czechs proved themselves worthy followers of their predecessors and for a moment irredentism by Magyar fascists will end in vain. Our nation, which has been able to resist the military power of Germany, will find enough strength to firmly defend its borders." See the document "Z referatu Gustava Husaka na konferencii Komunistickej strany Slovenska," February 28, 1945. Dokumenty slovenskej narodnej identi2; a statnosti II (Bratislava: Narodne literarne centrum, 1998), 400. Konstantin Culen, Po Sviitoplukovi druha nasa hlava: Politicky i ivotopis Dr. Jozefa Tisu (Cleveland: The First Catholic Slovak Union, 1947). 41 Carol Skalnik Leff, National Conflict in Czechoslovakia: the Making and Remaking of a State, 1918-1987 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 89. �86 SLOVAKIA also a barrier erected by the victorious Allies against German domination over Central and Eastern Europe. After the incorporation of Slovakia into Czechoslovakia, the national self-confidence of the Czechs was on the rise. After WW II, the Czechs led by the Communist Party, and with the mighty Soviet Union backing them, returned to the concept of a unitary Czechoslovakia. To them, the push for reforms in the 1960's, which was interpreted as the "Prague" rather than the "Czecho-Slovak Spring," was also a return to their national history. The invasion of Czechoslovakia by the armies of the Warsaw Pact in August of 1968, led by the Soviet Union, their former liberator, and the only Slavic Superpower, was especially traumatic for the Czechs. This trauma, imposed from outside, was complemented by a domestic one: the effects of 'normalization' and federalization, both seen as a part of the chain of Slovak "betrayals." The Slovaks rebelled from 1920 onward. First, they asked for autonomy, then they allegedly "conspired" with the Magyars and the Poles against the prewar Republic, and eventually got a taste of the forbidden fruit of political emancipation in the form of their nominally independent state.42 Meanwhile, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (1939-1945), the Czechs were ruled over and persecuted by the Germans. 43 With this perception of national history in Czech minds, the disappearance of the communist regime in 1989, which was allegedly harsher in the Czech Lands than in Slovakia, and which treated the Slovaks in the same way as did the First Czechoslovak Republic, was a golden opportunity to rebuild the state to Czech expectations. After recognizing that Slovaks were not willing to accept what they considered to be the continuation of the imbalance in the distribution of competences in a joint state in 1990-1992, the Czechs opted for the territorially-reduced variant of Czechoslovakia while inheriting its trademark. Since then, they have fared very well. 44 It 42 Leff, National Conflict, 26 and 164. For a Slovak perspective on the history of the Slovak-Czech and Czecho-Slovak relations since 1918 as the "history of broken pacts and unfulfilled promises," see Anton Hmko, "Politicke zapasy na Slovensku v lete a na jesen 1990," Historicky zbornik 10, no. I (2000), 77. 43 Though the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia had its own administration, it was an indivisible part of the Third Reich, which saw itself as a historic successor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation. 44 See the article "Slovakia's Economy ls Doing Well, Too" by Peter Burian, The New York Times, June I, 1996. The author, charge d 'ajfaires of the Embassy of the �SLOVAKIA 87 may seem that this chapter of their history was closed and sealed. The aftermath of the "Velvet Divorce" and the relationship between the two former federal nations was not always rosy. Throughout the 1990s, it was not difficult to contrast the progress made by the Czech Republic with Slovakia's problems. In the early 2000s, with the Meciar era gone and economic advancement that surprised many, the previous negative image of Slovaks as nationalists turned to the delay in democratic transformation of their society. 45 In recent books on Czech history since the early medieval era the Slovaks are hardly mentioned. With Slovakia's progress in the integration processes, substitutes for Slovak nationalism appeared instantly.46 Despite mutual sympathies as documented by surveys of public opinion and praise by Slovak and Czech politicians of their good relations, from 1993 onward free of economic quarrels,47 the clash of bitter memories continued. They have ranged from topics such as investment opportunities by renowned international compa- Slovak Republic in Washington, responded to a similar article in the NYT on the Czech Republic doing well "with luck and without Slovakia," while providing data on GDP (7.4% growth), unemployment (7.4%), doubled foreign currency reserves, a £ositive trade balance and low foreign debt per capita ($800.00). 5 According to Professor Filip Palda from E Ecole nationale d 'administration publique in Montreal, "Separation in 1992 allowed the Czechs to halt the payola on which Slovaks had come to depend. Since separation in 1992, the Slovaks have gone the way of Argentina, whereas the Czechs are now preparing to enter the European Union." See "Argentina north" by Filip Palda. The Ottawa Citizen, January 21 , 2002. Anton Hykisch, former Slovak ambassador to Canada, opined that, for Hungary and the Czech Republic, Slovakia's economic success in the early 2000s was a big surprise which was hard for them to accept. Author interview with Anton Hykisch, Bratislava, June 5, 2007. 46 For a contrasting view on the political systems and parliamentarism in the Czech and Slovak Republics as advanced and less developed see Petr Kopecky, Parliaments in the Czech and Slovak Republics: Party competition and parliamentary institutionalization (London : Ashgate, 2001). The Czech political scientist Lubomir Kopecek opines that in comparison with the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, the evolution of the Slovak political system is unfinished and the system itself is unstable. As a result, Slovakia is a "semi-consolidated democracy." Lubomir Kopecek, Demokracie, diktatury a politicke stranictvi stranictvi na Slovensku (Brno: CDK, 2006), 307 and 3 10. 47 See the article "Klaus: Vzt'ahy Slovenska a Ceska m6zu byt' pri.kladom pre celu Eur6pu," Pravda, June 29, 2009. It became a tradition that the first official visits of the newly-elected presidents and prime ministers of the Czech and Slovak Republics have been with their closest neighbor. �88 SLOVAKIA nies, 48 to the often derogatory comments on domestic politics and rivalry in sports, with frequent references to the "sins" in national histories of the two nations .49 Until the revolutionary years 1848-1849, Slovaks and Magyars had cohabitated peacefully. Four decades of forced Magyarization after 1867 were hard for the Slovaks, yet there was still some moral and socio-political capital left for the improvement of mutual relationships. If this failed in 1918, Slovaks could hardly have been blamed for it as their political weight and influence in Hungary was marginal. In the fall of 193 8, after two decades of the existence of Czechoslovakia, Slovakia was stripped of its southern territories by the Vienna Award.50 Almost seven years of living in Hungary (19381945) returned the Slovaks in the south to a life which resembled what had existed before 1918. After the Second World War and until 1989, the relationship between the Slovaks and Magyars might have appeared as normal, but it was not. Once the Soviet Union was gone and the fate of Czechoslovakia disputed, the old animosities resurfaced . For all Slovak governments since 1989, the status of the Magyar minority became a litmus test in measuring the state of democracy in Slovakia by western governments and scholars. During the Meciar years, Magyars in Slovakia voiced their dissatisfaction with 48 According to a poll by the Czech Private Equity and Venture Capital Association based in Prague, four out of five of its economists and financial analysts said that foreign investment would flow to the Czech rather than to the Slovak Republic. See "Investori uprednostnia Cesko pred Slovenskom," Sme, May 29, 2009. Slovak readers rejected the idea as wishful thinking on the Czech side and suggested that a poll conducted by a Slovak-based company would have shown the opposite. 49 They frequently appear on the Czech web sites www.seznam.cz., www.idnes.cz and their Slovak counterparts www.sme.sk and www.pravda.sk. On April 1 of2009 when the Slovak national football team defeated its opponent in Prague in the qualifier for the Word Cup in South Africa (2010), debates among the fans of both teams turned to their common past with references to the "betrayal" in 1938-1939 and to the Slovak inferiority complex vis-a-vis the Czechs. Slovaks pointed to Czech compliance with German rule in the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia and affirmed that they did not measure themselves against the Czechs - a fixed idea on the Czech side. 50 Julius Mesaros, "Some Deformations in the Interpretation of Censuses in Recent Slovak-Magyar Controversies," In Slovak & Magyars, ed. Pavol Stevcek (Bratislava: Ministerstvo kultury, 1995), 63-84. The census of 1910 showed the presence of 885,397 Magyars on the territory which became part of Slovakia in 1918 (30.3% of the population). Mesaros argues that even "this number was not the result of natural development, or Slovak-Magyar and Magyar-Slovak bilingualism, but a result of the purposeful Magyarization and oppression of Slovaks." Ibid. , 78 . �SLOVAKIA 89 the approaches of Slovak governments in administrative, linguistic, financial and cultural matters. Claims made by their leaders for more tolerance and understanding by the Slovaks have been in stark contrast with the ambiguous language of the representatives of the Magyar minority regarding their possible autonomy. 5 1 While the Slovaks and the Czechs after 1992 were able to reach the highest level of mutual respect and understanding, Slovaks and Magyars remained mentally anchored in the period between 1918 and 1945. The trauma of Trianon in 1920 and their expulsion from South Slovakia in 1945-194 7 is deeply engraved in the minds of Magyars, as is the forced Magyarization and the effects of the Vienna Arbitration in the minds of the Slovaks. Each side continues to interpret the causes and outcomes of those events according to its own perception and sentiments. A partial solution to the problem - history textbooks written by Slovak and Magyar historians together - is to this date still "in progress" and it is hard to predict when and if they will ever be finished and distributed to schools in both countries. 52 History is firmly tied into daily politics in East Central Europe. Its revival outside of scholarly conferences and seminars and its use as a model for the present or future by politicians may lead to the release of a genie from his bottle. 53 This refers particularly to Slovakia as being possibly identified as the weakest link within an informal Little Entente. 54 If both nations do not want to waste what has 51 The representatives of the Magyar political parties in Slovakia (before 1998), with the exception of Miklos Duray and Pal Csaky from the SMK. (the Party of the Magyar Coalition), were careful about publicly speaking of autonomy for Magyars in Slovakia, though the idea of their political and administrative autonomy has frequently appeared - sotto voce - as their ultimate goal. Most recently, Duray admitted that territorial autonomy is unrealistic, but the chance for a vaguely defined "personal'' autonomy for the Magyar minority in Slovakia still exists. See the article "Ouray o vel'kom Mad'arsku nesniva, auton6mia je vsak podl'a neho realna," Pravda, August 4, 2009. 52 Vilaro Kratochvil, "K moznostiam oslabovania predsudkov a stereotypov v tvorbe ucebnic dejepisu," in Myty a predsudky v dejincich. Historickci konferencia 7. decembra 2004, ed. Attila Simon (Samorin-Dunajska Streda: Forum Institut pre vyskum mensin, 2005). 53 See the interview with Slovak historian Ivan Kamenec. "Kamenec: Politici su najhorsi ziaci hist6rie," Sme, May 9, 2009. Kamenec refers to the diverging interpretations of the period 1944-1948. 54 Serbia, Slovakia, Romania, in which Magyar minorities live. Jan Camogursky said that the highest challenge to Slovakia's foreign policy after accession into NATO and the EU remains the country's ability to face continuing interference by �90 SLOVAKIA remained positive from the legacy of their peaceful cohabitation, and if they wish to get rid of the shadows of the past, they have to reach a mutually respectful Slovak - Magyar and Magyar - Slovak Compromise. Not by political gestures, but by the inner force of their societies. Neither of the two nations, closely bound together for centuries, can separately pass this test of national and civic maturity.55 3. The Myth of a Sudden Awakening of Slovak Society in the 1998 Parliamentary Elections. The major problem in Slovak history from an outsider's perspective - its invisibility linked to a fragmented appearance as a part of the history of Hungary and Czechoslovakia - influenced also its recent domestic interpretations. In reference to the Slovak national anthem, sociologists Martin Butora and Zora Butorova compared Slovak society in 1989 to "Sleeping Beauty." 56 They went so far as to say that" .. . in November 1989, an overwhelming majority of people in Slovakia accepted political change passively." This view is similar to those that refer to "socialism with a human face" in the second half of the 1960s as a purely Czech affair, 57 and those that see Charright-wing Magyar politicians into Slovakia's domestic affairs through issues regardi ng the status of the Magyar minority in Slovakia. Author interview with Jan Camogursky, Bratislava, May 24, 2007. In a poll conducted in January of 2004, 21 .3% of participants identified Hungary as a major threat to Slovak national security. See Boris Benkovic, "Vyskumna sprava," in Verejnti mienka a politika. Medzintirodne vzt'ahy a zahranicnti politika Slovenskej republiky, ed. Miroslav Peknik (Brati slava: Veda, 2005), 38 (see Graph 9). 55 For the necessity for mutual respect between the Slovak majority and minorities that would lead to their loyalty to the state based on civic principles see Milan Zemko, "Modemy politicky narod," in Slovenskti ottizka dnes, ed. Laszlo Szigeti (Bratislava: Kalligram, 2007), 192 . Zemko refers to Renan ' s idea of a "nation as a daily plebiscite" in a continuous building of a Slovak political nation : "L'existence d' une nation est. .. plebiscite de tous lesj ours, comme !'existence de l'individu est affirmation perpetuelle de vie." Ernest Renan, "Qu'est-ce qu ' une nation?" Conference faite en Sorbonne, le 11 mars 1882. Oeuvres completes d 'Ernest Renan (Paris: Calmann Levy, editor, 1882), 27. 56 Martin Butora and Zora Butorova, "S lovakia's Democratic Awakening," Journal of Democracy 10, no. I (1999), 80. 5 Ibid, 83. See Jon Elster, Claus Offe and Ulbricht K. Preuss, Institutional design in post-communist societies: rebuilding the ship at sea (Cambridge - New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998). The authors came to the conclusion that "The 1968 vision of socialism with a human face was entirely a Czech, not Slovak phenomenon." Ibid. , 264. �SLOVAKIA 91 ter 77 as the only agent of civic resistance against the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. Earlier observations by Karen Henderson point to preconceived approaches to Slovak history suffering from "dangerous analytical misconceptions that have to work backward."58 Theories on the institution-building processes in communist and post-communist Czechoslovakia view the institutions emerging during the transitory period as a result of bricolage - the innovative building of new institutions by politicians who function as bricoleurs. 59 A similar approach can be taken when examining the most important moments in the modern history of Slovakia and their contrasting interpretations seen in "bricks." Works by political scientists are often based on deductive reasoning (see the scheme's Bricolage I, at the end of the article). Thus, if Slovakia deviated from its course towards western democracies in the mid-1990s (originally Brick A), the explanation was obvious: it happened because of the country's past, bound by the immaturity of its society following the breakup of Czechoslovakia, which stemmed from pervasive Slovak nationalism. This led to ungratefulness towards the Czechs and revenge towards the Magyars (Brick B). Likewise, it has been argued that a high degree of compliance with the communist regime and its detrimental impact on Slovak society kept societal life frozen (Brick C). Moreover, the weak economic base of Slovakia inherited from Hungary, along with the controversial character and legacy of wartime Slovakia (Brick D), did not help to eliminate the socio-economic backwardness, political inexperience of Slovaks and thus their negative international image (Brick E) . Deductive reasoning has its merits. It is even more convincing when supported by direct experience and contact with the subject of the study, buttressed by familiarity with primary sources. Foreign scholars who did their research in Slovakia in the late 1990s and throughout the 2000s, helped to broaden a variety of perspectives on Slovak history, which Slovak historians themselves have been unaware of. It is interesting to observe that western, not Slovak scholars, argue in favor of the capacity of Slovak society to build new institu58 Karen Henderson, "Evaluating the Slovak Transition: What Creates the Image of Slovaki a?" 26. 59 John A. Scherpereel, Governing the Czech Republic and Slovakia: Between State Socialism and the European Union (Boulder - London : First Forum Press, 2009), 68 . �92 SLOVAKIA tions during the communist and post-communist era (Scherpereel, Haughton) . Foreign scholars have referred to the importance of a "critical mass of educated citizens" and political stability in Slovakia prior to, during and after the "change" in 1998 (Henderson), and stressed the presence of a "profound and sizeable Slovak opposition to the culture of Communism" (A. Innes), whilst sociologists and political scientists at home (S. Szomolanyi, 0 . Gyarfasova, Z. Butorova, J. Marusiak) have been more skeptical. From a long-term historical perspective based on inductive reasoning, the context and nuances of Slovakia's post-communist transformation appear significantly different from a micro perspective as applied by the social sciences. This perspective suggests that, to understand the evolution of Slovak society with all its accomplishments and failures, the key is to start from the beginning, not from the end or the middle, and not by theories and generalizations, but with facts, particularly in contested perspectives. Interpretations based on deductive reasoning may result, and they often did, in theories on and explanations of the reasons for the still continuing building of the Slovak political nation and democracy in the country as an "unfinished business," turning it into "the hare versus turtle" race. Such perspectives attribute nationalism in the 1990s exclusively to the Slovaks, while ignoring the fears of Slovak society stemming from its historical experience, linked to the years 1867-1918, 19181919, 1938-1939, 1945-1948 and after. Moreover, such perspectives suffer from inner contradictions. Despite the partly beneficial impact of Czechoslovakia on Slovakia, the latter was in 1993, similar to the years 1918, 1938-1939 as well as during communist Czechoslovakia, socio-economically a less developed part of the common state. 60 Likewise, the Slovak political experience in prewar Czechoslovakia has been seen as weak due to the detrimental impact of a different and underdeveloped political culture inherited by the Slovaks from Hungary, for which two decades of the existence of democratic Czechoslovakia ( 1918-193 8) was too a short period to improve. 61 Consequently, due to the traditional "historic deficits" in the evolution of Slovak society, its civic attitu60 Miroslav Londak, "K niektorym problemom ekonomickeho vyvoja na Slovensku na prahu roka 1968," Historicke studie 44 (2006), p.188. 61 Kopecek, 27-34 and 311. �SLOVAKIA 93 des linked to pluralism during Communism did not develop properly.62 This perspective does seem not to apply to Slovakia's neighbors, the Magyars and the Poles, with their limited experience with parliamentary democracy before and after WW II, which were similar to Spain and Italy in the West. Hungary and Poland apparently redeemed themselves in the eyes of the West by the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the activities of the Solidarity Movement in Poland from 1980 onward. The question, however, is how could those events of undisputed civic bravery substitute for democracy as a system of governance that needs time to develop? By contrast, the longlasting non-compliance of Slovak society with the communist regime, as demonstrated by repeated large-scale participation in religious pilgrimages and demonstrations, has either been downplayed or referred to as having had no impact on politics in communist Czechoslovakia.63 After the 1998 parliamentary elections, Slovak sociologists and leaders of the non-governmental sector helped to create and spread a positive image of Slovak society by contrasting the Meciar era with the progress made in integration with western organizations during the two Dzurinda governments. 64 They suggested that the electoral behavior of voters in rural and economically underdeveloped regions, who voted in favor of the Movement for a Democratic Slo62 Based on a survey conducted in May of 1968, in which 69.5% of the respondents in the Czech Lands as compared with 54.6% in Slovakia supported the existence of more political parties. At the same time, 53 % of Czech participants saw positively the role of civic associations in political life, while in Slovakia it was only 32%. Kopecek, 143. 63 Kopecek stresses the continuity in Czech dissent linked to the reform movement in the I 960s and the role of Charter 77, which was signed by 1800 Czechs in comparison with two dozen Slovaks as the flag bearer of civic resistance against Communism in Czechoslovakia. Kopecek, p.145. Jan Camogursky vigorously opposes the assumption that religious dissent in Slovakia had a limited impact on the regime. According to him, the massive pilgrimages to Velehrad and Levoca helped to soften the harassment of dissenters and citizens by communist authorities. Author interview with Jan Camogursky, Bratislava, May 24, 2007. On a similar stance taken by Abby Innes see her book Czechoslovakia: The Short Goodbye (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001), 36-37. 64 Such delineation is, technically, an anachronism, as the third Meciar government did not oppose integration, particularly into the EU, though it eventually brought Slovakia into international isolation. �94 SLOVAKIA vakia (HZDS) led by Vladimir Meciar and the Slovak National Party (SNS),65 resembled support for the Hlinka Slovak People 's Party (the tudaks) during the wartime Slovak Republic. In contrast to their earlier suggestions, these observers view positively the ability of Magyar communities in Slovakia, which live in rural areas and cast their votes exclusively for the Magyar political parties in each election 66 while referring to it as a "higher form of civic participation and social engagement." 67 Inductive reasoning provides the reader with the opportunity to view Slovakia's post-communist transformation in a complex, evolutionary perspective (see the scheme's Bricolage II): It consists of the following "bricks:" Brick A - "Antecedents" (1848-1918). The traditional view is that during and after the Revolutions of 1848-1849, Slovaks were aware that Magyars were not willing to allow them to exist autonomously and, hence, they started to design their political programs, build institutions, schools, and political parties . Fearing Panslavism, Magyar radicals attempted to Magyarize the nationalities in Hungary, including the Slovaks, with some success (Magyarones). As a consequence, some Slovak, mostly Pro65 The SNS, which, next to the Christian-Democratic Movement (KDH) in the early 1990s and the HZDS in the mid-1 990s was also compared with the HSCS, has always been supportive of the legacy of the Slovak National Uprising in stark contrast to the perspective of the l'udaks and the neo-l'udaks. The same holds for the HZDS. 66 Next to the SMK, a new party to represent both Magyars and Slovaks named the Most-Hid (The Bridge; Slovak and Magyar), was established in July of 2009. Its chairman became Bela Bugar, the former chairman of the SMK, who lost to Pal Csaky in the party elections in April of 2007 . See "Ministerstvo vnutra zaregistrovalo Bugarovu stranu," Pravda, July 3, 2009. ln the 2010 parliamentary elections another new political party, Freedom and Solidarity [SaS] appeared, and supplied ministers to the Radicova government but also caused it to collapse in October of 20 11. Only recently established parties are: Obycajni l'udia - nezavisle osobnosti (Ordinary People - Independent Personalities), Strana slobodne slovo (The Free Word Party), and 99% - Obciansky hlas (99% - A Citizen's Voice). 67 See the article "Mad'ari su aktivnejsi nez Slovaci, tvrdi prieskum," Sme, March 28 2009. The article refers to a survey conducted by the Slovak Academy of Sciences and its interpretation by Zora Butorova from the Institute for Public Affairs (TVO), a non-governmental think-tank. Slovak Magyars defending their rights, while keeping their traditions and the cohesiveness of their society intact, is praised as a positive quality. The same was not applied to the Slovaks in Hungary and in Czechoslovakia when they tried to do the same. �SLOVAKIA 95 testant, intellectuals, opted for cultural, and possibly political, cooperation with the Czechs. A majority of Slovaks, mostly Catholics, still believed that a solution for Slovakia within Hungary could be found. The period from 1890 to 1914, which was traditionally seen as the "dark ages" of Slovak national emancipation, brought about even more resilience against Magyarization. In October of 1918, the Slovaks joined the Czechs in a common state. They rejectted the offer by the Karolyi government for autonomy within Hungary. From November of 1918 onward, a series of military clashes occurred between Magyar and Czechoslovak troops. In June of 1919 the Hungarian Red Army invaded and occupied eastern and southern Slovakia for a short time. Difference (traditional views+-+the article): Slovaks were socially and politically active, not passive in Hungary, even during the time of the harshest Magyarization in 1890-1914, which coincided with the process of the formation of the Slovaks as a political nation. During and after WW I, Slovak leaders abroad and at home decided to join the Czechs in the new state of Czechoslovakia on the assumption they would receive autonomy as promised by the Pittsburgh Agreement of 1918. At the same time, the Slovak population demonstrated its strong dissatisfaction with the Magyar government and supported secession from Hungary by protests in which social and national aspects blended. Brick B - "Betrayals" (1918-1948). In prewar Czechoslovakia, the Slovaks were divided between the autonomists and the "Czechoslovaks." In this clash the CatholicProtestant controversy played an important role. Though the autonomists were seen in the Czech Lands as the destroyers of Czechoslovakia, they did not want to secede because they were afraid of territorial revisionism by the Poles and the Magyars. After Munich, Slovak political parties congregated in Zilina and expressed their support for Slovak autonomy within the rump second Czecho-Slovak Republic. The government of the nominally independent wartime Slovak Republic discriminated against and failed to protect its Jewish and Roma citizens from deportation to death camps. In the administrative and economic spheres, however, the Slovaks demonstrated their capacity to form a state and administer it themselves. Based on this experience, Slovak Communists, who had helped to �96 SLOVAKIA organize the Slovak National Uprising in 1944, expected Slovakia to receive autonomous status within the reconstituted Czechoslovakia. This was rejected by Czech presidents Edvard Benes, Klement Gottwald and Antonin Novotny. Difference: Slovaks were stereotyped in the Czech Lands as traitors since the 1920s. The fact that they did not want to secede from Czechoslovakia and remained in the second Czecho-Slovak Republic for half a year has been frequently overlooked. The socio-economic progress made by the wartime Slovak Republic, in contrast with the disinterest in Slovak affairs by previous centralist Czechoslovak governments, was significant. In May of 1946, the Communists were defeated in parliamentary elections in Slovakia, but not in the Czech Lands. By November of 1947, the Communists gained political control over Slovakia. The three Prague Agreements were viewed by the Slovaks as a betrayal, just as the Czechs viewed the aftermath of the Munich Agreement. Brick C - "Communism" (1948-1989). The idea of Slovak autonomy and economic equalization with the Czechs was adopted by Slovak Communists. The demand for reforming Communism in Slovakia grew with the accession to power in 1963 of the Slovak Alexander Dubcek. The return to national history and the drive for economic reform resulted in the idea of the federalization of Czechoslovakia. This was interpreted by the Czech side as a continuation of Slovak nationalism, because the debate in the Czech Lands was oriented towards political pluralism and economic reform. In 1969 came the removal of Dubcek, who was caught between the need for reform at home and the mistrust in him by political leaders of other communist countries. He was replaced by Gustav Husak, another Slovak, who embodied 'normalization.' Whereas Czechs intellectuals voiced their dissatisfaction with the Husak regime, Slovaks, allegedly, were compliant with it. Difference: Slovaks were no less active than the Czechs in initiating the reform movement in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s; in fact, they had helped to start it. Economic reform as a continuation of equalization stood in the forefront of the efforts of Slovak communist political leaders as well as economists. Federalization was important in regard to both political and economic competencies, whilst it was viewed by Czech society as another from of archetypal natio- �SLOVAKIA 97 nal reassertion of the Slovaks resembling the 19th century. Slovak society lived in a paradoxical situation: next to the material benefits received during 'normalization,' the traditionally religious Slovaks reacted to ideological indoctrination by massive participation in religious pilgrimages. In addition to the religious dissenters, who were active already in the 1970s, environmentalists began to play an important role in the early 1980s in making also the secular part of Slovak society aware of the risks stemming from insensitive industrialization. In 1989, Slovak society as a whole, and on its own initiative, rejected the communist regime by massive demonstrations against it. Brick D - "Division" (1993-1997). The "Velvet Revolution," similar to the "Prague Spring," indicated, how the fall of Communism in Czechoslovakia was perceived internationally. From the beginning, there was mistrust between the newly-emerging Slovak and Czech political elites. Each had its own symbol: they were Alexander Dubcek in Slovakia and Vaclav Havel in the Czech Lands . Since the former accepted the rather symbolic post of Speaker of the Federal Assembly in Prague, new political leaders emerged instantly in Slovakia, first and foremost Vladimir Meciar. In contrast to its federal partner, Slovakia had two more tasks: 1) to gain international recognition and 2) to deal with the status of the Magyar minority. Fighting on three fronts (the third were federal competences) simultaneously, Slovak politicians were divided. Eventually, it was the HZDS, led by Meciar, which prevailed. Contrary to its portrayal as anti-federalist and nationalist, the HZDS and its leader still aspired for a looser federation with the Czechs. This was unacceptable to the "technocrats," represented by Vaclav Klaus and Czech nationalists such as Miroslav Macek (both Civic Democratic Party; ODS) and Jan Kalvoda (Civic Democratic alliance; ODA). As a result, Slovak and Czech political leaders opted for the dissolution of Czechoslovakia as of December 31, 1992. Difference: In contrast to the traditional perspectives that interpret renewed Slovak efforts for building an "authentic federation" in the early 1990s at the expense of the Czechs, it is suggested that Slovaks wanted more powers in order to avoid the continuation of debates of constitutional discrepancies and socio-economic disparities that had started in the 1930s, continued in 1960s, and resurfaced at �98 SLOVAKIA the end of the communist regime in the late 1980s. Since the Czechs had controlled Czechoslovakia for decades, regardless of its constitutional form , they interpreted their own nationalism as "civicness," in contrast to the allegedly old-fashioned ethnic Slovak nationalism. Brick E - "Europe" ("The Awakening" and the "Change," 19982004). Since Slovaks were seen as passive in communist Czechoslovakia and their religious dissent was allegedly insignificant in terms of challenging the communist regime, new institutions and political parties had to emerge in the early 1990s. During the period 19901992, Slovaks allegedly once again focused on federal and national competencies, instead of building democracy and a market economy, which were Czech priorities. According to some sociologists, Slovakia missed the chance to experience its own Velvet Revolution. After the creation of independent Slovakia, the state had to re-build its structures and to strive for international recognition. It inherited a sensitive problem with the Magyar minority, which resulted in tensions regarding the use of the official and Magyar languages on territories with a mixed population. In the spring of 1994, pro-democratic and pro-western forces ousted Vladimir Meciar from office, yet the six following months was too a short a time for catching up with the rest of reforming post-communist countries, particularly Poland, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Hungary. In the parliamentary elections in the fall of 1994, Vladimir Meciar returned to power. Allied with the nationalists and the radical left, he imposed a harsh rule over the National Council, the opposition and the media. As a result of the mysterious abduction of the son of President Michal Kovac, who dared to defy the government and Meciar himself, Slovakia began to lag behind in the European integration processes. In the 1998 parliamentary elections, the opposition political parties supported, though indirectly, by non-governmental organizations and awakened Slovak society, defeated the government that torpedoed its own formally proclaimed integrationist goals. The two subsequent governments, led by Mikulas Dzurinda, succeeded in transforming the country's negative international image and attracting foreign investments. Being politically stable, the country became a member of both NATO and the EU in 2004. �SLOVAKIA 99 Difference: When attempts to reach an agreement with the Czechs on an authentic federation failed, Slovaks received, somehow unexpectedly, their own state in a way resembling March of 1939. The accusations against Meciar as an authoritarian leader collided with divergent views on how national property should be privatized. After Meciar' s return to power in the fall of 1994, Slovakia continued in its efforts to join the European Union and NATO. It failed to become a member of the OECD due to the government's unwillingness to privatize strategic branches of the Slovak economy. Despite diplomatic and political warnings regarding the infamous causes of Michal Kovac, the denial of his parliamentary seat to Frantisek Gaulieder and the assassination of Robert Remias, who had information regarding the Kovac kidnapping, negotiations with the EU and NA TO continued. The "change" in 1998 brought about an influx of former representatives of the non-governmental sector into the various ministries, while many of those who remained loyal to their original mission of being the watchdogs over a young democracy were disillusioned. The fragmentation of old political parties and the emergence of new ones in the late l 990s and the early 2000s were complemented by scandals stemming from corruption. In contrast with the third Meciar government, where there were two camps clearly separated one from another, the situation in the first and second Dzurinda governments resembled wars of all against all. The only factor that kept the coalition together was fear of Meciar. Slovak society, which was tired of the endless chain of political conflicts and scandals, with what was left of its enthusiasm and energy, helped to complete the country's integration into the EU. As a part of the community of European nations, Slovaks have not only the right, but also the duty to expect that their ability to comply with the criteria for membership should be equaled by the ability of the Union to provide fair and indiscriminate treatment, free from paternalistic approaches. This will help the Slovaks to grow and appear as a modem and self-confident nation, visible and judged according to their efforts and accomplishments. Speculations on Slovakia's cultural and civilizational proximity with either the East or the West, which bothered so many domestic and foreign politicians and intellectuals in the mid-1990s, are secondary. Of primary importance is the ability of Slovak society to maintain and strengthen its internal integration and to continue to proceed in its mental trans- �100 SLOVAKIA formation . This requires the capacity and willingness of Slovak society to reproduce itself on the basis of its historical traditions, while embracing democratic values, as well as a pluralist and consensual system of governance and politics. At the same time, the membership of Slovakia and other Central Eastern European post-communist states in the European Union provides it with an opportunity to learn from the collapse of the former Communist Bloc by evolving into a community of truly equal members. Slovakia's Postcommunist Transformation from an Historical Perspective Scheme Seeming +- As ---+ Being t Method : Deductive Begins in the present Method: Inductive Begins in the past t t Perspective: Political Science Perspective: History and PSCI t t Objective: Explaining the present by interpreting the Objective: Understanding the present by interpreting the past by reconstructing the past t Depth of historical background: Medium t Retrograde horizon: Medium t Depth of historical background: High t Retrograde horizon : Distant yet connectable With the present t t Connectivity present---+past: Retrospective Connectivity past---+present: Chronological �SLOVAKIA t t Causality: Fragmented Bricolage I 101 Causality: Complex Divergence Brick A: Result Delayed Slovak postCommunist transfor- - low mation and integration with EU and NA TO Bricolage II Brick "Europe" Slovakia's integration delayed but completed on institutional level, continues on societal level t i Brick B: Sub-condition Breakup of Czechoslovakia Reason: prevalence of - high archetypical Slovak nationalism over the solution of practical problems Brick "Division" Split with the Czechs over disparities and competences, not national identity t i Brick C: Prerequisite 1 High degree of Slovak compliance with - high communist regime. Societal life completely Hibernated Brick "Communism" Slovaks partly compliant with communist regime; Refuse interference in religious matters, form environmental movement t i Brick D : Prerequisite 2 Brick "Betrayals" Week economic base -medium- Wartime Slovak Republic Inherited from Hungary; created out of necessity, Legacy of wartime Slovak economically viable. SloRepublic as a totalitarian vak autonomy rejected in State postwar Czechoslovakia t Brick E: Historical residua Slovaks politically passive; Their extinction as a nation Imminent, if not saved By Czechs -medium/high- i Brick"Antecedents" Slovaks resilient and socially active in A-H; opt for Czechoslovakia instead of Hungary � SLOVAKIA 73 SEEMING AND BEING: CONTEXTUALIZING THE HISTORY OF POST - COMMUNIST SLOVAKIA Juraj Hocman The year 1989 marked the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia and the beginning of Slovakia's road to independence. For the Slovaks this year also revealed the gap between their perception of national history and how it was viewed from the outside. In the 1990s, a new generation of western scholars contrasted the post-communist change of Czechoslovakia' s two nations. In their studies of modem Slovak society they rarely went beyond 1918. They relied very much on general accounts and traditional dichotomies between the Czechs and Slovaks, such as 'industrial' versus 'rural,' 'secular' versus 'religious,' ' progressive' versus 'backward.' 1 This was why in the 1990s the Slovaks continued to be seen as a "non-historic" nation hastily modernized during the communist era. Since it was mostly invisible in Austria-Hungary and Czechoslovakia, Slovak history automatically appeared as ruptured and fragmented. Following the downfall of the communist regime and the creation of the independent Slovak Republic in January of 1993, the country's image was primarily associated with radical nationalism, intolerance towards its minorities and an unstable domestic political scene. All of these seemed to have been sufficient to explain Slovakia' s failure to achieve a functioning democracy in the mid-1990s. In the early 2000s, a secondwave of scholarly interest in Slovakia began. Attracted by the country' s economic progress and an overall social and political stability, western scholars turned their attention to what had seemed in the 1990s as a satisfactory explanation for the peculiarities of Slovakia's evolution as a post-communist state. Some of them came to the conclusion that the existing stereotypes stemmed from preconceived methodological approaches, even unfamiliarity with the facts .2 The1 Abby Innes, Czechoslovakia: The Short Goodbye (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001 ), ix-xi. 2 Karen Henderson, "Evaluating the Slovak Transition : What Creates the Image of Slovakia?" In Slovakia after Communism and Meciarism, ed. Kieran Williams (London: School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies, 2000), 26. �74 SLOVAKIA refore, a better understanding of what was happening in the country since its creation requires a broader historical approach. 1. Seeming and Being in the History of East and West. The self-challenging motto of the Andrassy family of Hungarian nobles, Non videri, sed esse (Not Seeming but Being), which inspired medieval and early modern societies, stands in direct opposition to modem approaches to social reality that tend to place image over substance.3 In this regard small nations are at greater risk of being overlooked, even misjudged by bigger nations. 4 While it is hardly imaginable that the views of a Slovak or a Czech scholar on the history of Great Britain, the United States or Canada would have the same resonance and impact on the international image of those countries, western scholars have scrutinized the history of Czechoslovakia and its two nations with significant consequences.5 This could happen since the capacity of Slovak historians to conduct independent research and publish the results during the communist era was subject to ideological indoctrination and political constraints. Moreover, Slovak historians, in contrast to their Czech colleagues, until recently did not work systematically on a conceptualization of Slovak history and the minimalization of its invisibility. Such a course would have helped to "sell" their cause abroad - the legitimacy and viability of the existence of Slovakia as a sovereign state - long after its creation. In the 1990s this gap was filled by foreign scholars and the media in a way that simplified and, in some cases, distorted the mostly unknown Slovak history waiting for its reinterpretation at home and rediscovery abroad. The Slovaks were depicted, in terms of their 3 Eva Smelkova and Julius Barczi, "Andrassyovci a Rozi\ava," Forum Historiae 2/2008, p.5. Accessed at www.forumhistoriae.sk/FH 2/smelkova. df 4 See the interview with the Norwegian publicist and writer Egil Lejon "Slovensko prikladom" on the parallels between the historical evolution of the Slovaks and the small Scandinavian nations in the 19th century. Literarny tyidennik, August 12, 1994, pp. I and 11. 5 Even large states are vulnerable to intrusions into their national histories that contradict domestic interpretations. See the internet article "Russia Will Never Let Anyone Falsify [the] History of [the] Second World War" which refers to the image of the soldiers of the Red Army in WW II as looters and rapists . Russia has created a special committee to counteract the "attempts at distorting history to the detriment of Russi a's interest. " Pravda (Moscow). Accessed at www.pravda.ru, May 20, 2009 . �SLOVAKIA 75 missing statehood, as a non-historic nation, which, after the creation of the Slovak Republic in 1993, cured its historical complexes and democratic deficiencies at the expense of their advanced neighbors with whom they shared a common history - the Czechs and the Magyars. 6 To that, some Slovak scholars and politicians reacted with fervor instead of providing a systemic and efficient alternative.7 Consequently, they created solitary and isolated interprettations of Slovak history that clashed with stereotypes and automatically brought about the risk of being viewed either as hard-core nationalists or revisionists.8 In the early 2000s, western scholars such as Karen Henderson, Abby Innes, Cas Mudde and others expressed their doubts concerning cliches linked to Slovak history. The progress in the rediscovery of Slovak history in the West since the beginning of the 2000s cannot be overlooked as the new generation of scholars did their fieldwork in the Slovak Republic and critically examined the earlier interpretations of Slovak history emerging in the 1990s. 9 Although the trend of foreign and Slovak historians coming closer in their interpretations is growing, a lot of work remains to be done by both sides.10 6 George Schopflin, Nations, Identity, Power (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 280-297 ("The Slovak case study"). 7 Looking for internationally-known personalities with Slovak origins at any cost to improve the image of Slovakia could result in quite opposite effects. See Greg Steinmetz's article, "Slovaks desperately searching for famous countrymen," The Globe and Mail, April 27, 1996. Similarly, the publishing of another variant of the multi-volume "History of Slovakia" in the Slovak language with short resumes in German, English, French and Russian, and picture books with descriptive texts designed for common readers are hardly ways to provide a conceptual and critical synthesis of Slovak history known and accepted internationally. 8 Franti~ek Vnuk, Milan Durica and other historians grouped around the Matica slovens/ca. 9 Next to Karen Henderson and Abby Innes, the best examples are the recent works by Tim Haughton and John A. Scherpereel cited in this article. The British scholar George Schopflin sees a great challenge for historians of East Central Europe to become familiar with the Anglo-Saxon, German, French, Russian, and Italian scholarly literature. For consequences regarding Slovak history see George Schopflin, "Vytvaranie eur6pskej kulturnej identity? Stredna Europa v rozfaenej Eur6pskej unii," Listy SFPA, March-April 2003 , pp.2-3. 10 " .. . it is hardly surprising that any effort to straighten the Slovak spine is seen as nationalism, the equivalent of n[N]azism, fascism and the oppression of minorities. It may be hard to believe but the greatest enemies of Slovakia are Slovaks themselves. On several occasions, I have had an opportunity to witness the way in which Slovak historians have given lectures on Slovakia to foreign audiences. Nearly all of �76 SLOVAKIA Furthermore, in the modem era the role of the media in building popular perceptions on the basis of simplified interpretations of historical developments has been increasing. A reasonable objection can be made as to why a scholarly study should be bothered by what the media say. In short, the media can popularize history more effectively than scholars who create their interpretations only after years of studying a particular problem. Thus, in creating a public image, it is the media which paints the larger picture, not scholars. 11 Paraphrasing Clausewitz, the media may be seen as the continuation of historiography and social science by other means. 12 This was evident in the case of Slovakia's image as hyper-nationalist in the early 1990s and during the country's quasi-miraculous instant awakening in 1998. Views by the media helped to reduce this phase in modem Slovak history to the Manichean conflict between 'evil' and 'good' politicians, and, implicitly, between the 'progressive' and 'backward' electorates and segments of Slovak society. 13 them have had one thing in common: they present the Slovaks as a nation without a history, without culture and traditions - and surprise - as the oppressor of minorities. Nor do they neglect to mention Slovakia's facist and Nazi past. Their spiritual kin in the West have gone so far in their blind, ignorant hatred as to blame the Slovaks for the hanging of Communists and Jews in Kosice in January of 1945. According to one German commentator, the massacres in Kosice were ' one of the last abominations of the fascist Slovak state and ally of Adolf Hitler. ' The fact that Kosice belonged to Hungary at that time and that this sad, vile act was committed by the Hungarian fascists "Wild Rose Crosses," is apparently of interest to no one, the least to our own historians." Darina Vergesova, "Dajte Duricovi pokoj," Kritika & Kon text, nos. 2-3 ( 1997), pp.59-60. 11 "A separate chapter in our [Slovak] media is that of the methodical loss of national memory," Pavo! Dinka, S/ovenske media: Met6dy manipulacie (Bratislava: PPA, 2008), 21. Due to its image inherited from the 1990s, Slovakia was depicted in three films - "Hostel" (2004), "Eurotrip" (2004) and "Hostel 2" (2007) - as a nest of danf:erous and perverted criminals and mafia. For details see www.imdb.com 2 On the shift of the media in the time of globalization from being the Fourth Power (provider of information) to the Fifth Power (manipulator of information) see the article by Ignacio Ramonet, "Le cinquieme pouvoir," Le Monde Diplomatique, Apri l-Mai (2005), pp.74-78 "Dans la nouvelle guerre ideologique qu 'impose la mondialisation, !es medias sont utilisees comme une arme de combat. L' information, en raison de son explosion, de sa multiplication, de sa surabondance, de ses partis pris, se trouve litteralement contaminee, empoisonnee par toute sorte des mensonges, pollue par !es rumeurs, !es distorsions, !es manipulations." Ibid., p.77. 13 Lubomir Kopecek, Demokracie, diktatury a politicke stranictvi na Slovensku (Brno: CDK, 2006), p.308. A survey conducted in Slovakia in the mid- l 990s focused on the degree of tolerance towards minorities, disrespect for the law by politi- �SLOVAKIA 77 Next to the risk of perspectives based on simplified portrayals of reality stands the problem of divergent approaches towards the same phenomena in the history of the East and West. The classic saying goes "if disease is beautiful, it is generally someone else's disease." 14 Apart from its complimentary aspect, Chesterton's aphorism can be applied to nationalism and its negative characteristics associated primarily with the East. In the 1990s, the resurrected nationalism of East Central Europe gained a negative image linked to the ethnocentric nationalism of the 19th century. This resulted in the categorization of post-communist states into progressive ones and those which lagged behind. It is true that the downfall of Communism and the subsequent disintegration of the Communist Bloc resulted in an explosion of ethnic tensions. When examining the roots of nationalism and its capacity for political and social mobilezation, it should become clear that the same primordial instincts attributed to the East had existed among western literati in the 19th century. In multiethnic Britain the same elements of linguistic and ethnic tensions shaped by romantic nationalism can be found in historical novels designed with the same purpose as those by writers in East Central Europe. 15 The similarities between the nation-building processes in W estem and East Central Europe can particularly be observed in the creation of multi-ethnic Great Britain as a political nation during the period 1707-1837, where the impact of external threats helped her to overcome the historical centripetal tendencies based on ethnic diversity. 16 What worked in Great Britain did not work in Austria- cians, positive opinions on the communist regime before its fall and engagement in civic association activities. 14 Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Orthodoxy (London: The Bodley Head, 1949), p.12. 15 On the Norman-Saxon ethno-linguistic division and societal hierarchy in medieval England see Sir Walter Scott's historical novel Ivanhoe (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998). 16 Linda Colley, Britons: Forg ing the Nation 1707-/837 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992). For the major argument of the book see the introduction, pp.1-9. See also the comparison of the Magyars with the English "who have violently Anglicized ten millions of Irishmen and Scottsmen" made by a Magyar Deputy in the Hungarian Diet in 1879 in justification of the forced Magyarization . R.W. Seton-Watson, Racial Problems in Hungary (London: Archibald Constable, 1908; reprinted in New York by Howard Fertig, 1972), 217 . There is a significant difference. Whereas Great Britain made, at least formally, its Compromise in 1707, the radical part of Magyar political elites failed to do it until it was too late. �78 SLOVAKIA Hungary from 1848 to 1918 and in Czechoslovakia, where centripetal tendencies eventually prevailed. Recalling the indication by Cas Mudde of double standards in explaining ' bad' and 'good' nationalism in Slovakia during the period 1989-1992, 17 nationalism, in general, appeared as progressive when it had helped to create nation-states in the West from the 16th to the 19th centuries, whereas it became perverted in state-building processes in post-communist Eastern Europe in the 1990s. 18 Though the concerns of multi-ethnic states about the possible consequences of various forms of nationalism, past and future, to which modem historiography and political science have legitimately pointed, are understandable, the common roots of nationalism should not be forgotten. This will help us to avoid the traps of nationalism's general recrimination in post-communist East Central Europe, including Slovakia, regardless of the context within which it emerged and had been shaped. 19 In addition to the perception of the Slovaks as intolerant nationalists, the image of the country has been that of a non-historic nation due to the viewing of unexplored parts of Slovak history as myths. Robert Pynsent suggests that a myth can appear either as a "normal neutral narrative of concem," 20 or it can be a "bridge too far" in re17 Cas Mudde, "Civil society in post-communist Europe: Lessons from the ' dark side,"' In Uncivil society? Contentious politics in post-communist Europe, eds. Petr Kopecky and Cas Mudde (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 161. 18 For the opposite view see Egil Lejon who sees the creation of the Slovak Republic in 1993 as a result of Slovak historical traditions and an emancipation movement which accelerated in 1848 and later. Interview with Egil Lejon "Slovensko prikladom," Literarny tyzdennik, August 12, 1994, p.11. Lejon suggests that the Slovaks are not nationalistic enough in terms of what modem nationalism requires: cultural self-confidence, national pride, and loyalty. 19 See Kedourie on the selective use of the antonyms 'progressive ' - ' regressive ' in regard to nationalism in the Marxist interpretation of history ('progressive' during the advent of capitalism replacing fe udalism, ' progressive' in the fight of colonial and post-colonial nations against imperialism, and ' regressive' within capitalism resisting socialism). Elie Kedourie, Nationalism (London: Hutchinson & Co Ltd., 1966), 90-91. Applying Mudde 's observation, the 'bad ' case of nationalism in the early 1990s was the split of Czechoslovakia, whereas the 'good' cases were the dismemberments of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. In contrast to the two latter, Slovak nationalism did not involve violence. 20 Robert Pynsent, Questions of Identity: Czech and Slovak Ideas of Nationality and Personality (Budapest-London-New York: Central European University Press, 1994), 87. �SLOVAKIA 79 gard to its practical implications in nation and state-building processes in Slovak history as implicated by G. Eyal, S.J. Cohen and T. Haughton. 2 1 While applying the first flexible definition, it may be postulated that myths are constantly emerging. An effective way to understand the essence of a myth in terms of its value as a possible source of historical facts is to compare both of its forms. The official mythology of the European Union is that it was born out of a sudden inspiration that had fallen upon Jean Monnet - a Romulus to the European Community - during his trip to the Alps. The idea was apparently instrumental in reconciling France and Germany during the meeting of Robert Schumann and Konrad Adenauer in May of 1950, which gave birth to the European Coal and Steel Community. 22 Others see this process in an all-European myth-deconstructing perspective as the outcome of the decisive involvement of the United States, tired of the French-German reluctance to reach an agreement. 23 Concurrently, some scholars have viewed the creation of the European Union in the early 1990s as the culmination of the tireless work of lobbyists, who had effectively executed the wishes of great corporations to create a common market which was about to grant the architects of the EU even greater eco- 21 See Gil Eyal, The Origins of Post-Communist Elites: from the Prague Spring to the Breakup of Czechoslovakia (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), 131 , and Tim Haughton, Constraints and Opportunities of Leadership in Post-Communist Europe (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 4-5. This is also the leitmotif of Shari J. Cohen's book Politics Without A Past: The Absence Of History In Postcommunist Nationalism (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1999). 22 "Chaque annee, si je le peux, je vais faire de grandes courses dans les Alpes .. .J'y retrouve l'expression de l'inquietude qui opressait l'Europe cinq ans apres la guerre: une autre guerre est proche devant nous si nous ne faisons rien. L' Allemagne n' en sera pas la cause, mais elle en sera l'enjeu. II faut qu'elle cesse d'etre un enjeu, qu 'elle devienne au contraire un lien. Seule la France peut actuellement prendre une initiative." Jean Monnet, Memoires (Paris: Fayard, 1997), 342. 23 John Gillingham, Coal, Steel and the Rebirth of Europe, 1945-1955: The Germans and French from Ruhr Conflict to Economic Community (Cambridge University Press, 1991 ). Particularly explicative is the role of the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany John McCloy in bringing the French and Germans together to the signing of the Treaty of Paris (April 18, 1951 ), which instituted the European Coal and Steel Community. Gillingham stressed the fact that McCloy "summoned" the German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer to his office for a "dressing down" for his unwillingness to sign the document. Ibid, 280. �80 SLOVAKIA nomic profits. 24 A different group of authors opposed such ignoble motives with their hagiographic vision of the institutional emergence of the European Community and the later European Union as the outcome of exceptional negotiating and diplomatic skills of supranational executives who were serving the citizens of Europe.25 It is clear that each perspective has its merits and this adds to the perplexing complexity of the issue and resulting interpretations. This variety of opinions points to the core of the problem linked to the non-historicity of Slovaks and their questionable ability to cope with more recent problems in the transformation of their society. The skeptically insinuated ' mythical' legacy of 9th century Great Moravia and the invisible link from it to modem Slovak politics, apart from its distance from the present, which partially legitimizes its appearance as a myth, disregards the simple fact that to the Slovaks it was a lighthouse, not a matrix blindly to follow in the creation of a sovereign modem Slovakia. There is no difference in this regard between small and big nations who honor their historical traditions that often blend with myths. Most importantly, it is not Great Moravia itself, but the connection between it and the 19th and 20th centuries that matters in the discourse on the historicity of Slovaks. This link was hardly reflected, let alone examined, by western scholars in the 1990s in contrast to their predecessors - the historians R.W. Seton-Watson, Robert A. Kann, Oscar Halecki, and C.A. Macartney.26 After the extinction of the Arpad dynasty (1301 ), which had represented the ethnic Magyars, the foreign rulers of the Kingdom of 24 Belen Balanya, Ann Doherty, Olivier Hoedeman, Adam Ma' anit and Erik Wesselius, Europe Inc.: Regional and Global Restructuring and the Rise of Corporate Power (London-Sterling, Virginia: Pluto Press, 2000). The authors stress their perception of the creation of the European Union as the result of a plan made by the European Roundtable of Industrialists (ERT) composed of 45 captains of the largest European transnational corporations. See Preface of the book, xi-xv. 25 Ken Endo, The Presidency of the Europ ean Commission under Jacques De/ors. The Politics of Shared Leadership (London : Macmillan, 1999). Helen Drake, Jacques De/ors. Perspectives on a European Leader (London-New York: Routledge, 2000). 26 For an attempt to see Slovak history in historical continuity by a foreign scholar see the chapter by the Austrian historian Arnold Suppan, "Die Slowakei zwischen Grossmahrischen Reich und Europaischer Union: Kontinuitaten und Diskontinui taten," in Plus Ultra. Die Welt Der Neuzeit. Festschrift far Alfred Kohler zum 65. Geburtstag, eds. F. Edelmayer, M. Fuchs, G. Heilingsetler, P. Rauscher (Munster: Aschendorf, 2008), 331-68. �SLOVAKIA 81 Hungary - the Anjous, the Luxembourgs, the Jagiellons, the Hahsburgs - were wisely and clairvoyantly tolerant towards the ethnic groups of Hungary as the state otherwise would have not survived for the next seven centuries.27 Once the glory of the Kingdom of Hungary and the privileges of a political nation were attributed to one nationality (the Magyars) in the 18th and 19th centuries, there was no choice for others, who felt degraded to second-class citizens, than to nourish and strengthen their own identities - linguistic, cultural, social, and political. Paradoxically, a tendency to be suspicious of the interpretations of Slovak history as an indivisible part of the history of the Kingdom of Hungary still prevails. Until a shift in this perception happens, Slovaks may be further viewed as a non-historic entity despite empirical and heuristic evidence that testifies to their genuine participation in the societal and institutional life of the kingdom they shared with others in times when language and ethnicity meant less than social status and class affiliation. 28 The myth versus 'myth' ambiguity in the interpretations of the history of East and West testifies to the existence of a wide range of applicable perspectives and alternative interpretations. A better awareness of this ambiguity, which exists in both East and West, may help us to also understand the reasons for the ruptures in Slovak history, fractured into its being and seeming. The most visible anoma- 27 Disregarding the multi-ethnic aspects and dynastic ruptures in the medieval and modern history of Hungary would be the same as excluding the early Plantagenets from the history of England due to their appearance as non-Anglo-Saxon, FrancoNorman, elements. The history of England would have to begin anew with the Tudors . The rupture progressive versus regressive (see Kedourie) in the history of the United States is observable in the interpretations of the reasons for the Civil War and its aftermath. A similar rupture (totalitarian+-+democratic) exists in the history of Germany before it became a democratic state. 28 "The Slovaks on their side lost their national existence [after the defeat of Great Moravia] in that of their Asiatic conquerors, entered into their ranks as soldiers, and participated thence-forward in all their fortunes .. .Their language however is the only remnant of their national existence which the Slovaks have preserved; in every other respect they belong to the Hungarian nation, of which they form an ingredient part, as the Magyars form another; and on the glory of whose valiant deeds they have an equal claim." Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson, Historical View of the Language and Literature of the Slavic Nation (New York: BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2006) (Reprint of the original version published by George P. Putnam in New York in 1851), 186-7. �82 SLOVAKIA lies of this split consequently appeared either as 'betrayals' or 'awakenings.' 2. Seeming and Being in Slovak History as a Part of the History of Czechoslovakia and Hungary. In 1991 Slovak historian Anton Hmko pointed out that the book by Slovak politician Ivan Derer on the rulings of the National Court in the First Czechoslovak Republic,29 written from the perspective of an ardent unitarist and "Czechoslovak," was conveniently accepted by Marxist historiography. The reason was obvious as the adversary was the same - the Slovak autonomist movement and the legacy of the wartime Slovak Republic (1939-1945). Having provided statistical data on the topics of the studies published by Slovak historians, Hrnko argued that the history of interwar Czechoslovakia ( 19181938) belonged to one of its most ideologically distorted segments. 30 This vacuum was filled by the works of court historians who helped to create myths as the politically and ideologically "subjective projection of desirable horizons." 31 If a 'myth' could emerge relatively recently with plenty of primary documents, one can ask the question - are there more of them? To respond to it at least in part, it is necessary to return to the early 1990s, when ideological constraints were removed from scholarship and academia and the attention of scholars and media turned towards nationalism. Miroslav Hroch's classification of nationalities in East Central Europe on their advancement in the national reawakening, which was published in the year when Czechoslovakia broke up, put the Slovaks a step behind the Czechs and the Magyars, without providing details, except for a very general reference. 32 This article suggests that, until the revolution of 1848, Slovaks did not lag behind 29 Ivan Derer, Slovensky vyvin a l'udacka zrada (Praha: Kvasnicka a Hamp!, I 946). Anton Hmko, "Zatemnene dejiny: Obraz medzivojnovej slovenskej spolocnosti v fracach slovenskych historikov," Literarny tyidennik, June 28, 1991 , p.10. 1 Marianna Oravcova, "The Ethnic and Cultural Dimension of National Emancipation: The Evocation of the Slovak Nation," in Language, Values and the Slovak Nation, eds. Tibor Pichler and Jana Gasparikova (Washington: Paideia Press, 1994), 11 . In the last sentence Oravcova refers to the article by Pavo! Horvath, "K niektorym otazkam historickych tradicii na Slovensku," Slovensky narodopis 1-2 (1986), 60-65 . 32 Miloslav Hroch, "From National Movement to the Fully-Formed Nation: The Nation-Building Process in Europe," New Left Review, 1/198 (March-April 1993), 64. 30 �SLOVAKIA 83 the Czechs in terms of the press, programs, the creation of a literary language and the petition movements. Hroch was more accurate when pointing to the forced Magyarization that started after 1867 as a major hindrance to Slovak national progress, including its social and economic aspects. Yet even that historical period has to be reexamined as it had not been a time of complete silence, although it would be convenient to see it in that way. Communist historiography in the 1950s gladly embraced the earlier idea that Slovaks had been saved by the Czechs from extinction as a nation, a concept which slipped into western scholarship. This hypothesis was based on censuses which showed the decreasing number of Slovak intelligentsia and schools as the 19th century progressed. These scholars concluded that the Slovaks would have been assimilated by the Magyars in one or two generations. 33 There had previously been two generations of Slovaks living under Magyarization from 1875 to 1914, yet the Slovak press, though under censorship and constant pressure, was full of political articles and calls for national, social and cultural progress. 34 Magyar elites knew very well that Slovak identity did not depend solely on schooling in their native language, but also on the family environment. Therefore, they forcibly took Slovak children from poor families and transported them to regions where Magyar was spoken. 35 The unrest in Turiec and Zvolen County in Central Slovakia that led to attacks on local Magyar authorities was a mixture of social and national elements. They testified to the continuing, even increasing Slovak resilience against Magyarization as observed by R. W. Seton-Watson. 36 Final33 For an argument against the traditional view that the Slovaks could not create their intelligentsia because of harsh Magyarization see Dusan Kovac, Roman Holec, Elena Jakesova, Elena Mannova, Milan Podrimavsky, Na zaciatku storocia, 19011914 (Bratislava: Veda, 2004), 44. 34 Milan Krajcovic, "Slovaci v emancipacnom pohybe nemad'arskych narodov," in Slovensko na zaciatku storocia: Spolocnost'. stat a narod v suradniciach doby, eds. Milan Podrimavsky and Dusan Kovac (Bratislava: Hu SA V, 1999), 48-65 . 35 "By the Law of 1891 , the State has deliberately assumed the attitude of the Sultans in earlier centuries. Just as the Christian rayah was regarded as a breedingmachine to supply janissaries, so to-day non-Magyars of Hungary are breedingmachines whose children must be taught Magyar from the earliest age in the hope that they may become renegades to the traditions of their ancestors." R.W. SetonWatson, Racial Problems in Hungary , 222. 36 Ibid., 394. Seton-Watson stressed that 92 .5% of the Liptov county inhabitants were Slovaks and 90.6% understood no Magyar. Ibid. , 332. �84 SLOVAKIA ly, in 1918, it was the masses of peasants and lower strata of Slovak society that had preserved, as lsmo Nurmi suggested, a high degree of self-consciousness. 37 They were instrumental in embracing the idea of their future coexistence with the Czechs under the provisions of the Pittsburgh Agreement, but under no circumstances with the Magyars. Without this support the few intellectuals at home and abroad could hardly have reached their political goals in October and November of 1918 when the Czechoslovak Republic was born. It is equally true that significant numbers of Slovak Magyarones gave up their ethnicity for the sake of their careers while following the example of the Slovak nobility and gentry which were "easily and gladly" Magyarized in the 19th century. 38 Still, it is hard to believe that three million Slovaks at home and abroad, with the most resistant of them in North America, would have been completely Magyarzsed even if Hungary had been preserved in its prewar boundaries . A possible analogy with the Irish resistance, underscored by the role played in national emancipation by leaders such as Milan R. Stefanik and Stefan Osusky, who left Hungary and vehemently fought for the Slovak cause abroad, comes to mind. Their work, done at the highest political and diplomatic levels, was supplemented by dozens of zealous Slovak national activists in the United States. 39 37 Ismo Nurmi, Slovakia - A Playground for Nationalism and National Identity, 1918-1920: Manifestations of the National identity of Slovaks (Helsinki : Suomen Historiallinen Seura, 1999), 45. 38 C.A . Macartney, Hungary and Her Successors. The Treaty of Trianon and its Consequences 1919-1937 (London : Oxford University Press, 1937), 91. 39 The Slovak press in North America - 30 newspapers with a circulation of 150,000 in 1914 - was such a force that the Hungarian government as early as in 1890 had banned the imports of some of them and began subsidi zing pro-Hungarian publications in the United States. M. Mark Stolarik, "The Slovak-American Press," in Sally M. Miller ed. , The Ethnic Press in the United States: A Historical Analysis and Handbook (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987), 365. Count Albert Apponyi, one of the main protagonists of Magyarization and a representative of the Hungarian government on his visit to the United States attempted to present Hungary as a ftee and democratic country. He was denounced as a tyrant and pressed by a huge mob comprising members of "Slavic nationalities and Hungarian socialists" during his lectures. In Chicago, Apponyi escaped the fury of the mob and fled to his car only with the protection provided by the police. See The New York Times, February 25, 1911 , p. 3. For the Slovak resistence against the territorial aspirations of fascist Hungary see the boastful statement by Gustav Husak on February 28, 1945: "I openly declare that Slovakia' s frontiers [with Hungary] as they had existed in the [prewar] Czechoslovak Republic are stable. Slovakia is united and non-divisible. Any �SLOVAKIA 85 After World War II, Konstantin Culen, a Slovak publicist in exile, suggested that living with the Czechs was for the Slovaks a rather negative experience. 4°Culen's arguments were based on the constant rejection of Slovak autonomy in Czechoslovakia by President Edvard Benes, who had never shown any particular affection for the Slovaks, and the post-war execution of Msgr. Jozef Tiso, President of the wartime Slovak Republic. With the situation of the Slovaks in southern Slovakia ceded to Hungary by the Vienna Award of November 1938 in mind, it is legitimate to assume that cohabitation with the Czechs, though far from being idyllic, included fewer risks for the completion of Slovak national emancipation than their hypothetical existence in Hungary after WW I. Furthermore, the Czechs in 1918 were already significantly ahead of the Slovaks as far as societal cohesion and socio-economic progress of their societies were concerned. The animosity started with the Czech disrespect toward the Catholic Church and with their disregard for the continuing socio-economic underdevelopment of Slovakia. The problem became acute in the 1930s, when the Slovak intelligentsia, which had remarkably increased by that time, as well as ordinary citizens, could not find work in Slovakia because the best jobs were filled by the Czechs. In contrast to the situation that had existed in the 1920s, Slovaks were ready to become executives, administrators, teachers, lawyers and doctors. This happened in 1939 and after. Unfortunately, after WW II Czech political leaders, both civic and communist, were not willing to admit that the Slovaks had grown up and were able to govern themselves.41 The Czech historical experience was strongly influenced by the Protestant Reformation, secularism and greater industrial advancement due to their proximity to and cohabitation with the Germans. With the creation of Czechoslovakia after WW I, the Czechs proved themselves worthy followers of their predecessors and for a moment irredentism by Magyar fascists will end in vain. Our nation, which has been able to resist the military power of Germany, will find enough strength to firmly defend its borders." See the document "Z referatu Gustava Husaka na konferencii Komunistickej strany Slovenska," February 28, 1945. Dokumenty slovenskej narodnej identi2; a statnosti II (Bratislava: Narodne literarne centrum, 1998), 400. Konstantin Culen, Po Sviitoplukovi druha nasa hlava: Politicky i ivotopis Dr. Jozefa Tisu (Cleveland: The First Catholic Slovak Union, 1947). 41 Carol Skalnik Leff, National Conflict in Czechoslovakia: the Making and Remaking of a State, 1918-1987 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 89. �86 SLOVAKIA also a barrier erected by the victorious Allies against German domination over Central and Eastern Europe. After the incorporation of Slovakia into Czechoslovakia, the national self-confidence of the Czechs was on the rise. After WW II, the Czechs led by the Communist Party, and with the mighty Soviet Union backing them, returned to the concept of a unitary Czechoslovakia. To them, the push for reforms in the 1960's, which was interpreted as the "Prague" rather than the "Czecho-Slovak Spring," was also a return to their national history. The invasion of Czechoslovakia by the armies of the Warsaw Pact in August of 1968, led by the Soviet Union, their former liberator, and the only Slavic Superpower, was especially traumatic for the Czechs. This trauma, imposed from outside, was complemented by a domestic one: the effects of 'normalization' and federalization, both seen as a part of the chain of Slovak "betrayals." The Slovaks rebelled from 1920 onward. First, they asked for autonomy, then they allegedly "conspired" with the Magyars and the Poles against the prewar Republic, and eventually got a taste of the forbidden fruit of political emancipation in the form of their nominally independent state.42 Meanwhile, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (1939-1945), the Czechs were ruled over and persecuted by the Germans. 43 With this perception of national history in Czech minds, the disappearance of the communist regime in 1989, which was allegedly harsher in the Czech Lands than in Slovakia, and which treated the Slovaks in the same way as did the First Czechoslovak Republic, was a golden opportunity to rebuild the state to Czech expectations. After recognizing that Slovaks were not willing to accept what they considered to be the continuation of the imbalance in the distribution of competences in a joint state in 1990-1992, the Czechs opted for the territorially-reduced variant of Czechoslovakia while inheriting its trademark. Since then, they have fared very well. 44 It 42 Leff, National Conflict, 26 and 164. For a Slovak perspective on the history of the Slovak-Czech and Czecho-Slovak relations since 1918 as the "history of broken pacts and unfulfilled promises," see Anton Hmko, "Politicke zapasy na Slovensku v lete a na jesen 1990," Historicky zbornik 10, no. I (2000), 77. 43 Though the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia had its own administration, it was an indivisible part of the Third Reich, which saw itself as a historic successor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation. 44 See the article "Slovakia's Economy ls Doing Well, Too" by Peter Burian, The New York Times, June I, 1996. The author, charge d 'ajfaires of the Embassy of the �SLOVAKIA 87 may seem that this chapter of their history was closed and sealed. The aftermath of the "Velvet Divorce" and the relationship between the two former federal nations was not always rosy. Throughout the 1990s, it was not difficult to contrast the progress made by the Czech Republic with Slovakia's problems. In the early 2000s, with the Meciar era gone and economic advancement that surprised many, the previous negative image of Slovaks as nationalists turned to the delay in democratic transformation of their society. 45 In recent books on Czech history since the early medieval era the Slovaks are hardly mentioned. With Slovakia's progress in the integration processes, substitutes for Slovak nationalism appeared instantly.46 Despite mutual sympathies as documented by surveys of public opinion and praise by Slovak and Czech politicians of their good relations, from 1993 onward free of economic quarrels,47 the clash of bitter memories continued. They have ranged from topics such as investment opportunities by renowned international compa- Slovak Republic in Washington, responded to a similar article in the NYT on the Czech Republic doing well "with luck and without Slovakia," while providing data on GDP (7.4% growth), unemployment (7.4%), doubled foreign currency reserves, a £ositive trade balance and low foreign debt per capita ($800.00). 5 According to Professor Filip Palda from E Ecole nationale d 'administration publique in Montreal, "Separation in 1992 allowed the Czechs to halt the payola on which Slovaks had come to depend. Since separation in 1992, the Slovaks have gone the way of Argentina, whereas the Czechs are now preparing to enter the European Union." See "Argentina north" by Filip Palda. The Ottawa Citizen, January 21 , 2002. Anton Hykisch, former Slovak ambassador to Canada, opined that, for Hungary and the Czech Republic, Slovakia's economic success in the early 2000s was a big surprise which was hard for them to accept. Author interview with Anton Hykisch, Bratislava, June 5, 2007. 46 For a contrasting view on the political systems and parliamentarism in the Czech and Slovak Republics as advanced and less developed see Petr Kopecky, Parliaments in the Czech and Slovak Republics: Party competition and parliamentary institutionalization (London : Ashgate, 2001). The Czech political scientist Lubomir Kopecek opines that in comparison with the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, the evolution of the Slovak political system is unfinished and the system itself is unstable. As a result, Slovakia is a "semi-consolidated democracy." Lubomir Kopecek, Demokracie, diktatury a politicke stranictvi stranictvi na Slovensku (Brno: CDK, 2006), 307 and 3 10. 47 See the article "Klaus: Vzt'ahy Slovenska a Ceska m6zu byt' pri.kladom pre celu Eur6pu," Pravda, June 29, 2009. It became a tradition that the first official visits of the newly-elected presidents and prime ministers of the Czech and Slovak Republics have been with their closest neighbor. �88 SLOVAKIA nies, 48 to the often derogatory comments on domestic politics and rivalry in sports, with frequent references to the "sins" in national histories of the two nations .49 Until the revolutionary years 1848-1849, Slovaks and Magyars had cohabitated peacefully. Four decades of forced Magyarization after 1867 were hard for the Slovaks, yet there was still some moral and socio-political capital left for the improvement of mutual relationships. If this failed in 1918, Slovaks could hardly have been blamed for it as their political weight and influence in Hungary was marginal. In the fall of 193 8, after two decades of the existence of Czechoslovakia, Slovakia was stripped of its southern territories by the Vienna Award.50 Almost seven years of living in Hungary (19381945) returned the Slovaks in the south to a life which resembled what had existed before 1918. After the Second World War and until 1989, the relationship between the Slovaks and Magyars might have appeared as normal, but it was not. Once the Soviet Union was gone and the fate of Czechoslovakia disputed, the old animosities resurfaced . For all Slovak governments since 1989, the status of the Magyar minority became a litmus test in measuring the state of democracy in Slovakia by western governments and scholars. During the Meciar years, Magyars in Slovakia voiced their dissatisfaction with 48 According to a poll by the Czech Private Equity and Venture Capital Association based in Prague, four out of five of its economists and financial analysts said that foreign investment would flow to the Czech rather than to the Slovak Republic. See "Investori uprednostnia Cesko pred Slovenskom," Sme, May 29, 2009. Slovak readers rejected the idea as wishful thinking on the Czech side and suggested that a poll conducted by a Slovak-based company would have shown the opposite. 49 They frequently appear on the Czech web sites www.seznam.cz., www.idnes.cz and their Slovak counterparts www.sme.sk and www.pravda.sk. On April 1 of2009 when the Slovak national football team defeated its opponent in Prague in the qualifier for the Word Cup in South Africa (2010), debates among the fans of both teams turned to their common past with references to the "betrayal" in 1938-1939 and to the Slovak inferiority complex vis-a-vis the Czechs. Slovaks pointed to Czech compliance with German rule in the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia and affirmed that they did not measure themselves against the Czechs - a fixed idea on the Czech side. 50 Julius Mesaros, "Some Deformations in the Interpretation of Censuses in Recent Slovak-Magyar Controversies," In Slovak & Magyars, ed. Pavol Stevcek (Bratislava: Ministerstvo kultury, 1995), 63-84. The census of 1910 showed the presence of 885,397 Magyars on the territory which became part of Slovakia in 1918 (30.3% of the population). Mesaros argues that even "this number was not the result of natural development, or Slovak-Magyar and Magyar-Slovak bilingualism, but a result of the purposeful Magyarization and oppression of Slovaks." Ibid. , 78 . �SLOVAKIA 89 the approaches of Slovak governments in administrative, linguistic, financial and cultural matters. Claims made by their leaders for more tolerance and understanding by the Slovaks have been in stark contrast with the ambiguous language of the representatives of the Magyar minority regarding their possible autonomy. 5 1 While the Slovaks and the Czechs after 1992 were able to reach the highest level of mutual respect and understanding, Slovaks and Magyars remained mentally anchored in the period between 1918 and 1945. The trauma of Trianon in 1920 and their expulsion from South Slovakia in 1945-194 7 is deeply engraved in the minds of Magyars, as is the forced Magyarization and the effects of the Vienna Arbitration in the minds of the Slovaks. Each side continues to interpret the causes and outcomes of those events according to its own perception and sentiments. A partial solution to the problem - history textbooks written by Slovak and Magyar historians together - is to this date still "in progress" and it is hard to predict when and if they will ever be finished and distributed to schools in both countries. 52 History is firmly tied into daily politics in East Central Europe. Its revival outside of scholarly conferences and seminars and its use as a model for the present or future by politicians may lead to the release of a genie from his bottle. 53 This refers particularly to Slovakia as being possibly identified as the weakest link within an informal Little Entente. 54 If both nations do not want to waste what has 51 The representatives of the Magyar political parties in Slovakia (before 1998), with the exception of Miklos Duray and Pal Csaky from the SMK. (the Party of the Magyar Coalition), were careful about publicly speaking of autonomy for Magyars in Slovakia, though the idea of their political and administrative autonomy has frequently appeared - sotto voce - as their ultimate goal. Most recently, Duray admitted that territorial autonomy is unrealistic, but the chance for a vaguely defined "personal'' autonomy for the Magyar minority in Slovakia still exists. See the article "Ouray o vel'kom Mad'arsku nesniva, auton6mia je vsak podl'a neho realna," Pravda, August 4, 2009. 52 Vilaro Kratochvil, "K moznostiam oslabovania predsudkov a stereotypov v tvorbe ucebnic dejepisu," in Myty a predsudky v dejincich. Historickci konferencia 7. decembra 2004, ed. Attila Simon (Samorin-Dunajska Streda: Forum Institut pre vyskum mensin, 2005). 53 See the interview with Slovak historian Ivan Kamenec. "Kamenec: Politici su najhorsi ziaci hist6rie," Sme, May 9, 2009. Kamenec refers to the diverging interpretations of the period 1944-1948. 54 Serbia, Slovakia, Romania, in which Magyar minorities live. Jan Camogursky said that the highest challenge to Slovakia's foreign policy after accession into NATO and the EU remains the country's ability to face continuing interference by �90 SLOVAKIA remained positive from the legacy of their peaceful cohabitation, and if they wish to get rid of the shadows of the past, they have to reach a mutually respectful Slovak - Magyar and Magyar - Slovak Compromise. Not by political gestures, but by the inner force of their societies. Neither of the two nations, closely bound together for centuries, can separately pass this test of national and civic maturity.55 3. The Myth of a Sudden Awakening of Slovak Society in the 1998 Parliamentary Elections. The major problem in Slovak history from an outsider's perspective - its invisibility linked to a fragmented appearance as a part of the history of Hungary and Czechoslovakia - influenced also its recent domestic interpretations. In reference to the Slovak national anthem, sociologists Martin Butora and Zora Butorova compared Slovak society in 1989 to "Sleeping Beauty." 56 They went so far as to say that" .. . in November 1989, an overwhelming majority of people in Slovakia accepted political change passively." This view is similar to those that refer to "socialism with a human face" in the second half of the 1960s as a purely Czech affair, 57 and those that see Charright-wing Magyar politicians into Slovakia's domestic affairs through issues regardi ng the status of the Magyar minority in Slovakia. Author interview with Jan Camogursky, Bratislava, May 24, 2007. In a poll conducted in January of 2004, 21 .3% of participants identified Hungary as a major threat to Slovak national security. See Boris Benkovic, "Vyskumna sprava," in Verejnti mienka a politika. Medzintirodne vzt'ahy a zahranicnti politika Slovenskej republiky, ed. Miroslav Peknik (Brati slava: Veda, 2005), 38 (see Graph 9). 55 For the necessity for mutual respect between the Slovak majority and minorities that would lead to their loyalty to the state based on civic principles see Milan Zemko, "Modemy politicky narod," in Slovenskti ottizka dnes, ed. Laszlo Szigeti (Bratislava: Kalligram, 2007), 192 . Zemko refers to Renan ' s idea of a "nation as a daily plebiscite" in a continuous building of a Slovak political nation : "L'existence d' une nation est. .. plebiscite de tous lesj ours, comme !'existence de l'individu est affirmation perpetuelle de vie." Ernest Renan, "Qu'est-ce qu ' une nation?" Conference faite en Sorbonne, le 11 mars 1882. Oeuvres completes d 'Ernest Renan (Paris: Calmann Levy, editor, 1882), 27. 56 Martin Butora and Zora Butorova, "S lovakia's Democratic Awakening," Journal of Democracy 10, no. I (1999), 80. 5 Ibid, 83. See Jon Elster, Claus Offe and Ulbricht K. Preuss, Institutional design in post-communist societies: rebuilding the ship at sea (Cambridge - New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998). The authors came to the conclusion that "The 1968 vision of socialism with a human face was entirely a Czech, not Slovak phenomenon." Ibid. , 264. �SLOVAKIA 91 ter 77 as the only agent of civic resistance against the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. Earlier observations by Karen Henderson point to preconceived approaches to Slovak history suffering from "dangerous analytical misconceptions that have to work backward."58 Theories on the institution-building processes in communist and post-communist Czechoslovakia view the institutions emerging during the transitory period as a result of bricolage - the innovative building of new institutions by politicians who function as bricoleurs. 59 A similar approach can be taken when examining the most important moments in the modern history of Slovakia and their contrasting interpretations seen in "bricks." Works by political scientists are often based on deductive reasoning (see the scheme's Bricolage I, at the end of the article). Thus, if Slovakia deviated from its course towards western democracies in the mid-1990s (originally Brick A), the explanation was obvious: it happened because of the country's past, bound by the immaturity of its society following the breakup of Czechoslovakia, which stemmed from pervasive Slovak nationalism. This led to ungratefulness towards the Czechs and revenge towards the Magyars (Brick B). Likewise, it has been argued that a high degree of compliance with the communist regime and its detrimental impact on Slovak society kept societal life frozen (Brick C). Moreover, the weak economic base of Slovakia inherited from Hungary, along with the controversial character and legacy of wartime Slovakia (Brick D), did not help to eliminate the socio-economic backwardness, political inexperience of Slovaks and thus their negative international image (Brick E) . Deductive reasoning has its merits. It is even more convincing when supported by direct experience and contact with the subject of the study, buttressed by familiarity with primary sources. Foreign scholars who did their research in Slovakia in the late 1990s and throughout the 2000s, helped to broaden a variety of perspectives on Slovak history, which Slovak historians themselves have been unaware of. It is interesting to observe that western, not Slovak scholars, argue in favor of the capacity of Slovak society to build new institu58 Karen Henderson, "Evaluating the Slovak Transition: What Creates the Image of Slovaki a?" 26. 59 John A. Scherpereel, Governing the Czech Republic and Slovakia: Between State Socialism and the European Union (Boulder - London : First Forum Press, 2009), 68 . �92 SLOVAKIA tions during the communist and post-communist era (Scherpereel, Haughton) . Foreign scholars have referred to the importance of a "critical mass of educated citizens" and political stability in Slovakia prior to, during and after the "change" in 1998 (Henderson), and stressed the presence of a "profound and sizeable Slovak opposition to the culture of Communism" (A. Innes), whilst sociologists and political scientists at home (S. Szomolanyi, 0 . Gyarfasova, Z. Butorova, J. Marusiak) have been more skeptical. From a long-term historical perspective based on inductive reasoning, the context and nuances of Slovakia's post-communist transformation appear significantly different from a micro perspective as applied by the social sciences. This perspective suggests that, to understand the evolution of Slovak society with all its accomplishments and failures, the key is to start from the beginning, not from the end or the middle, and not by theories and generalizations, but with facts, particularly in contested perspectives. Interpretations based on deductive reasoning may result, and they often did, in theories on and explanations of the reasons for the still continuing building of the Slovak political nation and democracy in the country as an "unfinished business," turning it into "the hare versus turtle" race. Such perspectives attribute nationalism in the 1990s exclusively to the Slovaks, while ignoring the fears of Slovak society stemming from its historical experience, linked to the years 1867-1918, 19181919, 1938-1939, 1945-1948 and after. Moreover, such perspectives suffer from inner contradictions. Despite the partly beneficial impact of Czechoslovakia on Slovakia, the latter was in 1993, similar to the years 1918, 1938-1939 as well as during communist Czechoslovakia, socio-economically a less developed part of the common state. 60 Likewise, the Slovak political experience in prewar Czechoslovakia has been seen as weak due to the detrimental impact of a different and underdeveloped political culture inherited by the Slovaks from Hungary, for which two decades of the existence of democratic Czechoslovakia ( 1918-193 8) was too a short period to improve. 61 Consequently, due to the traditional "historic deficits" in the evolution of Slovak society, its civic attitu60 Miroslav Londak, "K niektorym problemom ekonomickeho vyvoja na Slovensku na prahu roka 1968," Historicke studie 44 (2006), p.188. 61 Kopecek, 27-34 and 311. �SLOVAKIA 93 des linked to pluralism during Communism did not develop properly.62 This perspective does seem not to apply to Slovakia's neighbors, the Magyars and the Poles, with their limited experience with parliamentary democracy before and after WW II, which were similar to Spain and Italy in the West. Hungary and Poland apparently redeemed themselves in the eyes of the West by the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the activities of the Solidarity Movement in Poland from 1980 onward. The question, however, is how could those events of undisputed civic bravery substitute for democracy as a system of governance that needs time to develop? By contrast, the longlasting non-compliance of Slovak society with the communist regime, as demonstrated by repeated large-scale participation in religious pilgrimages and demonstrations, has either been downplayed or referred to as having had no impact on politics in communist Czechoslovakia.63 After the 1998 parliamentary elections, Slovak sociologists and leaders of the non-governmental sector helped to create and spread a positive image of Slovak society by contrasting the Meciar era with the progress made in integration with western organizations during the two Dzurinda governments. 64 They suggested that the electoral behavior of voters in rural and economically underdeveloped regions, who voted in favor of the Movement for a Democratic Slo62 Based on a survey conducted in May of 1968, in which 69.5% of the respondents in the Czech Lands as compared with 54.6% in Slovakia supported the existence of more political parties. At the same time, 53 % of Czech participants saw positively the role of civic associations in political life, while in Slovakia it was only 32%. Kopecek, 143. 63 Kopecek stresses the continuity in Czech dissent linked to the reform movement in the I 960s and the role of Charter 77, which was signed by 1800 Czechs in comparison with two dozen Slovaks as the flag bearer of civic resistance against Communism in Czechoslovakia. Kopecek, p.145. Jan Camogursky vigorously opposes the assumption that religious dissent in Slovakia had a limited impact on the regime. According to him, the massive pilgrimages to Velehrad and Levoca helped to soften the harassment of dissenters and citizens by communist authorities. Author interview with Jan Camogursky, Bratislava, May 24, 2007. On a similar stance taken by Abby Innes see her book Czechoslovakia: The Short Goodbye (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001), 36-37. 64 Such delineation is, technically, an anachronism, as the third Meciar government did not oppose integration, particularly into the EU, though it eventually brought Slovakia into international isolation. �94 SLOVAKIA vakia (HZDS) led by Vladimir Meciar and the Slovak National Party (SNS),65 resembled support for the Hlinka Slovak People 's Party (the tudaks) during the wartime Slovak Republic. In contrast to their earlier suggestions, these observers view positively the ability of Magyar communities in Slovakia, which live in rural areas and cast their votes exclusively for the Magyar political parties in each election 66 while referring to it as a "higher form of civic participation and social engagement." 67 Inductive reasoning provides the reader with the opportunity to view Slovakia's post-communist transformation in a complex, evolutionary perspective (see the scheme's Bricolage II): It consists of the following "bricks:" Brick A - "Antecedents" (1848-1918). The traditional view is that during and after the Revolutions of 1848-1849, Slovaks were aware that Magyars were not willing to allow them to exist autonomously and, hence, they started to design their political programs, build institutions, schools, and political parties . Fearing Panslavism, Magyar radicals attempted to Magyarize the nationalities in Hungary, including the Slovaks, with some success (Magyarones). As a consequence, some Slovak, mostly Pro65 The SNS, which, next to the Christian-Democratic Movement (KDH) in the early 1990s and the HZDS in the mid-1 990s was also compared with the HSCS, has always been supportive of the legacy of the Slovak National Uprising in stark contrast to the perspective of the l'udaks and the neo-l'udaks. The same holds for the HZDS. 66 Next to the SMK, a new party to represent both Magyars and Slovaks named the Most-Hid (The Bridge; Slovak and Magyar), was established in July of 2009. Its chairman became Bela Bugar, the former chairman of the SMK, who lost to Pal Csaky in the party elections in April of 2007 . See "Ministerstvo vnutra zaregistrovalo Bugarovu stranu," Pravda, July 3, 2009. ln the 2010 parliamentary elections another new political party, Freedom and Solidarity [SaS] appeared, and supplied ministers to the Radicova government but also caused it to collapse in October of 20 11. Only recently established parties are: Obycajni l'udia - nezavisle osobnosti (Ordinary People - Independent Personalities), Strana slobodne slovo (The Free Word Party), and 99% - Obciansky hlas (99% - A Citizen's Voice). 67 See the article "Mad'ari su aktivnejsi nez Slovaci, tvrdi prieskum," Sme, March 28 2009. The article refers to a survey conducted by the Slovak Academy of Sciences and its interpretation by Zora Butorova from the Institute for Public Affairs (TVO), a non-governmental think-tank. Slovak Magyars defending their rights, while keeping their traditions and the cohesiveness of their society intact, is praised as a positive quality. The same was not applied to the Slovaks in Hungary and in Czechoslovakia when they tried to do the same. �SLOVAKIA 95 testant, intellectuals, opted for cultural, and possibly political, cooperation with the Czechs. A majority of Slovaks, mostly Catholics, still believed that a solution for Slovakia within Hungary could be found. The period from 1890 to 1914, which was traditionally seen as the "dark ages" of Slovak national emancipation, brought about even more resilience against Magyarization. In October of 1918, the Slovaks joined the Czechs in a common state. They rejectted the offer by the Karolyi government for autonomy within Hungary. From November of 1918 onward, a series of military clashes occurred between Magyar and Czechoslovak troops. In June of 1919 the Hungarian Red Army invaded and occupied eastern and southern Slovakia for a short time. Difference (traditional views+-+the article): Slovaks were socially and politically active, not passive in Hungary, even during the time of the harshest Magyarization in 1890-1914, which coincided with the process of the formation of the Slovaks as a political nation. During and after WW I, Slovak leaders abroad and at home decided to join the Czechs in the new state of Czechoslovakia on the assumption they would receive autonomy as promised by the Pittsburgh Agreement of 1918. At the same time, the Slovak population demonstrated its strong dissatisfaction with the Magyar government and supported secession from Hungary by protests in which social and national aspects blended. Brick B - "Betrayals" (1918-1948). In prewar Czechoslovakia, the Slovaks were divided between the autonomists and the "Czechoslovaks." In this clash the CatholicProtestant controversy played an important role. Though the autonomists were seen in the Czech Lands as the destroyers of Czechoslovakia, they did not want to secede because they were afraid of territorial revisionism by the Poles and the Magyars. After Munich, Slovak political parties congregated in Zilina and expressed their support for Slovak autonomy within the rump second Czecho-Slovak Republic. The government of the nominally independent wartime Slovak Republic discriminated against and failed to protect its Jewish and Roma citizens from deportation to death camps. In the administrative and economic spheres, however, the Slovaks demonstrated their capacity to form a state and administer it themselves. Based on this experience, Slovak Communists, who had helped to �96 SLOVAKIA organize the Slovak National Uprising in 1944, expected Slovakia to receive autonomous status within the reconstituted Czechoslovakia. This was rejected by Czech presidents Edvard Benes, Klement Gottwald and Antonin Novotny. Difference: Slovaks were stereotyped in the Czech Lands as traitors since the 1920s. The fact that they did not want to secede from Czechoslovakia and remained in the second Czecho-Slovak Republic for half a year has been frequently overlooked. The socio-economic progress made by the wartime Slovak Republic, in contrast with the disinterest in Slovak affairs by previous centralist Czechoslovak governments, was significant. In May of 1946, the Communists were defeated in parliamentary elections in Slovakia, but not in the Czech Lands. By November of 1947, the Communists gained political control over Slovakia. The three Prague Agreements were viewed by the Slovaks as a betrayal, just as the Czechs viewed the aftermath of the Munich Agreement. Brick C - "Communism" (1948-1989). The idea of Slovak autonomy and economic equalization with the Czechs was adopted by Slovak Communists. The demand for reforming Communism in Slovakia grew with the accession to power in 1963 of the Slovak Alexander Dubcek. The return to national history and the drive for economic reform resulted in the idea of the federalization of Czechoslovakia. This was interpreted by the Czech side as a continuation of Slovak nationalism, because the debate in the Czech Lands was oriented towards political pluralism and economic reform. In 1969 came the removal of Dubcek, who was caught between the need for reform at home and the mistrust in him by political leaders of other communist countries. He was replaced by Gustav Husak, another Slovak, who embodied 'normalization.' Whereas Czechs intellectuals voiced their dissatisfaction with the Husak regime, Slovaks, allegedly, were compliant with it. Difference: Slovaks were no less active than the Czechs in initiating the reform movement in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s; in fact, they had helped to start it. Economic reform as a continuation of equalization stood in the forefront of the efforts of Slovak communist political leaders as well as economists. Federalization was important in regard to both political and economic competencies, whilst it was viewed by Czech society as another from of archetypal natio- �SLOVAKIA 97 nal reassertion of the Slovaks resembling the 19th century. Slovak society lived in a paradoxical situation: next to the material benefits received during 'normalization,' the traditionally religious Slovaks reacted to ideological indoctrination by massive participation in religious pilgrimages. In addition to the religious dissenters, who were active already in the 1970s, environmentalists began to play an important role in the early 1980s in making also the secular part of Slovak society aware of the risks stemming from insensitive industrialization. In 1989, Slovak society as a whole, and on its own initiative, rejected the communist regime by massive demonstrations against it. Brick D - "Division" (1993-1997). The "Velvet Revolution," similar to the "Prague Spring," indicated, how the fall of Communism in Czechoslovakia was perceived internationally. From the beginning, there was mistrust between the newly-emerging Slovak and Czech political elites. Each had its own symbol: they were Alexander Dubcek in Slovakia and Vaclav Havel in the Czech Lands . Since the former accepted the rather symbolic post of Speaker of the Federal Assembly in Prague, new political leaders emerged instantly in Slovakia, first and foremost Vladimir Meciar. In contrast to its federal partner, Slovakia had two more tasks: 1) to gain international recognition and 2) to deal with the status of the Magyar minority. Fighting on three fronts (the third were federal competences) simultaneously, Slovak politicians were divided. Eventually, it was the HZDS, led by Meciar, which prevailed. Contrary to its portrayal as anti-federalist and nationalist, the HZDS and its leader still aspired for a looser federation with the Czechs. This was unacceptable to the "technocrats," represented by Vaclav Klaus and Czech nationalists such as Miroslav Macek (both Civic Democratic Party; ODS) and Jan Kalvoda (Civic Democratic alliance; ODA). As a result, Slovak and Czech political leaders opted for the dissolution of Czechoslovakia as of December 31, 1992. Difference: In contrast to the traditional perspectives that interpret renewed Slovak efforts for building an "authentic federation" in the early 1990s at the expense of the Czechs, it is suggested that Slovaks wanted more powers in order to avoid the continuation of debates of constitutional discrepancies and socio-economic disparities that had started in the 1930s, continued in 1960s, and resurfaced at �98 SLOVAKIA the end of the communist regime in the late 1980s. Since the Czechs had controlled Czechoslovakia for decades, regardless of its constitutional form , they interpreted their own nationalism as "civicness," in contrast to the allegedly old-fashioned ethnic Slovak nationalism. Brick E - "Europe" ("The Awakening" and the "Change," 19982004). Since Slovaks were seen as passive in communist Czechoslovakia and their religious dissent was allegedly insignificant in terms of challenging the communist regime, new institutions and political parties had to emerge in the early 1990s. During the period 19901992, Slovaks allegedly once again focused on federal and national competencies, instead of building democracy and a market economy, which were Czech priorities. According to some sociologists, Slovakia missed the chance to experience its own Velvet Revolution. After the creation of independent Slovakia, the state had to re-build its structures and to strive for international recognition. It inherited a sensitive problem with the Magyar minority, which resulted in tensions regarding the use of the official and Magyar languages on territories with a mixed population. In the spring of 1994, pro-democratic and pro-western forces ousted Vladimir Meciar from office, yet the six following months was too a short a time for catching up with the rest of reforming post-communist countries, particularly Poland, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Hungary. In the parliamentary elections in the fall of 1994, Vladimir Meciar returned to power. Allied with the nationalists and the radical left, he imposed a harsh rule over the National Council, the opposition and the media. As a result of the mysterious abduction of the son of President Michal Kovac, who dared to defy the government and Meciar himself, Slovakia began to lag behind in the European integration processes. In the 1998 parliamentary elections, the opposition political parties supported, though indirectly, by non-governmental organizations and awakened Slovak society, defeated the government that torpedoed its own formally proclaimed integrationist goals. The two subsequent governments, led by Mikulas Dzurinda, succeeded in transforming the country's negative international image and attracting foreign investments. Being politically stable, the country became a member of both NATO and the EU in 2004. �SLOVAKIA 99 Difference: When attempts to reach an agreement with the Czechs on an authentic federation failed, Slovaks received, somehow unexpectedly, their own state in a way resembling March of 1939. The accusations against Meciar as an authoritarian leader collided with divergent views on how national property should be privatized. After Meciar' s return to power in the fall of 1994, Slovakia continued in its efforts to join the European Union and NATO. It failed to become a member of the OECD due to the government's unwillingness to privatize strategic branches of the Slovak economy. Despite diplomatic and political warnings regarding the infamous causes of Michal Kovac, the denial of his parliamentary seat to Frantisek Gaulieder and the assassination of Robert Remias, who had information regarding the Kovac kidnapping, negotiations with the EU and NA TO continued. The "change" in 1998 brought about an influx of former representatives of the non-governmental sector into the various ministries, while many of those who remained loyal to their original mission of being the watchdogs over a young democracy were disillusioned. The fragmentation of old political parties and the emergence of new ones in the late l 990s and the early 2000s were complemented by scandals stemming from corruption. In contrast with the third Meciar government, where there were two camps clearly separated one from another, the situation in the first and second Dzurinda governments resembled wars of all against all. The only factor that kept the coalition together was fear of Meciar. Slovak society, which was tired of the endless chain of political conflicts and scandals, with what was left of its enthusiasm and energy, helped to complete the country's integration into the EU. As a part of the community of European nations, Slovaks have not only the right, but also the duty to expect that their ability to comply with the criteria for membership should be equaled by the ability of the Union to provide fair and indiscriminate treatment, free from paternalistic approaches. This will help the Slovaks to grow and appear as a modem and self-confident nation, visible and judged according to their efforts and accomplishments. Speculations on Slovakia's cultural and civilizational proximity with either the East or the West, which bothered so many domestic and foreign politicians and intellectuals in the mid-1990s, are secondary. Of primary importance is the ability of Slovak society to maintain and strengthen its internal integration and to continue to proceed in its mental trans- �100 SLOVAKIA formation . This requires the capacity and willingness of Slovak society to reproduce itself on the basis of its historical traditions, while embracing democratic values, as well as a pluralist and consensual system of governance and politics. At the same time, the membership of Slovakia and other Central Eastern European post-communist states in the European Union provides it with an opportunity to learn from the collapse of the former Communist Bloc by evolving into a community of truly equal members. Slovakia's Postcommunist Transformation from an Historical Perspective Scheme Seeming +- As ---+ Being t Method : Deductive Begins in the present Method: Inductive Begins in the past t t Perspective: Political Science Perspective: History and PSCI t t Objective: Explaining the present by interpreting the Objective: Understanding the present by interpreting the past by reconstructing the past t Depth of historical background: Medium t Retrograde horizon: Medium t Depth of historical background: High t Retrograde horizon : Distant yet connectable With the present t t Connectivity present---+past: Retrospective Connectivity past---+present: Chronological �SLOVAKIA t t Causality: Fragmented Bricolage I 101 Causality: Complex Divergence Brick A: Result Delayed Slovak postCommunist transfor- - low mation and integration with EU and NA TO Bricolage II Brick "Europe" Slovakia's integration delayed but completed on institutional level, continues on societal level t i Brick B: Sub-condition Breakup of Czechoslovakia Reason: prevalence of - high archetypical Slovak nationalism over the solution of practical problems Brick "Division" Split with the Czechs over disparities and competences, not national identity t i Brick C: Prerequisite 1 High degree of Slovak compliance with - high communist regime. Societal life completely Hibernated Brick "Communism" Slovaks partly compliant with communist regime; Refuse interference in religious matters, form environmental movement t i Brick D : Prerequisite 2 Brick "Betrayals" Week economic base -medium- Wartime Slovak Republic Inherited from Hungary; created out of necessity, Legacy of wartime Slovak economically viable. SloRepublic as a totalitarian vak autonomy rejected in State postwar Czechoslovakia t Brick E: Historical residua Slovaks politically passive; Their extinction as a nation Imminent, if not saved By Czechs -medium/high- i Brick"Antecedents" Slovaks resilient and socially active in A-H; opt for Czechoslovakia instead of Hungary � 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 2013, Vol. 41 Description An account of the resource Vol. 41 (No. 76-77), 2013. 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 2013 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 73 SEEMING AND BEING: CONTEXTUALIZING THE HISTORY OF POST - COMMUNIST SLOVAKIA Juraj Hocman The year 1989 marked the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia and the beginning of Slovakia's road to independence. For the Slovaks this year also revealed the gap between their perception of national history and how it was viewed from the outside. In the 1990s, a new generation of western scholars contrasted the post-communist change of Czechoslovakia' s two nations. In their studies of modem Slovak society they rarely went beyond 1918. They relied very much on general accounts and traditional dichotomies between the Czechs and Slovaks, such as 'industrial' versus 'rural,' 'secular' versus 'religious,' ' progressive' versus 'backward.' 1 This was why in the 1990s the Slovaks continued to be seen as a "non-historic" nation hastily modernized during the communist era. Since it was mostly invisible in Austria-Hungary and Czechoslovakia, Slovak history automatically appeared as ruptured and fragmented. Following the downfall of the communist regime and the creation of the independent Slovak Republic in January of 1993, the country's image was primarily associated with radical nationalism, intolerance towards its minorities and an unstable domestic political scene. All of these seemed to have been sufficient to explain Slovakia' s failure to achieve a functioning democracy in the mid-1990s. In the early 2000s, a secondwave of scholarly interest in Slovakia began. Attracted by the country' s economic progress and an overall social and political stability, western scholars turned their attention to what had seemed in the 1990s as a satisfactory explanation for the peculiarities of Slovakia's evolution as a post-communist state. Some of them came to the conclusion that the existing stereotypes stemmed from preconceived methodological approaches, even unfamiliarity with the facts .2 The1 Abby Innes, Czechoslovakia: The Short Goodbye (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001 ), ix-xi. 2 Karen Henderson, "Evaluating the Slovak Transition : What Creates the Image of Slovakia?" In Slovakia after Communism and Meciarism, ed. Kieran Williams (London: School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies, 2000), 26. 74 SLOVAKIA refore, a better understanding of what was happening in the country since its creation requires a broader historical approach. 1. Seeming and Being in the History of East and West. The self-challenging motto of the Andrassy family of Hungarian nobles, Non videri, sed esse (Not Seeming but Being), which inspired medieval and early modern societies, stands in direct opposition to modem approaches to social reality that tend to place image over substance.3 In this regard small nations are at greater risk of being overlooked, even misjudged by bigger nations. 4 While it is hardly imaginable that the views of a Slovak or a Czech scholar on the history of Great Britain, the United States or Canada would have the same resonance and impact on the international image of those countries, western scholars have scrutinized the history of Czechoslovakia and its two nations with significant consequences.5 This could happen since the capacity of Slovak historians to conduct independent research and publish the results during the communist era was subject to ideological indoctrination and political constraints. Moreover, Slovak historians, in contrast to their Czech colleagues, until recently did not work systematically on a conceptualization of Slovak history and the minimalization of its invisibility. Such a course would have helped to "sell" their cause abroad - the legitimacy and viability of the existence of Slovakia as a sovereign state - long after its creation. In the 1990s this gap was filled by foreign scholars and the media in a way that simplified and, in some cases, distorted the mostly unknown Slovak history waiting for its reinterpretation at home and rediscovery abroad. The Slovaks were depicted, in terms of their 3 Eva Smelkova and Julius Barczi, "Andrassyovci a Rozi\ava," Forum Historiae 2/2008, p.5. Accessed at www.forumhistoriae.sk/FH 2/smelkova. df 4 See the interview with the Norwegian publicist and writer Egil Lejon "Slovensko prikladom" on the parallels between the historical evolution of the Slovaks and the small Scandinavian nations in the 19th century. Literarny tyidennik, August 12, 1994, pp. I and 11. 5 Even large states are vulnerable to intrusions into their national histories that contradict domestic interpretations. See the internet article "Russia Will Never Let Anyone Falsify [the] History of [the] Second World War" which refers to the image of the soldiers of the Red Army in WW II as looters and rapists . Russia has created a special committee to counteract the "attempts at distorting history to the detriment of Russi a's interest. " Pravda (Moscow). Accessed at www.pravda.ru, May 20, 2009 . SLOVAKIA 75 missing statehood, as a non-historic nation, which, after the creation of the Slovak Republic in 1993, cured its historical complexes and democratic deficiencies at the expense of their advanced neighbors with whom they shared a common history - the Czechs and the Magyars. 6 To that, some Slovak scholars and politicians reacted with fervor instead of providing a systemic and efficient alternative.7 Consequently, they created solitary and isolated interprettations of Slovak history that clashed with stereotypes and automatically brought about the risk of being viewed either as hard-core nationalists or revisionists.8 In the early 2000s, western scholars such as Karen Henderson, Abby Innes, Cas Mudde and others expressed their doubts concerning cliches linked to Slovak history. The progress in the rediscovery of Slovak history in the West since the beginning of the 2000s cannot be overlooked as the new generation of scholars did their fieldwork in the Slovak Republic and critically examined the earlier interpretations of Slovak history emerging in the 1990s. 9 Although the trend of foreign and Slovak historians coming closer in their interpretations is growing, a lot of work remains to be done by both sides.10 6 George Schopflin, Nations, Identity, Power (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 280-297 ("The Slovak case study"). 7 Looking for internationally-known personalities with Slovak origins at any cost to improve the image of Slovakia could result in quite opposite effects. See Greg Steinmetz's article, "Slovaks desperately searching for famous countrymen," The Globe and Mail, April 27, 1996. Similarly, the publishing of another variant of the multi-volume "History of Slovakia" in the Slovak language with short resumes in German, English, French and Russian, and picture books with descriptive texts designed for common readers are hardly ways to provide a conceptual and critical synthesis of Slovak history known and accepted internationally. 8 Franti~ek Vnuk, Milan Durica and other historians grouped around the Matica slovens/ca. 9 Next to Karen Henderson and Abby Innes, the best examples are the recent works by Tim Haughton and John A. Scherpereel cited in this article. The British scholar George Schopflin sees a great challenge for historians of East Central Europe to become familiar with the Anglo-Saxon, German, French, Russian, and Italian scholarly literature. For consequences regarding Slovak history see George Schopflin, "Vytvaranie eur6pskej kulturnej identity? Stredna Europa v rozfaenej Eur6pskej unii," Listy SFPA, March-April 2003 , pp.2-3. 10 " .. . it is hardly surprising that any effort to straighten the Slovak spine is seen as nationalism, the equivalent of n[N]azism, fascism and the oppression of minorities. It may be hard to believe but the greatest enemies of Slovakia are Slovaks themselves. On several occasions, I have had an opportunity to witness the way in which Slovak historians have given lectures on Slovakia to foreign audiences. Nearly all of 76 SLOVAKIA Furthermore, in the modem era the role of the media in building popular perceptions on the basis of simplified interpretations of historical developments has been increasing. A reasonable objection can be made as to why a scholarly study should be bothered by what the media say. In short, the media can popularize history more effectively than scholars who create their interpretations only after years of studying a particular problem. Thus, in creating a public image, it is the media which paints the larger picture, not scholars. 11 Paraphrasing Clausewitz, the media may be seen as the continuation of historiography and social science by other means. 12 This was evident in the case of Slovakia's image as hyper-nationalist in the early 1990s and during the country's quasi-miraculous instant awakening in 1998. Views by the media helped to reduce this phase in modem Slovak history to the Manichean conflict between 'evil' and 'good' politicians, and, implicitly, between the 'progressive' and 'backward' electorates and segments of Slovak society. 13 them have had one thing in common: they present the Slovaks as a nation without a history, without culture and traditions - and surprise - as the oppressor of minorities. Nor do they neglect to mention Slovakia's facist and Nazi past. Their spiritual kin in the West have gone so far in their blind, ignorant hatred as to blame the Slovaks for the hanging of Communists and Jews in Kosice in January of 1945. According to one German commentator, the massacres in Kosice were ' one of the last abominations of the fascist Slovak state and ally of Adolf Hitler. ' The fact that Kosice belonged to Hungary at that time and that this sad, vile act was committed by the Hungarian fascists "Wild Rose Crosses," is apparently of interest to no one, the least to our own historians." Darina Vergesova, "Dajte Duricovi pokoj," Kritika & Kon text, nos. 2-3 ( 1997), pp.59-60. 11 "A separate chapter in our [Slovak] media is that of the methodical loss of national memory," Pavo! Dinka, S/ovenske media: Met6dy manipulacie (Bratislava: PPA, 2008), 21. Due to its image inherited from the 1990s, Slovakia was depicted in three films - "Hostel" (2004), "Eurotrip" (2004) and "Hostel 2" (2007) - as a nest of danf:erous and perverted criminals and mafia. For details see www.imdb.com 2 On the shift of the media in the time of globalization from being the Fourth Power (provider of information) to the Fifth Power (manipulator of information) see the article by Ignacio Ramonet, "Le cinquieme pouvoir," Le Monde Diplomatique, Apri l-Mai (2005), pp.74-78 "Dans la nouvelle guerre ideologique qu 'impose la mondialisation, !es medias sont utilisees comme une arme de combat. L' information, en raison de son explosion, de sa multiplication, de sa surabondance, de ses partis pris, se trouve litteralement contaminee, empoisonnee par toute sorte des mensonges, pollue par !es rumeurs, !es distorsions, !es manipulations." Ibid., p.77. 13 Lubomir Kopecek, Demokracie, diktatury a politicke stranictvi na Slovensku (Brno: CDK, 2006), p.308. A survey conducted in Slovakia in the mid- l 990s focused on the degree of tolerance towards minorities, disrespect for the law by politi- SLOVAKIA 77 Next to the risk of perspectives based on simplified portrayals of reality stands the problem of divergent approaches towards the same phenomena in the history of the East and West. The classic saying goes "if disease is beautiful, it is generally someone else's disease." 14 Apart from its complimentary aspect, Chesterton's aphorism can be applied to nationalism and its negative characteristics associated primarily with the East. In the 1990s, the resurrected nationalism of East Central Europe gained a negative image linked to the ethnocentric nationalism of the 19th century. This resulted in the categorization of post-communist states into progressive ones and those which lagged behind. It is true that the downfall of Communism and the subsequent disintegration of the Communist Bloc resulted in an explosion of ethnic tensions. When examining the roots of nationalism and its capacity for political and social mobilezation, it should become clear that the same primordial instincts attributed to the East had existed among western literati in the 19th century. In multiethnic Britain the same elements of linguistic and ethnic tensions shaped by romantic nationalism can be found in historical novels designed with the same purpose as those by writers in East Central Europe. 15 The similarities between the nation-building processes in W estem and East Central Europe can particularly be observed in the creation of multi-ethnic Great Britain as a political nation during the period 1707-1837, where the impact of external threats helped her to overcome the historical centripetal tendencies based on ethnic diversity. 16 What worked in Great Britain did not work in Austria- cians, positive opinions on the communist regime before its fall and engagement in civic association activities. 14 Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Orthodoxy (London: The Bodley Head, 1949), p.12. 15 On the Norman-Saxon ethno-linguistic division and societal hierarchy in medieval England see Sir Walter Scott's historical novel Ivanhoe (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998). 16 Linda Colley, Britons: Forg ing the Nation 1707-/837 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992). For the major argument of the book see the introduction, pp.1-9. See also the comparison of the Magyars with the English "who have violently Anglicized ten millions of Irishmen and Scottsmen" made by a Magyar Deputy in the Hungarian Diet in 1879 in justification of the forced Magyarization . R.W. Seton-Watson, Racial Problems in Hungary (London: Archibald Constable, 1908; reprinted in New York by Howard Fertig, 1972), 217 . There is a significant difference. Whereas Great Britain made, at least formally, its Compromise in 1707, the radical part of Magyar political elites failed to do it until it was too late. 78 SLOVAKIA Hungary from 1848 to 1918 and in Czechoslovakia, where centripetal tendencies eventually prevailed. Recalling the indication by Cas Mudde of double standards in explaining ' bad' and 'good' nationalism in Slovakia during the period 1989-1992, 17 nationalism, in general, appeared as progressive when it had helped to create nation-states in the West from the 16th to the 19th centuries, whereas it became perverted in state-building processes in post-communist Eastern Europe in the 1990s. 18 Though the concerns of multi-ethnic states about the possible consequences of various forms of nationalism, past and future, to which modem historiography and political science have legitimately pointed, are understandable, the common roots of nationalism should not be forgotten. This will help us to avoid the traps of nationalism's general recrimination in post-communist East Central Europe, including Slovakia, regardless of the context within which it emerged and had been shaped. 19 In addition to the perception of the Slovaks as intolerant nationalists, the image of the country has been that of a non-historic nation due to the viewing of unexplored parts of Slovak history as myths. Robert Pynsent suggests that a myth can appear either as a "normal neutral narrative of concem," 20 or it can be a "bridge too far" in re17 Cas Mudde, "Civil society in post-communist Europe: Lessons from the ' dark side,"' In Uncivil society? Contentious politics in post-communist Europe, eds. Petr Kopecky and Cas Mudde (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 161. 18 For the opposite view see Egil Lejon who sees the creation of the Slovak Republic in 1993 as a result of Slovak historical traditions and an emancipation movement which accelerated in 1848 and later. Interview with Egil Lejon "Slovensko prikladom," Literarny tyzdennik, August 12, 1994, p.11. Lejon suggests that the Slovaks are not nationalistic enough in terms of what modem nationalism requires: cultural self-confidence, national pride, and loyalty. 19 See Kedourie on the selective use of the antonyms 'progressive ' - ' regressive ' in regard to nationalism in the Marxist interpretation of history ('progressive' during the advent of capitalism replacing fe udalism, ' progressive' in the fight of colonial and post-colonial nations against imperialism, and ' regressive' within capitalism resisting socialism). Elie Kedourie, Nationalism (London: Hutchinson & Co Ltd., 1966), 90-91. Applying Mudde 's observation, the 'bad ' case of nationalism in the early 1990s was the split of Czechoslovakia, whereas the 'good' cases were the dismemberments of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. In contrast to the two latter, Slovak nationalism did not involve violence. 20 Robert Pynsent, Questions of Identity: Czech and Slovak Ideas of Nationality and Personality (Budapest-London-New York: Central European University Press, 1994), 87. SLOVAKIA 79 gard to its practical implications in nation and state-building processes in Slovak history as implicated by G. Eyal, S.J. Cohen and T. Haughton. 2 1 While applying the first flexible definition, it may be postulated that myths are constantly emerging. An effective way to understand the essence of a myth in terms of its value as a possible source of historical facts is to compare both of its forms. The official mythology of the European Union is that it was born out of a sudden inspiration that had fallen upon Jean Monnet - a Romulus to the European Community - during his trip to the Alps. The idea was apparently instrumental in reconciling France and Germany during the meeting of Robert Schumann and Konrad Adenauer in May of 1950, which gave birth to the European Coal and Steel Community. 22 Others see this process in an all-European myth-deconstructing perspective as the outcome of the decisive involvement of the United States, tired of the French-German reluctance to reach an agreement. 23 Concurrently, some scholars have viewed the creation of the European Union in the early 1990s as the culmination of the tireless work of lobbyists, who had effectively executed the wishes of great corporations to create a common market which was about to grant the architects of the EU even greater eco- 21 See Gil Eyal, The Origins of Post-Communist Elites: from the Prague Spring to the Breakup of Czechoslovakia (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), 131 , and Tim Haughton, Constraints and Opportunities of Leadership in Post-Communist Europe (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 4-5. This is also the leitmotif of Shari J. Cohen's book Politics Without A Past: The Absence Of History In Postcommunist Nationalism (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1999). 22 "Chaque annee, si je le peux, je vais faire de grandes courses dans les Alpes .. .J'y retrouve l'expression de l'inquietude qui opressait l'Europe cinq ans apres la guerre: une autre guerre est proche devant nous si nous ne faisons rien. L' Allemagne n' en sera pas la cause, mais elle en sera l'enjeu. II faut qu'elle cesse d'etre un enjeu, qu 'elle devienne au contraire un lien. Seule la France peut actuellement prendre une initiative." Jean Monnet, Memoires (Paris: Fayard, 1997), 342. 23 John Gillingham, Coal, Steel and the Rebirth of Europe, 1945-1955: The Germans and French from Ruhr Conflict to Economic Community (Cambridge University Press, 1991 ). Particularly explicative is the role of the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany John McCloy in bringing the French and Germans together to the signing of the Treaty of Paris (April 18, 1951 ), which instituted the European Coal and Steel Community. Gillingham stressed the fact that McCloy "summoned" the German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer to his office for a "dressing down" for his unwillingness to sign the document. Ibid, 280. 80 SLOVAKIA nomic profits. 24 A different group of authors opposed such ignoble motives with their hagiographic vision of the institutional emergence of the European Community and the later European Union as the outcome of exceptional negotiating and diplomatic skills of supranational executives who were serving the citizens of Europe.25 It is clear that each perspective has its merits and this adds to the perplexing complexity of the issue and resulting interpretations. This variety of opinions points to the core of the problem linked to the non-historicity of Slovaks and their questionable ability to cope with more recent problems in the transformation of their society. The skeptically insinuated ' mythical' legacy of 9th century Great Moravia and the invisible link from it to modem Slovak politics, apart from its distance from the present, which partially legitimizes its appearance as a myth, disregards the simple fact that to the Slovaks it was a lighthouse, not a matrix blindly to follow in the creation of a sovereign modem Slovakia. There is no difference in this regard between small and big nations who honor their historical traditions that often blend with myths. Most importantly, it is not Great Moravia itself, but the connection between it and the 19th and 20th centuries that matters in the discourse on the historicity of Slovaks. This link was hardly reflected, let alone examined, by western scholars in the 1990s in contrast to their predecessors - the historians R.W. Seton-Watson, Robert A. Kann, Oscar Halecki, and C.A. Macartney.26 After the extinction of the Arpad dynasty (1301 ), which had represented the ethnic Magyars, the foreign rulers of the Kingdom of 24 Belen Balanya, Ann Doherty, Olivier Hoedeman, Adam Ma' anit and Erik Wesselius, Europe Inc.: Regional and Global Restructuring and the Rise of Corporate Power (London-Sterling, Virginia: Pluto Press, 2000). The authors stress their perception of the creation of the European Union as the result of a plan made by the European Roundtable of Industrialists (ERT) composed of 45 captains of the largest European transnational corporations. See Preface of the book, xi-xv. 25 Ken Endo, The Presidency of the Europ ean Commission under Jacques De/ors. The Politics of Shared Leadership (London : Macmillan, 1999). Helen Drake, Jacques De/ors. Perspectives on a European Leader (London-New York: Routledge, 2000). 26 For an attempt to see Slovak history in historical continuity by a foreign scholar see the chapter by the Austrian historian Arnold Suppan, "Die Slowakei zwischen Grossmahrischen Reich und Europaischer Union: Kontinuitaten und Diskontinui taten," in Plus Ultra. Die Welt Der Neuzeit. Festschrift far Alfred Kohler zum 65. Geburtstag, eds. F. Edelmayer, M. Fuchs, G. Heilingsetler, P. Rauscher (Munster: Aschendorf, 2008), 331-68. SLOVAKIA 81 Hungary - the Anjous, the Luxembourgs, the Jagiellons, the Hahsburgs - were wisely and clairvoyantly tolerant towards the ethnic groups of Hungary as the state otherwise would have not survived for the next seven centuries.27 Once the glory of the Kingdom of Hungary and the privileges of a political nation were attributed to one nationality (the Magyars) in the 18th and 19th centuries, there was no choice for others, who felt degraded to second-class citizens, than to nourish and strengthen their own identities - linguistic, cultural, social, and political. Paradoxically, a tendency to be suspicious of the interpretations of Slovak history as an indivisible part of the history of the Kingdom of Hungary still prevails. Until a shift in this perception happens, Slovaks may be further viewed as a non-historic entity despite empirical and heuristic evidence that testifies to their genuine participation in the societal and institutional life of the kingdom they shared with others in times when language and ethnicity meant less than social status and class affiliation. 28 The myth versus 'myth' ambiguity in the interpretations of the history of East and West testifies to the existence of a wide range of applicable perspectives and alternative interpretations. A better awareness of this ambiguity, which exists in both East and West, may help us to also understand the reasons for the ruptures in Slovak history, fractured into its being and seeming. The most visible anoma- 27 Disregarding the multi-ethnic aspects and dynastic ruptures in the medieval and modern history of Hungary would be the same as excluding the early Plantagenets from the history of England due to their appearance as non-Anglo-Saxon, FrancoNorman, elements. The history of England would have to begin anew with the Tudors . The rupture progressive versus regressive (see Kedourie) in the history of the United States is observable in the interpretations of the reasons for the Civil War and its aftermath. A similar rupture (totalitarian+-+democratic) exists in the history of Germany before it became a democratic state. 28 "The Slovaks on their side lost their national existence [after the defeat of Great Moravia] in that of their Asiatic conquerors, entered into their ranks as soldiers, and participated thence-forward in all their fortunes .. .Their language however is the only remnant of their national existence which the Slovaks have preserved; in every other respect they belong to the Hungarian nation, of which they form an ingredient part, as the Magyars form another; and on the glory of whose valiant deeds they have an equal claim." Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson, Historical View of the Language and Literature of the Slavic Nation (New York: BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2006) (Reprint of the original version published by George P. Putnam in New York in 1851), 186-7. 82 SLOVAKIA lies of this split consequently appeared either as 'betrayals' or 'awakenings.' 2. Seeming and Being in Slovak History as a Part of the History of Czechoslovakia and Hungary. In 1991 Slovak historian Anton Hmko pointed out that the book by Slovak politician Ivan Derer on the rulings of the National Court in the First Czechoslovak Republic,29 written from the perspective of an ardent unitarist and "Czechoslovak," was conveniently accepted by Marxist historiography. The reason was obvious as the adversary was the same - the Slovak autonomist movement and the legacy of the wartime Slovak Republic (1939-1945). Having provided statistical data on the topics of the studies published by Slovak historians, Hrnko argued that the history of interwar Czechoslovakia ( 19181938) belonged to one of its most ideologically distorted segments. 30 This vacuum was filled by the works of court historians who helped to create myths as the politically and ideologically "subjective projection of desirable horizons." 31 If a 'myth' could emerge relatively recently with plenty of primary documents, one can ask the question - are there more of them? To respond to it at least in part, it is necessary to return to the early 1990s, when ideological constraints were removed from scholarship and academia and the attention of scholars and media turned towards nationalism. Miroslav Hroch's classification of nationalities in East Central Europe on their advancement in the national reawakening, which was published in the year when Czechoslovakia broke up, put the Slovaks a step behind the Czechs and the Magyars, without providing details, except for a very general reference. 32 This article suggests that, until the revolution of 1848, Slovaks did not lag behind 29 Ivan Derer, Slovensky vyvin a l'udacka zrada (Praha: Kvasnicka a Hamp!, I 946). Anton Hmko, "Zatemnene dejiny: Obraz medzivojnovej slovenskej spolocnosti v fracach slovenskych historikov," Literarny tyidennik, June 28, 1991 , p.10. 1 Marianna Oravcova, "The Ethnic and Cultural Dimension of National Emancipation: The Evocation of the Slovak Nation," in Language, Values and the Slovak Nation, eds. Tibor Pichler and Jana Gasparikova (Washington: Paideia Press, 1994), 11 . In the last sentence Oravcova refers to the article by Pavo! Horvath, "K niektorym otazkam historickych tradicii na Slovensku," Slovensky narodopis 1-2 (1986), 60-65 . 32 Miloslav Hroch, "From National Movement to the Fully-Formed Nation: The Nation-Building Process in Europe," New Left Review, 1/198 (March-April 1993), 64. 30 SLOVAKIA 83 the Czechs in terms of the press, programs, the creation of a literary language and the petition movements. Hroch was more accurate when pointing to the forced Magyarization that started after 1867 as a major hindrance to Slovak national progress, including its social and economic aspects. Yet even that historical period has to be reexamined as it had not been a time of complete silence, although it would be convenient to see it in that way. Communist historiography in the 1950s gladly embraced the earlier idea that Slovaks had been saved by the Czechs from extinction as a nation, a concept which slipped into western scholarship. This hypothesis was based on censuses which showed the decreasing number of Slovak intelligentsia and schools as the 19th century progressed. These scholars concluded that the Slovaks would have been assimilated by the Magyars in one or two generations. 33 There had previously been two generations of Slovaks living under Magyarization from 1875 to 1914, yet the Slovak press, though under censorship and constant pressure, was full of political articles and calls for national, social and cultural progress. 34 Magyar elites knew very well that Slovak identity did not depend solely on schooling in their native language, but also on the family environment. Therefore, they forcibly took Slovak children from poor families and transported them to regions where Magyar was spoken. 35 The unrest in Turiec and Zvolen County in Central Slovakia that led to attacks on local Magyar authorities was a mixture of social and national elements. They testified to the continuing, even increasing Slovak resilience against Magyarization as observed by R. W. Seton-Watson. 36 Final33 For an argument against the traditional view that the Slovaks could not create their intelligentsia because of harsh Magyarization see Dusan Kovac, Roman Holec, Elena Jakesova, Elena Mannova, Milan Podrimavsky, Na zaciatku storocia, 19011914 (Bratislava: Veda, 2004), 44. 34 Milan Krajcovic, "Slovaci v emancipacnom pohybe nemad'arskych narodov," in Slovensko na zaciatku storocia: Spolocnost'. stat a narod v suradniciach doby, eds. Milan Podrimavsky and Dusan Kovac (Bratislava: Hu SA V, 1999), 48-65 . 35 "By the Law of 1891 , the State has deliberately assumed the attitude of the Sultans in earlier centuries. Just as the Christian rayah was regarded as a breedingmachine to supply janissaries, so to-day non-Magyars of Hungary are breedingmachines whose children must be taught Magyar from the earliest age in the hope that they may become renegades to the traditions of their ancestors." R.W. SetonWatson, Racial Problems in Hungary , 222. 36 Ibid., 394. Seton-Watson stressed that 92 .5% of the Liptov county inhabitants were Slovaks and 90.6% understood no Magyar. Ibid. , 332. 84 SLOVAKIA ly, in 1918, it was the masses of peasants and lower strata of Slovak society that had preserved, as lsmo Nurmi suggested, a high degree of self-consciousness. 37 They were instrumental in embracing the idea of their future coexistence with the Czechs under the provisions of the Pittsburgh Agreement, but under no circumstances with the Magyars. Without this support the few intellectuals at home and abroad could hardly have reached their political goals in October and November of 1918 when the Czechoslovak Republic was born. It is equally true that significant numbers of Slovak Magyarones gave up their ethnicity for the sake of their careers while following the example of the Slovak nobility and gentry which were "easily and gladly" Magyarized in the 19th century. 38 Still, it is hard to believe that three million Slovaks at home and abroad, with the most resistant of them in North America, would have been completely Magyarzsed even if Hungary had been preserved in its prewar boundaries . A possible analogy with the Irish resistance, underscored by the role played in national emancipation by leaders such as Milan R. Stefanik and Stefan Osusky, who left Hungary and vehemently fought for the Slovak cause abroad, comes to mind. Their work, done at the highest political and diplomatic levels, was supplemented by dozens of zealous Slovak national activists in the United States. 39 37 Ismo Nurmi, Slovakia - A Playground for Nationalism and National Identity, 1918-1920: Manifestations of the National identity of Slovaks (Helsinki : Suomen Historiallinen Seura, 1999), 45. 38 C.A . Macartney, Hungary and Her Successors. The Treaty of Trianon and its Consequences 1919-1937 (London : Oxford University Press, 1937), 91. 39 The Slovak press in North America - 30 newspapers with a circulation of 150,000 in 1914 - was such a force that the Hungarian government as early as in 1890 had banned the imports of some of them and began subsidi zing pro-Hungarian publications in the United States. M. Mark Stolarik, "The Slovak-American Press," in Sally M. Miller ed. , The Ethnic Press in the United States: A Historical Analysis and Handbook (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987), 365. Count Albert Apponyi, one of the main protagonists of Magyarization and a representative of the Hungarian government on his visit to the United States attempted to present Hungary as a ftee and democratic country. He was denounced as a tyrant and pressed by a huge mob comprising members of "Slavic nationalities and Hungarian socialists" during his lectures. In Chicago, Apponyi escaped the fury of the mob and fled to his car only with the protection provided by the police. See The New York Times, February 25, 1911 , p. 3. For the Slovak resistence against the territorial aspirations of fascist Hungary see the boastful statement by Gustav Husak on February 28, 1945: "I openly declare that Slovakia' s frontiers [with Hungary] as they had existed in the [prewar] Czechoslovak Republic are stable. Slovakia is united and non-divisible. Any SLOVAKIA 85 After World War II, Konstantin Culen, a Slovak publicist in exile, suggested that living with the Czechs was for the Slovaks a rather negative experience. 4°Culen's arguments were based on the constant rejection of Slovak autonomy in Czechoslovakia by President Edvard Benes, who had never shown any particular affection for the Slovaks, and the post-war execution of Msgr. Jozef Tiso, President of the wartime Slovak Republic. With the situation of the Slovaks in southern Slovakia ceded to Hungary by the Vienna Award of November 1938 in mind, it is legitimate to assume that cohabitation with the Czechs, though far from being idyllic, included fewer risks for the completion of Slovak national emancipation than their hypothetical existence in Hungary after WW I. Furthermore, the Czechs in 1918 were already significantly ahead of the Slovaks as far as societal cohesion and socio-economic progress of their societies were concerned. The animosity started with the Czech disrespect toward the Catholic Church and with their disregard for the continuing socio-economic underdevelopment of Slovakia. The problem became acute in the 1930s, when the Slovak intelligentsia, which had remarkably increased by that time, as well as ordinary citizens, could not find work in Slovakia because the best jobs were filled by the Czechs. In contrast to the situation that had existed in the 1920s, Slovaks were ready to become executives, administrators, teachers, lawyers and doctors. This happened in 1939 and after. Unfortunately, after WW II Czech political leaders, both civic and communist, were not willing to admit that the Slovaks had grown up and were able to govern themselves.41 The Czech historical experience was strongly influenced by the Protestant Reformation, secularism and greater industrial advancement due to their proximity to and cohabitation with the Germans. With the creation of Czechoslovakia after WW I, the Czechs proved themselves worthy followers of their predecessors and for a moment irredentism by Magyar fascists will end in vain. Our nation, which has been able to resist the military power of Germany, will find enough strength to firmly defend its borders." See the document "Z referatu Gustava Husaka na konferencii Komunistickej strany Slovenska," February 28, 1945. Dokumenty slovenskej narodnej identi2; a statnosti II (Bratislava: Narodne literarne centrum, 1998), 400. Konstantin Culen, Po Sviitoplukovi druha nasa hlava: Politicky i ivotopis Dr. Jozefa Tisu (Cleveland: The First Catholic Slovak Union, 1947). 41 Carol Skalnik Leff, National Conflict in Czechoslovakia: the Making and Remaking of a State, 1918-1987 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 89. 86 SLOVAKIA also a barrier erected by the victorious Allies against German domination over Central and Eastern Europe. After the incorporation of Slovakia into Czechoslovakia, the national self-confidence of the Czechs was on the rise. After WW II, the Czechs led by the Communist Party, and with the mighty Soviet Union backing them, returned to the concept of a unitary Czechoslovakia. To them, the push for reforms in the 1960's, which was interpreted as the "Prague" rather than the "Czecho-Slovak Spring," was also a return to their national history. The invasion of Czechoslovakia by the armies of the Warsaw Pact in August of 1968, led by the Soviet Union, their former liberator, and the only Slavic Superpower, was especially traumatic for the Czechs. This trauma, imposed from outside, was complemented by a domestic one: the effects of 'normalization' and federalization, both seen as a part of the chain of Slovak "betrayals." The Slovaks rebelled from 1920 onward. First, they asked for autonomy, then they allegedly "conspired" with the Magyars and the Poles against the prewar Republic, and eventually got a taste of the forbidden fruit of political emancipation in the form of their nominally independent state.42 Meanwhile, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (1939-1945), the Czechs were ruled over and persecuted by the Germans. 43 With this perception of national history in Czech minds, the disappearance of the communist regime in 1989, which was allegedly harsher in the Czech Lands than in Slovakia, and which treated the Slovaks in the same way as did the First Czechoslovak Republic, was a golden opportunity to rebuild the state to Czech expectations. After recognizing that Slovaks were not willing to accept what they considered to be the continuation of the imbalance in the distribution of competences in a joint state in 1990-1992, the Czechs opted for the territorially-reduced variant of Czechoslovakia while inheriting its trademark. Since then, they have fared very well. 44 It 42 Leff, National Conflict, 26 and 164. For a Slovak perspective on the history of the Slovak-Czech and Czecho-Slovak relations since 1918 as the "history of broken pacts and unfulfilled promises," see Anton Hmko, "Politicke zapasy na Slovensku v lete a na jesen 1990," Historicky zbornik 10, no. I (2000), 77. 43 Though the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia had its own administration, it was an indivisible part of the Third Reich, which saw itself as a historic successor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation. 44 See the article "Slovakia's Economy ls Doing Well, Too" by Peter Burian, The New York Times, June I, 1996. The author, charge d 'ajfaires of the Embassy of the SLOVAKIA 87 may seem that this chapter of their history was closed and sealed. The aftermath of the "Velvet Divorce" and the relationship between the two former federal nations was not always rosy. Throughout the 1990s, it was not difficult to contrast the progress made by the Czech Republic with Slovakia's problems. In the early 2000s, with the Meciar era gone and economic advancement that surprised many, the previous negative image of Slovaks as nationalists turned to the delay in democratic transformation of their society. 45 In recent books on Czech history since the early medieval era the Slovaks are hardly mentioned. With Slovakia's progress in the integration processes, substitutes for Slovak nationalism appeared instantly.46 Despite mutual sympathies as documented by surveys of public opinion and praise by Slovak and Czech politicians of their good relations, from 1993 onward free of economic quarrels,47 the clash of bitter memories continued. They have ranged from topics such as investment opportunities by renowned international compa- Slovak Republic in Washington, responded to a similar article in the NYT on the Czech Republic doing well "with luck and without Slovakia," while providing data on GDP (7.4% growth), unemployment (7.4%), doubled foreign currency reserves, a £ositive trade balance and low foreign debt per capita ($800.00). 5 According to Professor Filip Palda from E Ecole nationale d 'administration publique in Montreal, "Separation in 1992 allowed the Czechs to halt the payola on which Slovaks had come to depend. Since separation in 1992, the Slovaks have gone the way of Argentina, whereas the Czechs are now preparing to enter the European Union." See "Argentina north" by Filip Palda. The Ottawa Citizen, January 21 , 2002. Anton Hykisch, former Slovak ambassador to Canada, opined that, for Hungary and the Czech Republic, Slovakia's economic success in the early 2000s was a big surprise which was hard for them to accept. Author interview with Anton Hykisch, Bratislava, June 5, 2007. 46 For a contrasting view on the political systems and parliamentarism in the Czech and Slovak Republics as advanced and less developed see Petr Kopecky, Parliaments in the Czech and Slovak Republics: Party competition and parliamentary institutionalization (London : Ashgate, 2001). The Czech political scientist Lubomir Kopecek opines that in comparison with the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, the evolution of the Slovak political system is unfinished and the system itself is unstable. As a result, Slovakia is a "semi-consolidated democracy." Lubomir Kopecek, Demokracie, diktatury a politicke stranictvi stranictvi na Slovensku (Brno: CDK, 2006), 307 and 3 10. 47 See the article "Klaus: Vzt'ahy Slovenska a Ceska m6zu byt' pri.kladom pre celu Eur6pu," Pravda, June 29, 2009. It became a tradition that the first official visits of the newly-elected presidents and prime ministers of the Czech and Slovak Republics have been with their closest neighbor. 88 SLOVAKIA nies, 48 to the often derogatory comments on domestic politics and rivalry in sports, with frequent references to the "sins" in national histories of the two nations .49 Until the revolutionary years 1848-1849, Slovaks and Magyars had cohabitated peacefully. Four decades of forced Magyarization after 1867 were hard for the Slovaks, yet there was still some moral and socio-political capital left for the improvement of mutual relationships. If this failed in 1918, Slovaks could hardly have been blamed for it as their political weight and influence in Hungary was marginal. In the fall of 193 8, after two decades of the existence of Czechoslovakia, Slovakia was stripped of its southern territories by the Vienna Award.50 Almost seven years of living in Hungary (19381945) returned the Slovaks in the south to a life which resembled what had existed before 1918. After the Second World War and until 1989, the relationship between the Slovaks and Magyars might have appeared as normal, but it was not. Once the Soviet Union was gone and the fate of Czechoslovakia disputed, the old animosities resurfaced . For all Slovak governments since 1989, the status of the Magyar minority became a litmus test in measuring the state of democracy in Slovakia by western governments and scholars. During the Meciar years, Magyars in Slovakia voiced their dissatisfaction with 48 According to a poll by the Czech Private Equity and Venture Capital Association based in Prague, four out of five of its economists and financial analysts said that foreign investment would flow to the Czech rather than to the Slovak Republic. See "Investori uprednostnia Cesko pred Slovenskom," Sme, May 29, 2009. Slovak readers rejected the idea as wishful thinking on the Czech side and suggested that a poll conducted by a Slovak-based company would have shown the opposite. 49 They frequently appear on the Czech web sites www.seznam.cz., www.idnes.cz and their Slovak counterparts www.sme.sk and www.pravda.sk. On April 1 of2009 when the Slovak national football team defeated its opponent in Prague in the qualifier for the Word Cup in South Africa (2010), debates among the fans of both teams turned to their common past with references to the "betrayal" in 1938-1939 and to the Slovak inferiority complex vis-a-vis the Czechs. Slovaks pointed to Czech compliance with German rule in the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia and affirmed that they did not measure themselves against the Czechs - a fixed idea on the Czech side. 50 Julius Mesaros, "Some Deformations in the Interpretation of Censuses in Recent Slovak-Magyar Controversies," In Slovak & Magyars, ed. Pavol Stevcek (Bratislava: Ministerstvo kultury, 1995), 63-84. The census of 1910 showed the presence of 885,397 Magyars on the territory which became part of Slovakia in 1918 (30.3% of the population). Mesaros argues that even "this number was not the result of natural development, or Slovak-Magyar and Magyar-Slovak bilingualism, but a result of the purposeful Magyarization and oppression of Slovaks." Ibid. , 78 . SLOVAKIA 89 the approaches of Slovak governments in administrative, linguistic, financial and cultural matters. Claims made by their leaders for more tolerance and understanding by the Slovaks have been in stark contrast with the ambiguous language of the representatives of the Magyar minority regarding their possible autonomy. 5 1 While the Slovaks and the Czechs after 1992 were able to reach the highest level of mutual respect and understanding, Slovaks and Magyars remained mentally anchored in the period between 1918 and 1945. The trauma of Trianon in 1920 and their expulsion from South Slovakia in 1945-194 7 is deeply engraved in the minds of Magyars, as is the forced Magyarization and the effects of the Vienna Arbitration in the minds of the Slovaks. Each side continues to interpret the causes and outcomes of those events according to its own perception and sentiments. A partial solution to the problem - history textbooks written by Slovak and Magyar historians together - is to this date still "in progress" and it is hard to predict when and if they will ever be finished and distributed to schools in both countries. 52 History is firmly tied into daily politics in East Central Europe. Its revival outside of scholarly conferences and seminars and its use as a model for the present or future by politicians may lead to the release of a genie from his bottle. 53 This refers particularly to Slovakia as being possibly identified as the weakest link within an informal Little Entente. 54 If both nations do not want to waste what has 51 The representatives of the Magyar political parties in Slovakia (before 1998), with the exception of Miklos Duray and Pal Csaky from the SMK. (the Party of the Magyar Coalition), were careful about publicly speaking of autonomy for Magyars in Slovakia, though the idea of their political and administrative autonomy has frequently appeared - sotto voce - as their ultimate goal. Most recently, Duray admitted that territorial autonomy is unrealistic, but the chance for a vaguely defined "personal'' autonomy for the Magyar minority in Slovakia still exists. See the article "Ouray o vel'kom Mad'arsku nesniva, auton6mia je vsak podl'a neho realna," Pravda, August 4, 2009. 52 Vilaro Kratochvil, "K moznostiam oslabovania predsudkov a stereotypov v tvorbe ucebnic dejepisu," in Myty a predsudky v dejincich. Historickci konferencia 7. decembra 2004, ed. Attila Simon (Samorin-Dunajska Streda: Forum Institut pre vyskum mensin, 2005). 53 See the interview with Slovak historian Ivan Kamenec. "Kamenec: Politici su najhorsi ziaci hist6rie," Sme, May 9, 2009. Kamenec refers to the diverging interpretations of the period 1944-1948. 54 Serbia, Slovakia, Romania, in which Magyar minorities live. Jan Camogursky said that the highest challenge to Slovakia's foreign policy after accession into NATO and the EU remains the country's ability to face continuing interference by 90 SLOVAKIA remained positive from the legacy of their peaceful cohabitation, and if they wish to get rid of the shadows of the past, they have to reach a mutually respectful Slovak - Magyar and Magyar - Slovak Compromise. Not by political gestures, but by the inner force of their societies. Neither of the two nations, closely bound together for centuries, can separately pass this test of national and civic maturity.55 3. The Myth of a Sudden Awakening of Slovak Society in the 1998 Parliamentary Elections. The major problem in Slovak history from an outsider's perspective - its invisibility linked to a fragmented appearance as a part of the history of Hungary and Czechoslovakia - influenced also its recent domestic interpretations. In reference to the Slovak national anthem, sociologists Martin Butora and Zora Butorova compared Slovak society in 1989 to "Sleeping Beauty." 56 They went so far as to say that" .. . in November 1989, an overwhelming majority of people in Slovakia accepted political change passively." This view is similar to those that refer to "socialism with a human face" in the second half of the 1960s as a purely Czech affair, 57 and those that see Charright-wing Magyar politicians into Slovakia's domestic affairs through issues regardi ng the status of the Magyar minority in Slovakia. Author interview with Jan Camogursky, Bratislava, May 24, 2007. In a poll conducted in January of 2004, 21 .3% of participants identified Hungary as a major threat to Slovak national security. See Boris Benkovic, "Vyskumna sprava," in Verejnti mienka a politika. Medzintirodne vzt'ahy a zahranicnti politika Slovenskej republiky, ed. Miroslav Peknik (Brati slava: Veda, 2005), 38 (see Graph 9). 55 For the necessity for mutual respect between the Slovak majority and minorities that would lead to their loyalty to the state based on civic principles see Milan Zemko, "Modemy politicky narod," in Slovenskti ottizka dnes, ed. Laszlo Szigeti (Bratislava: Kalligram, 2007), 192 . Zemko refers to Renan ' s idea of a "nation as a daily plebiscite" in a continuous building of a Slovak political nation : "L'existence d' une nation est. .. plebiscite de tous lesj ours, comme !'existence de l'individu est affirmation perpetuelle de vie." Ernest Renan, "Qu'est-ce qu ' une nation?" Conference faite en Sorbonne, le 11 mars 1882. Oeuvres completes d 'Ernest Renan (Paris: Calmann Levy, editor, 1882), 27. 56 Martin Butora and Zora Butorova, "S lovakia's Democratic Awakening," Journal of Democracy 10, no. I (1999), 80. 5 Ibid, 83. See Jon Elster, Claus Offe and Ulbricht K. Preuss, Institutional design in post-communist societies: rebuilding the ship at sea (Cambridge - New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998). The authors came to the conclusion that "The 1968 vision of socialism with a human face was entirely a Czech, not Slovak phenomenon." Ibid. , 264. SLOVAKIA 91 ter 77 as the only agent of civic resistance against the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. Earlier observations by Karen Henderson point to preconceived approaches to Slovak history suffering from "dangerous analytical misconceptions that have to work backward."58 Theories on the institution-building processes in communist and post-communist Czechoslovakia view the institutions emerging during the transitory period as a result of bricolage - the innovative building of new institutions by politicians who function as bricoleurs. 59 A similar approach can be taken when examining the most important moments in the modern history of Slovakia and their contrasting interpretations seen in "bricks." Works by political scientists are often based on deductive reasoning (see the scheme's Bricolage I, at the end of the article). Thus, if Slovakia deviated from its course towards western democracies in the mid-1990s (originally Brick A), the explanation was obvious: it happened because of the country's past, bound by the immaturity of its society following the breakup of Czechoslovakia, which stemmed from pervasive Slovak nationalism. This led to ungratefulness towards the Czechs and revenge towards the Magyars (Brick B). Likewise, it has been argued that a high degree of compliance with the communist regime and its detrimental impact on Slovak society kept societal life frozen (Brick C). Moreover, the weak economic base of Slovakia inherited from Hungary, along with the controversial character and legacy of wartime Slovakia (Brick D), did not help to eliminate the socio-economic backwardness, political inexperience of Slovaks and thus their negative international image (Brick E) . Deductive reasoning has its merits. It is even more convincing when supported by direct experience and contact with the subject of the study, buttressed by familiarity with primary sources. Foreign scholars who did their research in Slovakia in the late 1990s and throughout the 2000s, helped to broaden a variety of perspectives on Slovak history, which Slovak historians themselves have been unaware of. It is interesting to observe that western, not Slovak scholars, argue in favor of the capacity of Slovak society to build new institu58 Karen Henderson, "Evaluating the Slovak Transition: What Creates the Image of Slovaki a?" 26. 59 John A. Scherpereel, Governing the Czech Republic and Slovakia: Between State Socialism and the European Union (Boulder - London : First Forum Press, 2009), 68 . 92 SLOVAKIA tions during the communist and post-communist era (Scherpereel, Haughton) . Foreign scholars have referred to the importance of a "critical mass of educated citizens" and political stability in Slovakia prior to, during and after the "change" in 1998 (Henderson), and stressed the presence of a "profound and sizeable Slovak opposition to the culture of Communism" (A. Innes), whilst sociologists and political scientists at home (S. Szomolanyi, 0 . Gyarfasova, Z. Butorova, J. Marusiak) have been more skeptical. From a long-term historical perspective based on inductive reasoning, the context and nuances of Slovakia's post-communist transformation appear significantly different from a micro perspective as applied by the social sciences. This perspective suggests that, to understand the evolution of Slovak society with all its accomplishments and failures, the key is to start from the beginning, not from the end or the middle, and not by theories and generalizations, but with facts, particularly in contested perspectives. Interpretations based on deductive reasoning may result, and they often did, in theories on and explanations of the reasons for the still continuing building of the Slovak political nation and democracy in the country as an "unfinished business," turning it into "the hare versus turtle" race. Such perspectives attribute nationalism in the 1990s exclusively to the Slovaks, while ignoring the fears of Slovak society stemming from its historical experience, linked to the years 1867-1918, 19181919, 1938-1939, 1945-1948 and after. Moreover, such perspectives suffer from inner contradictions. Despite the partly beneficial impact of Czechoslovakia on Slovakia, the latter was in 1993, similar to the years 1918, 1938-1939 as well as during communist Czechoslovakia, socio-economically a less developed part of the common state. 60 Likewise, the Slovak political experience in prewar Czechoslovakia has been seen as weak due to the detrimental impact of a different and underdeveloped political culture inherited by the Slovaks from Hungary, for which two decades of the existence of democratic Czechoslovakia ( 1918-193 8) was too a short period to improve. 61 Consequently, due to the traditional "historic deficits" in the evolution of Slovak society, its civic attitu60 Miroslav Londak, "K niektorym problemom ekonomickeho vyvoja na Slovensku na prahu roka 1968," Historicke studie 44 (2006), p.188. 61 Kopecek, 27-34 and 311. SLOVAKIA 93 des linked to pluralism during Communism did not develop properly.62 This perspective does seem not to apply to Slovakia's neighbors, the Magyars and the Poles, with their limited experience with parliamentary democracy before and after WW II, which were similar to Spain and Italy in the West. Hungary and Poland apparently redeemed themselves in the eyes of the West by the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the activities of the Solidarity Movement in Poland from 1980 onward. The question, however, is how could those events of undisputed civic bravery substitute for democracy as a system of governance that needs time to develop? By contrast, the longlasting non-compliance of Slovak society with the communist regime, as demonstrated by repeated large-scale participation in religious pilgrimages and demonstrations, has either been downplayed or referred to as having had no impact on politics in communist Czechoslovakia.63 After the 1998 parliamentary elections, Slovak sociologists and leaders of the non-governmental sector helped to create and spread a positive image of Slovak society by contrasting the Meciar era with the progress made in integration with western organizations during the two Dzurinda governments. 64 They suggested that the electoral behavior of voters in rural and economically underdeveloped regions, who voted in favor of the Movement for a Democratic Slo62 Based on a survey conducted in May of 1968, in which 69.5% of the respondents in the Czech Lands as compared with 54.6% in Slovakia supported the existence of more political parties. At the same time, 53 % of Czech participants saw positively the role of civic associations in political life, while in Slovakia it was only 32%. Kopecek, 143. 63 Kopecek stresses the continuity in Czech dissent linked to the reform movement in the I 960s and the role of Charter 77, which was signed by 1800 Czechs in comparison with two dozen Slovaks as the flag bearer of civic resistance against Communism in Czechoslovakia. Kopecek, p.145. Jan Camogursky vigorously opposes the assumption that religious dissent in Slovakia had a limited impact on the regime. According to him, the massive pilgrimages to Velehrad and Levoca helped to soften the harassment of dissenters and citizens by communist authorities. Author interview with Jan Camogursky, Bratislava, May 24, 2007. On a similar stance taken by Abby Innes see her book Czechoslovakia: The Short Goodbye (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001), 36-37. 64 Such delineation is, technically, an anachronism, as the third Meciar government did not oppose integration, particularly into the EU, though it eventually brought Slovakia into international isolation. 94 SLOVAKIA vakia (HZDS) led by Vladimir Meciar and the Slovak National Party (SNS),65 resembled support for the Hlinka Slovak People 's Party (the tudaks) during the wartime Slovak Republic. In contrast to their earlier suggestions, these observers view positively the ability of Magyar communities in Slovakia, which live in rural areas and cast their votes exclusively for the Magyar political parties in each election 66 while referring to it as a "higher form of civic participation and social engagement." 67 Inductive reasoning provides the reader with the opportunity to view Slovakia's post-communist transformation in a complex, evolutionary perspective (see the scheme's Bricolage II): It consists of the following "bricks:" Brick A - "Antecedents" (1848-1918). The traditional view is that during and after the Revolutions of 1848-1849, Slovaks were aware that Magyars were not willing to allow them to exist autonomously and, hence, they started to design their political programs, build institutions, schools, and political parties . Fearing Panslavism, Magyar radicals attempted to Magyarize the nationalities in Hungary, including the Slovaks, with some success (Magyarones). As a consequence, some Slovak, mostly Pro65 The SNS, which, next to the Christian-Democratic Movement (KDH) in the early 1990s and the HZDS in the mid-1 990s was also compared with the HSCS, has always been supportive of the legacy of the Slovak National Uprising in stark contrast to the perspective of the l'udaks and the neo-l'udaks. The same holds for the HZDS. 66 Next to the SMK, a new party to represent both Magyars and Slovaks named the Most-Hid (The Bridge; Slovak and Magyar), was established in July of 2009. Its chairman became Bela Bugar, the former chairman of the SMK, who lost to Pal Csaky in the party elections in April of 2007 . See "Ministerstvo vnutra zaregistrovalo Bugarovu stranu," Pravda, July 3, 2009. ln the 2010 parliamentary elections another new political party, Freedom and Solidarity [SaS] appeared, and supplied ministers to the Radicova government but also caused it to collapse in October of 20 11. Only recently established parties are: Obycajni l'udia - nezavisle osobnosti (Ordinary People - Independent Personalities), Strana slobodne slovo (The Free Word Party), and 99% - Obciansky hlas (99% - A Citizen's Voice). 67 See the article "Mad'ari su aktivnejsi nez Slovaci, tvrdi prieskum," Sme, March 28 2009. The article refers to a survey conducted by the Slovak Academy of Sciences and its interpretation by Zora Butorova from the Institute for Public Affairs (TVO), a non-governmental think-tank. Slovak Magyars defending their rights, while keeping their traditions and the cohesiveness of their society intact, is praised as a positive quality. The same was not applied to the Slovaks in Hungary and in Czechoslovakia when they tried to do the same. SLOVAKIA 95 testant, intellectuals, opted for cultural, and possibly political, cooperation with the Czechs. A majority of Slovaks, mostly Catholics, still believed that a solution for Slovakia within Hungary could be found. The period from 1890 to 1914, which was traditionally seen as the "dark ages" of Slovak national emancipation, brought about even more resilience against Magyarization. In October of 1918, the Slovaks joined the Czechs in a common state. They rejectted the offer by the Karolyi government for autonomy within Hungary. From November of 1918 onward, a series of military clashes occurred between Magyar and Czechoslovak troops. In June of 1919 the Hungarian Red Army invaded and occupied eastern and southern Slovakia for a short time. Difference (traditional views+-+the article): Slovaks were socially and politically active, not passive in Hungary, even during the time of the harshest Magyarization in 1890-1914, which coincided with the process of the formation of the Slovaks as a political nation. During and after WW I, Slovak leaders abroad and at home decided to join the Czechs in the new state of Czechoslovakia on the assumption they would receive autonomy as promised by the Pittsburgh Agreement of 1918. At the same time, the Slovak population demonstrated its strong dissatisfaction with the Magyar government and supported secession from Hungary by protests in which social and national aspects blended. Brick B - "Betrayals" (1918-1948). In prewar Czechoslovakia, the Slovaks were divided between the autonomists and the "Czechoslovaks." In this clash the CatholicProtestant controversy played an important role. Though the autonomists were seen in the Czech Lands as the destroyers of Czechoslovakia, they did not want to secede because they were afraid of territorial revisionism by the Poles and the Magyars. After Munich, Slovak political parties congregated in Zilina and expressed their support for Slovak autonomy within the rump second Czecho-Slovak Republic. The government of the nominally independent wartime Slovak Republic discriminated against and failed to protect its Jewish and Roma citizens from deportation to death camps. In the administrative and economic spheres, however, the Slovaks demonstrated their capacity to form a state and administer it themselves. Based on this experience, Slovak Communists, who had helped to 96 SLOVAKIA organize the Slovak National Uprising in 1944, expected Slovakia to receive autonomous status within the reconstituted Czechoslovakia. This was rejected by Czech presidents Edvard Benes, Klement Gottwald and Antonin Novotny. Difference: Slovaks were stereotyped in the Czech Lands as traitors since the 1920s. The fact that they did not want to secede from Czechoslovakia and remained in the second Czecho-Slovak Republic for half a year has been frequently overlooked. The socio-economic progress made by the wartime Slovak Republic, in contrast with the disinterest in Slovak affairs by previous centralist Czechoslovak governments, was significant. In May of 1946, the Communists were defeated in parliamentary elections in Slovakia, but not in the Czech Lands. By November of 1947, the Communists gained political control over Slovakia. The three Prague Agreements were viewed by the Slovaks as a betrayal, just as the Czechs viewed the aftermath of the Munich Agreement. Brick C - "Communism" (1948-1989). The idea of Slovak autonomy and economic equalization with the Czechs was adopted by Slovak Communists. The demand for reforming Communism in Slovakia grew with the accession to power in 1963 of the Slovak Alexander Dubcek. The return to national history and the drive for economic reform resulted in the idea of the federalization of Czechoslovakia. This was interpreted by the Czech side as a continuation of Slovak nationalism, because the debate in the Czech Lands was oriented towards political pluralism and economic reform. In 1969 came the removal of Dubcek, who was caught between the need for reform at home and the mistrust in him by political leaders of other communist countries. He was replaced by Gustav Husak, another Slovak, who embodied 'normalization.' Whereas Czechs intellectuals voiced their dissatisfaction with the Husak regime, Slovaks, allegedly, were compliant with it. Difference: Slovaks were no less active than the Czechs in initiating the reform movement in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s; in fact, they had helped to start it. Economic reform as a continuation of equalization stood in the forefront of the efforts of Slovak communist political leaders as well as economists. Federalization was important in regard to both political and economic competencies, whilst it was viewed by Czech society as another from of archetypal natio- SLOVAKIA 97 nal reassertion of the Slovaks resembling the 19th century. Slovak society lived in a paradoxical situation: next to the material benefits received during 'normalization,' the traditionally religious Slovaks reacted to ideological indoctrination by massive participation in religious pilgrimages. In addition to the religious dissenters, who were active already in the 1970s, environmentalists began to play an important role in the early 1980s in making also the secular part of Slovak society aware of the risks stemming from insensitive industrialization. In 1989, Slovak society as a whole, and on its own initiative, rejected the communist regime by massive demonstrations against it. Brick D - "Division" (1993-1997). The "Velvet Revolution," similar to the "Prague Spring," indicated, how the fall of Communism in Czechoslovakia was perceived internationally. From the beginning, there was mistrust between the newly-emerging Slovak and Czech political elites. Each had its own symbol: they were Alexander Dubcek in Slovakia and Vaclav Havel in the Czech Lands . Since the former accepted the rather symbolic post of Speaker of the Federal Assembly in Prague, new political leaders emerged instantly in Slovakia, first and foremost Vladimir Meciar. In contrast to its federal partner, Slovakia had two more tasks: 1) to gain international recognition and 2) to deal with the status of the Magyar minority. Fighting on three fronts (the third were federal competences) simultaneously, Slovak politicians were divided. Eventually, it was the HZDS, led by Meciar, which prevailed. Contrary to its portrayal as anti-federalist and nationalist, the HZDS and its leader still aspired for a looser federation with the Czechs. This was unacceptable to the "technocrats," represented by Vaclav Klaus and Czech nationalists such as Miroslav Macek (both Civic Democratic Party; ODS) and Jan Kalvoda (Civic Democratic alliance; ODA). As a result, Slovak and Czech political leaders opted for the dissolution of Czechoslovakia as of December 31, 1992. Difference: In contrast to the traditional perspectives that interpret renewed Slovak efforts for building an "authentic federation" in the early 1990s at the expense of the Czechs, it is suggested that Slovaks wanted more powers in order to avoid the continuation of debates of constitutional discrepancies and socio-economic disparities that had started in the 1930s, continued in 1960s, and resurfaced at 98 SLOVAKIA the end of the communist regime in the late 1980s. Since the Czechs had controlled Czechoslovakia for decades, regardless of its constitutional form , they interpreted their own nationalism as "civicness," in contrast to the allegedly old-fashioned ethnic Slovak nationalism. Brick E - "Europe" ("The Awakening" and the "Change," 19982004). Since Slovaks were seen as passive in communist Czechoslovakia and their religious dissent was allegedly insignificant in terms of challenging the communist regime, new institutions and political parties had to emerge in the early 1990s. During the period 19901992, Slovaks allegedly once again focused on federal and national competencies, instead of building democracy and a market economy, which were Czech priorities. According to some sociologists, Slovakia missed the chance to experience its own Velvet Revolution. After the creation of independent Slovakia, the state had to re-build its structures and to strive for international recognition. It inherited a sensitive problem with the Magyar minority, which resulted in tensions regarding the use of the official and Magyar languages on territories with a mixed population. In the spring of 1994, pro-democratic and pro-western forces ousted Vladimir Meciar from office, yet the six following months was too a short a time for catching up with the rest of reforming post-communist countries, particularly Poland, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Hungary. In the parliamentary elections in the fall of 1994, Vladimir Meciar returned to power. Allied with the nationalists and the radical left, he imposed a harsh rule over the National Council, the opposition and the media. As a result of the mysterious abduction of the son of President Michal Kovac, who dared to defy the government and Meciar himself, Slovakia began to lag behind in the European integration processes. In the 1998 parliamentary elections, the opposition political parties supported, though indirectly, by non-governmental organizations and awakened Slovak society, defeated the government that torpedoed its own formally proclaimed integrationist goals. The two subsequent governments, led by Mikulas Dzurinda, succeeded in transforming the country's negative international image and attracting foreign investments. Being politically stable, the country became a member of both NATO and the EU in 2004. SLOVAKIA 99 Difference: When attempts to reach an agreement with the Czechs on an authentic federation failed, Slovaks received, somehow unexpectedly, their own state in a way resembling March of 1939. The accusations against Meciar as an authoritarian leader collided with divergent views on how national property should be privatized. After Meciar' s return to power in the fall of 1994, Slovakia continued in its efforts to join the European Union and NATO. It failed to become a member of the OECD due to the government's unwillingness to privatize strategic branches of the Slovak economy. Despite diplomatic and political warnings regarding the infamous causes of Michal Kovac, the denial of his parliamentary seat to Frantisek Gaulieder and the assassination of Robert Remias, who had information regarding the Kovac kidnapping, negotiations with the EU and NA TO continued. The "change" in 1998 brought about an influx of former representatives of the non-governmental sector into the various ministries, while many of those who remained loyal to their original mission of being the watchdogs over a young democracy were disillusioned. The fragmentation of old political parties and the emergence of new ones in the late l 990s and the early 2000s were complemented by scandals stemming from corruption. In contrast with the third Meciar government, where there were two camps clearly separated one from another, the situation in the first and second Dzurinda governments resembled wars of all against all. The only factor that kept the coalition together was fear of Meciar. Slovak society, which was tired of the endless chain of political conflicts and scandals, with what was left of its enthusiasm and energy, helped to complete the country's integration into the EU. As a part of the community of European nations, Slovaks have not only the right, but also the duty to expect that their ability to comply with the criteria for membership should be equaled by the ability of the Union to provide fair and indiscriminate treatment, free from paternalistic approaches. This will help the Slovaks to grow and appear as a modem and self-confident nation, visible and judged according to their efforts and accomplishments. Speculations on Slovakia's cultural and civilizational proximity with either the East or the West, which bothered so many domestic and foreign politicians and intellectuals in the mid-1990s, are secondary. Of primary importance is the ability of Slovak society to maintain and strengthen its internal integration and to continue to proceed in its mental trans- 100 SLOVAKIA formation . This requires the capacity and willingness of Slovak society to reproduce itself on the basis of its historical traditions, while embracing democratic values, as well as a pluralist and consensual system of governance and politics. At the same time, the membership of Slovakia and other Central Eastern European post-communist states in the European Union provides it with an opportunity to learn from the collapse of the former Communist Bloc by evolving into a community of truly equal members. Slovakia's Postcommunist Transformation from an Historical Perspective Scheme Seeming +- As ---+ Being t Method : Deductive Begins in the present Method: Inductive Begins in the past t t Perspective: Political Science Perspective: History and PSCI t t Objective: Explaining the present by interpreting the Objective: Understanding the present by interpreting the past by reconstructing the past t Depth of historical background: Medium t Retrograde horizon: Medium t Depth of historical background: High t Retrograde horizon : Distant yet connectable With the present t t Connectivity present---+past: Retrospective Connectivity past---+present: Chronological SLOVAKIA t t Causality: Fragmented Bricolage I 101 Causality: Complex Divergence Brick A: Result Delayed Slovak postCommunist transfor- - low mation and integration with EU and NA TO Bricolage II Brick "Europe" Slovakia's integration delayed but completed on institutional level, continues on societal level t i Brick B: Sub-condition Breakup of Czechoslovakia Reason: prevalence of - high archetypical Slovak nationalism over the solution of practical problems Brick "Division" Split with the Czechs over disparities and competences, not national identity t i Brick C: Prerequisite 1 High degree of Slovak compliance with - high communist regime. Societal life completely Hibernated Brick "Communism" Slovaks partly compliant with communist regime; Refuse interference in religious matters, form environmental movement t i Brick D : Prerequisite 2 Brick "Betrayals" Week economic base -medium- Wartime Slovak Republic Inherited from Hungary; created out of necessity, Legacy of wartime Slovak economically viable. SloRepublic as a totalitarian vak autonomy rejected in State postwar Czechoslovakia t Brick E: Historical residua Slovaks politically passive; Their extinction as a nation Imminent, if not saved By Czechs -medium/high- i Brick"Antecedents" Slovaks resilient and socially active in A-H; opt for Czechoslovakia instead of Hungary  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 Seeming and Being: Contextualizing the History of Post-Communist Slovakia Description An account of the resource Juraj Hocman Slovakia, Vol. 41 (No. 76-77), 2013 pp. 73-101 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hocman, Juraj Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/002b5f951764bb1d2cd58acd085b28cb.pdf a455ff0ac2dba99af28da61f09a90730 PDF Text Text 92 SLOVAKIA Select Bibliography of Foreign Language Writings by Prof. J. M. Kirschbaum Convinced that the main role of Slovak intellectuals abroad is to acquaint the West with Slovak history, culture and literature, and to defend Slovakia's right to freedom and independence, Dr. J.M. Kirschbaum used for the past 20 years his talent and knowledge of several languages for that purpose more than any other Slovak in the free world. He published the first reference book on Slovakia in English, the first complete history of Slovaks in Canada, and was the only Slovak scholar abroad who in numerous papers and essays put Slovak cultural and political history into proper perspective at meetings of Canadian and American Slavists and in Canadian, American and European academic periodicals and encyclopedias. His comments on and critical reviews of hundreds of books in foreign languages or in Slovak which he published in academic periodicals of which he was member of the editorial board (Etudes slaves et est-europeennes, Canadian Slavonic Papers, Slavs in Canada, Slavica Canadiana), or in the quarterlies Slovakia, Slowakei and Most also served the same aim: to present Slovakia and Slovak cultural life to the West in a proper light, and to correct the misconceptions which prevailed among American Slavists and historians of Ea:st Central Europe on Slovakia's past and present. As President of the Canadian Ethnic Press Federation and its branch in Ontario, Dr. Kirschbaum also deserves credit for many favorable articles on Slovak matters published in some 20 languages by the Canadian Ethnic Press. Articles published in newspapers are not, however, listed even though many of them were scholarly essays rather than newspaper articles. Altogether Dr. Kirschbaum published about 2000 articles and essays in Slovak news- �SLOVAKIA 93 papers and periodicals in the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia. As a result, the select bibliography listed below is far from being complete. On the occasion of the 60th birthday of Dr. Kirschbaum, we want to record at least his most important writings in foreign languages, assuming that scholars and students of Slovak political history and cultural matters would find them useful for their studies and research. - The Editor BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS Slovakia-Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe, Speller & Sons Pub., New York, 1960, XIX and 371 p., ill., bib!. Slovaks in Canada, Canadian Ethnic Press Association, Toronto, 1967, XIX and 468 p., ill., bib!. Nas boj o samostatnost' Slovens/ca, (The Struggle for Slovakia's In- dependence), Cleveland, Slovak Institute, 1958, 343 p. :Cudovit Stur and his Place in the Slavic World, Slavistica No. 32, Slovak Institute, (Winnipeg-Cleveland), 1956. Contemporary Tendencies in Slovak Philology, An offprint from Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. IV, No. 3-4, 1960. Hacia una nueva democracia para la Europa central, An offprint from Revista de Estudios Politicos, Vol. 125, Madrid, 1962. An Outline of Slovakia's Struggle for Independence, Toronto, Canadian Slovak League, 1964, 40 p. Slovakia in the de-Stalinization and Federalization Process of CzechoSlovakia, An offprint from Canadian Slavonic Papers ·(X, 4, 1968). Pavol Jozef Safarik and his Contribution to Slavic Studies, Slavistica No. 43, (Cleveland-Winnipeg), 1962. Anton Bernolak-The First Codifier of the Slovak Language, Slavistica No. 52, (Winnipeg-Cleveland), 1964. Pan-Slavism in Slovak Literature: Jan Kollar-Slovak Poet of PanSlavism, Slavistica No. 56, (Cleveland-Winnipeg), 1966. The Role of the Cyrillo-Methodian Tradition in Slovak National and Political Life. An offprint from Slovak Studies III, (Rome), 1963. Conceptions politi ques et philosophiques de £. Stur dans son oeiivre: Das Slawenthum und die Welt der Zukunft, An offprint from Etudes Slaves et Est- europeennes, Montreal, 1968. Slovakia, Historical and Cultural Backgrounds, Slovak World Congress, Toronto, 1971, 60 p. Editor and main contributor. Twenty Years of The Ethnic Press Association of Ontario, The Ethnic Press Association of Ontario, (Toronto, Ontario, 1971), p. 220. Editor and main contributor. Slovak Literary History in Marxist and Western Interpretation, An offprint from Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol. VI, (University of Toronto Press), 1964. �94 SLOVAKIA ARTICLES ON HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE IN ENGLISH "International Recognition of the Slovak Republic", Slovakia, Vol. I, 1951, pp. 23-31. "Slovakia and Central European Federation Plans", Slovakia, Vol m, No. 1, 1953, pp. 1-21. "Diplomatic Documents on Slovakia's Declaration of Independence". Slovakia, Vol. IV, No. 1, 1954, pp. 3-12. "The Constitution of the Slovak Republic", Slovakia, Vol IX, 1959, pp. 47-68. "Facts and Events Behind the Scenes of Slovakia's Declaration of Independence", Slovakia, Vol. IX, No. 4, 1959, pp. 1-23. "Slovakia and the Plans for Integration of Central Europe", Studies for a new Central Europe, Vol. I, 1964, pp. 22-7. "Twenty Years of the Czech and Communist Rule in Slovakia", Slovakia, xv (1965), pp. 78-92. "Slovakia in the de-Stalinization and Federalization Process of CzechoSlovakia", Canadian Slavonic Papers, X, 4, 1968. "The Role of the Cyrillo-Methodian Tradition in Slovak National Life", Slovak Studies, Vol. m, 1963. "The Slovak Press in Canada", Slovakia, Vol. XVIII, No. 41, 1968, pp. 79-106. "Slovakia in the Struggle for Liberalization and Federalization of Czecho-Slovakia", Slovakia, Vol. XIX, No. 42, 1969, pp. 3-31. "Slovaks and the Upheavals of Czecho-Slovakia", Jednota Annual Furdek, Vol. IX, January 1970, pp. 82-86. "The Assimilation Process of American Slovaks", Slovakia, Vol XXI, No. 44, 1971, pp. 79-84. "Slovaks in Canada", Slavs in Canada, Vol. I, Inter-University Committee on Canadian Slavs, University of Alberta, 1966. "The Ideological Orientation of the Canadian Slavic Press", Slavs in Canada, Vol III, University of Ottawa, 1969. "Slovakia and the Integration Plans of Central Europe", Symposium Toward a New Central Europe, Ed. Francis S. Wagner, Danubian Press, Inc. (Astor Park, Florida), 1970, pp. 259-265. "Prof. F. f>urcansky-Politician, Scholar and Fighter for Slovakia's Independence", Slovakia, Vol. XVII, No. 40, 1967, pp. 153-160. "The 15th Anniversary of the Untimely Death of Prof. Francis Hrusovsky, Ph.D.", Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, pp. 175-179. "Stephen B. Roman--Slovak Tycoon", Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, pp. 7-19. "Dr. Joseph Tiso-The Prelate Politician Who Died on the Gallows for His People", Slovakia, Vol. XXII, No. 45, 1972, pp. 5-20. "My Last Diplomatic Report to the President of Slovakia", Furdek, Vol. XI, 1972, pp. 81-87. "Prospects of Slovakia Under Husak's Leadership", Almanac, National Slovak Society, Pittsburgh, Pa. 1971, pp. 124-129. "Pittsburgh Pact and its Significance in Slovak Politics", Almanac, National Slovak Society, Pittsburgh, Pa. 1971, pp. 132-137. �SLOVAKIA 95 "The Truth and Legends About the Origin of the Slovak Republic", Furdek, (Middletown, Pa. 1973). IN FRENCH "La voie de la Slovaquie", La Correspondance slovaque, Bern, Switzerland, August 15, 1943. "La Slovaquie et son droit a !'independence", La Correspondance slovaque, November 15, 1943. "L'orientation politique de !'emigration slovaque", La Correspondance slovaque, February, 1944. "La tradition universitaire en Slovaquie", La Correspondance slovaque, March, 1944. "La Slovaquie dans la tourbillon des evenements", La Correspondance slovaque, October, 1944. "Les bases de collaboration et de paix en Europe centrale", La Correspondance slovaque, November, 1944. "La Slovaquie dans la lutte pour son avenir", La Correspondance slovaque, January, 1945. "L'apport des slovaques a !'organization culturelle et politique de L'Europe centrale", La Correspondance slovaque, November, 1944. "Les slovaques et les promesses des politiciens Tcheques", La Correspondance slovaque, January, 1945. "La Slovaquie apres cinq ans d'independance", Revue de droit internationale, de sciences diplomatiques et politiques, Geneve, 1944, XXII, No. 2, pp. 121-142. "La Tcheco-Slovaquie correspond-elle aux aspirations de ses habitants", Slovensky narod - La nation slovaque, Paris, 1949-1950. "Pour une nouvelle organization de L'Europe Centrale", Slovensky narod - La nation slovaque, Paris, February, 1949. "La declaration de l'independance slovaque en mars 1939", Slovensky ncirod - La nation slovaque, Paris, March 15, 1949. IN GERMAN "Der Kampf fiir eine freie Slowakei", Slowakische Korrespondenz, Munich, Germany, September, 1953, I, 9. "Wesen und Ursachen des Gegensatzes zwischen Tschechen und Slowaken", Slowakische Korrespondenz, Munich, 1953, I, 5. "Wir und Tschechen", Slowakische Korrespondenz, Munich, 1953, I, 3. "Die Slowakei und ihr Verhiiltnis zu den Nachbarn", Slowakische Korrespondenz, Munich, 1958, VI, 12. "Die internationale Anerkennung der Slowakischen Republik", Slowakei, Vol. II, No. 2, 1964. "Die Haltung Grossbritanniens zur Slowakei", Slowakei, Vol. III, No. 1, 1965, pp. 11-29. "Das Pittsburger Abkommen und seine Bedeutung in der slowakischen Politik", Slowakei, Vol. VI, No. 1-2, Munich, 1968, pp. 58-66. "Schicksal der slowakischen Gesandschaft in Bern", Slowakei, Vol. VII, No. 1-2, 1969, pp. 87-100. �96 SLOVAKIA "Die Rolle der Slowakei in der Nachkriegsentwicklung der TschechoSlowakei", Slowakei, Vol. VIII, No. 11, 1970. "Aussenpolitische Vorstellungen im slowakischen Exil", Wissenschaµ. licher Dienst fur Ostmitteleuropa, February, 1972. IN SPANISH "Hacia una nueva democracia para la Europa central", Rivista de Estudios Politicos", Vol. 125, Madrid, 1962. ARTICLES ON CULTURAL AND LITERARY MATTERS IN ENGLISH "The Slovaks and Slavonic Civilization", Quarterly Slovakia, Vol. V, No. 4, 1955, pp. 39-49. "A Note on Two Modern Slovak Translators of Mickiewicz" in W. Lednicki, Adam Mickiewicz in World Literature, University of California Press, (Berkley, 1956). "Louis Stu.r's Centennial", Slovakia, Vol. VI, No. 1, 1956, pp. 3-16. "Mickiewicz in Slovak Poetry and Translations", Slovakia, Vol. VII, No. 1, 1957, pp. 32-41. "University Traditions in Slovalda", Slovakia, Vol. VIII, No. 2, 1958, pp. 18-29. "Canadian Translator of Slovak Poetry-Prof. W. Kirkconnell", Slovakia, Vol. XIV, 1964, No. 1, pp. 9-18. "Notes on Slovak Culture, Literature and Language", Quarterly Most, Vol. VII, No. 1, 1960, pp. 1-14. "Misconceptions of American Slavists About Slovak Literature", Slovakia, Vol. XI, No. 1, 1961, pp. 22-42. "Mis~onceptions of American Slavists About Slovak Literature", Slovakia, Vol. XII, No. 1, 1962, pp. 25-49. "Bicentennial of Anton Bernolak", Annual Furdek, Vol. II, Cleveland, Ohio, 1963), pp. 18-27. "Love for Songs and Folklore Among Slovaks", Annual Furdek, Vol. II, (Cleveland-Ohio, 1963), pp. 83-88: "The Slovak Language and its Place Among the Slavic Languages", Annual Slovakia, Vol. XV, 1966, pp. 1-24. "Slovak Literature", The New Catholic Encyclopedia, The Catholic University of America, Washington, D. C., 1967, Vol. XIII, pp. 280, 292-295, 748, also in Vol. XIV and other volumes on Jan Holly, Jan Kollar, Cudovit Stur, P. 0. Hviezdoslav, M. Kukucil:1, S. H. Vajansky, Andrej Sladkovic, J. C. Hronsky. "Prof. D. Cyzevsky-Ukrainian Expert in Slovak Literature", Quarterly Most, Vol. VIII, No. 3-4, 1961, pp. 17-36. "A Note on the Theory on the Origin of the Name Slav", Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. III, No. 2, 1958, pp. 47-56. "Contemporary Tendencies in Slovak Philology", Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. IV, No. 3-4, 1960. �SLOVAKIA 97 "Slovak Literary History in Marxist and Western Interpretation", A reprint from Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol. VI, (University of Toronto Press), 1964. "Slavica Slovaca", Review article, Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol. XIII, 4, 1971. "J. C. Hronsky--Slovak Novelist and Writer", Annual Furdek, Vol. X, (Cleveland, Ohio, 1971), pp. 23-29. "The Slovaks and Slavonic Civilization", Furdek, Vol. X, (Cleveland, Ohio, 1971), pp. 69-79. "Old Cnlture and University Traditions in Slovakia", Furdek, Vol. XI, (Cleveland, Ohio, 1972), pp. 167-185. "Bilingualism in Slovak Literature", Almanac, National Slovak Society, Pittsburgh, Pa. 1972, pp. 144-147. " American and Canadian Translators of Slovak Poetry", Furdek, (Cleveland, Ohio, 1973). "Janko Kral', Slovak Poet, Honored by UNESCO", Furdek, (Cleveland, Ohio, 1973). "Andrej 2arnov - Poet of Slovak Patriotism", Festschrift Pozdrav Andrejovi Zarnovovi, Spolok slovenskych spisovatel'ov a umelcov, Cleveland, Ohio, 1963. IN FRENCH "La Grande-Moravie et son heritage cultural", Etudes slaves et esteuropeennes, Universite de Montreal, Vol. II, 1957, pp. 189-199. "Le centenaire d'un grand slaviste: Safarik", Etudes slaves et esteuropeennes, Montreal, 1960, Vol. V, pp. 69-80. "La litterature de la periode cyrillo-methodienne et la Slovaque", Slovak Studies III, (Rome), 1963. "La place du slovaque parmi les langues slaves", Etudes slaves et esteuropeennes, Vol. VIII, Fasc. 3-4, Universite de Montreal, 1963. "Conceptions politiques et philosophiques de I!. Stlir tirees de son oeuvre: Das Slawentum und die Welt der Zukunft", Etudes slaves et est-europeennes, Vol. XIII, 1969, pp. 32-45. IN GERMAN "Profil und Werk L'udovft Sturs", Slowakei, Vol III, No. 2, 1965. "Literarisch-kulturelles Schaffen des slowakischen Exils", Slowakei, Vol. IV, No. 1, 1966. BOOK REVIEWS BOOKS IN FRENCH, ENGLISH, GERMAN AND ITALIAN Joseph A. Miku§, La Slovaquie dans le Drame de l'Europe (Histoires politique de 1918 a 1950), Paris, Les Isles d'Or, 1955, 478 pp. Reviewed in Etudes slaves et est-europeennes, Vol. I, part 2, pp. 121-4. �98 SLOVAKIA Francis R. Preveden, A History of the Croatian People, New York, Philosophical Library, 1955, XVI, 134 p. Reviewed in The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. XIV, 3, 1956. Milovan Djilas, The New Class, an analysis of the Communist system, Praeger, N. Y. 1957, 214 pp. Reviewed in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. III, part 1, 60-1 p. Joseph G. Cincik, Ph.D., Ancient Slovak Fibulas and Pseudo-Fibulas, Whiting, Indiana, published by Rev. John J. Lach, 1957, 105 pp. Reviewed in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. II, part 4, 250-1 pp. Joseph G. Cincik, Anglo-Saxon and Slovak-Avar Patterns of Cuthbert's Gospel, Cleveland, Ohio, Slovak Institute, 1958, 124 p. Reviewed in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. III, part 4, Winter 1958-1959, 240-243 pp. Stephen Smrzik, S. J., The Glagolitic or Romano-Slavonic Liturgy, Rome, Slovak Institute, 1959, 120 p. Reviewed. in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. V, part 1-2, 118-119 pp. Bonaventure, B. Bue, Slovak Nationalism, (Middletown, Pa., Slovak League of America, 1960), 67 pp. Reviewed in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. VI, parts 1-2, 111-112 pp. Gilbert L. Oddo, Slovakia and its People, New York, Speller & Sons Inc:, 1960, XI, 361 pp. Reviewed in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. VI, parts 1-2, 112-114 pp. Ludwig v. Gogolak, Beitriige zur Geschichte des slowakischen Volke! I, (Contributions to the History of the Slovak People), Verlag R. Oldenburg, Miinchen, 1963, p. 265. Reviewed in Slovakia. Ludwig v. Gogolak, T. G. Masaryks slowakische und ungarlandische Politik (Masaryk's Slovak and Hungarian Policy), Munich, 1963, Vol. IV, pp. 174-227. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XVIII, 1968, No. 41. David L. Hoggan, Der erzwungene Krieg, die Ursachen und Urheber des z. Weltkrieus, Verlag der Deutschen Hochschullehrer-Zeitung, Tiibingen, 1963, bibliography, maps, photographs, pages 898. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, p. 210. J . A. Mikus, Slovakia-A Political History 1918-1950, Milwaukee, Wis., Marquette University Press, 1964, XXXIII, 392 pp. Reviewed in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. X, parts 1-2, p. 68. Milan St. :!'.>urica, La Slovacchia e le sue relazioni politiche con la Germania, (1938-1945), Padova, Marsilio Editori, 1964, 274 pp. Reviewed in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. X, parts 1-2, p. 68. Arved Grebert, Die Slowaken und das Grossmiihrisches Reich, (The Slovaks and the Great Moravian Empire), M. Cernak's Institute, Munich, 19615. Jorg K. Hoensch, Die Slowakei und Hitler's Ostpolitik (Hlinka's Slowakische Volkspartei zwischen Autonomie und Separation 19381939), Bohlau Verlag, Koln-Graz, 1965, p. 390. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XVIII, 1968, No. 41, and in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. XII, part 1, p. 61-3. Die Slowakei als mitteleuropiiisches Problem in Geschichte und Gege'ltwart, (Slavakia's Central European Problem in the Past arui �SLOVAKIA 99 Present), Lectures at Collegium Carolinum, Verlag Robert Lerche, Mtinchen, 1965, p. 240. Reviewed in Slavic and Ecut European Studies, Vol. XII, part 1, p. 61-3. Jorg K. Hoensch, Die GrundZagen des Programms der Slovakischen Volkspartei vor 1938 (The Basis of the Programme of the Slovak Populist Party Before 1938), Munich, 1966, Vol. VII, p. 320-356. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XVIII, 1968, No. 41. Heinrich Kuhn, Handbuch der Tschechoslowakei, (Verlag Robert Lerche, Milnchen), 1966, pp. 1,024. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XX, 1970, No. 43. Frantisek Vnuk, Dr. Jozef Tiso-President of the Slovak Republic, The Association of Australia Slovaks, Sydney, 1967, p. 50, ill. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XVII, 1968, No. 41. Milan S. f>urica, D'ie slowakische Politik 1938-1939 im Lichte der Staatslehre Tisos (Slovak Policy 1938-1939 in the Light of Tiso's Political Thought), Emil Semmel Verlag, Bonn, 1967, 49 p. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XVIII, 1968, No. 41. Rudolf Sturm, CzechoslovakieJ,-A Bibliographie Guide, Library of the Congress, Washington, 1967, 157 p. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol XX, 1970, No. 43. Beitrage zum Deutsch-Tschechischen Verhaltnis im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Veroffentlichungen des Collegium Carolinum), Verlag Robert Lerche, (Milnchen, 1967), pp. 178. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, p. 213. Slovak Studies V: Historica 3, Cleveland-Rome, Slovak Institute, 1967, p. 268. Reviewed in Canadian Slavonic Papers, XI, 1, 1969. Stefan Glejdura, Los Grandes Problemas del Este Europeo, Separata de la Revista de Politica International, Madrid, 1968-1969, Washington University. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XX, 1970, No. 43. Gorazd Zvonicky, Soltanto Rovine - Italian translation by Milan S. f>urica and Ernesto Simonetto. Published by Associazione di culturia ceca e slovaca "Arturo Cronia", Padua, 1968. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, p. 204. George F. Kennan, From Prague After Munich, Diplomatic Papers 19381940. Princeton University Press, 1968, 226 pages. Slavica Canadiana, No. 69, 1970. Lunghi and Ello, Dubcek' s Blue Print for Freedom (Kimber, London), 1968. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, pp. 205-208. Ladislav Mnacko, Die siebente Nacht, (Vienna, 1968). Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, pp. 205-208. Podolak Jan (Ed.), Ethnologia SZavica I, Universitas Comoniana, Facultas Philosophica, Bratislava, 1970, Most, Vol. 19, 1-2, 1972. Reitzner, Almar, Dubce k (Milnchen), 1970. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, pp. 205-208. Gromada, Thaddeus V., Pilsudski and the Slovak Autonomists, An off. print from Slavic Review, September, 1969, pp. 445-462, Washington University. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XX, No. 43, 1970, p. 167. Tigrid, Pavel, La chute irresisti ble d'Alexander Dubce k, (Calmann-Levy, Paris, 1969). Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, pp. 205-208. �SLOVAKIA 100 Fetjo, Frani;ois, Histoire des democracies populaires apres Stali-ne, (Editions du Seuil, Paris), 1969. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, pp. 205-208. Lob!, Eugen, und Grunwald, Leopold, Die intellektuelle Revolution, Hintergrilnde und Auswirkungen des "Prager Frilhlings'', (Dilsseldorf, Econ, 1969). Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, pp. 205-208. Wagner, Francis S., (Ed.), Toward a New Central Europe: A Symposium on the Problems of the Danubian Nations, Danubian Press, Inc., Astor Park, Florida, 1970. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, p. 211. Sprinc, Mikula§, Driftwood. Poems translated from the Slovak by the author Larz Pearson and Jaroslav Vajda. Published by the Slovak Institute in Cleveland, Ohio, 1969. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, p. 203. Noge Julius, An Outline of Slovakian Literature, (The Tatrapress Agency, Bratislava), 1968. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXII, No. 45, 1972, p. 208. BOOKS IN SLOVAK J. Mi~ianik, J. Minarik, M. Michalcova, A. Melichar~k, Dejint1 starsej slovenskej literatury (A History of the Older Slovak Literature), Bratislava, published by Slovenska akademia vied (Slovak Academy of Sciences), 1955, p. 230, ill. Reviewed In Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. V, parts 3-4, 243-4 pp. Franmek Vnuk, Sedemnast' neurodnych roko11 - Ndcrt de;tn slovenskej literatury v rokoch 1945-62 (Seventeen Barren Years - A Survey of Slovak Literature 1945-62), Middletown, Pa., Slovak v Amerike, 1965, p. 304, English Summary, Reviewed in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. XII, parts 2-3, 133-4 pp. Studia Historica Slovaca IV. Bratislava: Vydavatel'stvo Slovenskej akademie vied, 1966, p. 290. Reviewed in Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol. XI, 1, 1969. M. Lacko (ed.), Slovens/ca bibliografia v zahranici 1945-1965, Slovak Studies VII. The Slovak Institute (Cleveland-Rome), 1987, Slovakia, Vol. XXII, No. 45, 1972, p. 207, and Canadian Slavoni<: Papers, Vol. Xlli, 4, 1971. Ladislav Dvonc, Bibliografia slovenskej jazykovedy 1961-1965, Matica slovenska, (Martin, 1970), pages 804, Slovakia, Vol. XXII. No. ~ . 1972, p. 205. Ethnologia Slavica I, Universitas Comenian-a Bratislavensis, Facultas Philosophica, Bratislava, 1970, p. 226, Slovakia, Vol. XXII, No. 45, 1972, p. 214. Juraj Chovan, Letopis pama.tnika slovenskej literatury lf)70, (Matica slovenska, Martin, 1970), Slovakia, Vol. XXII, No. 45, 1972 p. 210. ~ubomir Liptak, Slovensko v 20. storoci (Slovakia in the Twentieth Century), (Bratislava, 19&8), 366 p. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XIX, No. 42, 1969, p. 198. �SLOVAKIA 101 Samo Falt'an, Slovenska otazka v teskoslovensku (The Slovak Question in Czechoslovakia), (Bratislava, 1968), 352 p. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XIX, No. 42, 1969, p. 200. Emilia Duchajova, Slovenskci slavistika 1968, Matica slovenska, Martin, 1970, p. 336. Reviewed in Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol. Xlll, 4, 197. Stefan Moyses 1869-1969, Edicia Literarneho archlvu, zviizok 7. Zbornik z vedeckej konferencie MS, Martin, 1971, stran 174, litogr. Reviewed in Most, Vol. 19, 1-2, 1972. Jan Chovan, Letopis pamatnika slovenskej literatury 1970, MS, Martin, 1970, p. 94. Reviewed in Most, Vol. 19, 1-2, 1972. Jan Okal', Voda a vino (Water and Wine, United States, 1970), p. 70. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XX, 1970 No. 43. Eugen Vesnin, Aj v etrurskych zahradach (Also in the Gardens of Etruria), Buenos Aires, 1970. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XX, 1970, No. 43. Evaluation of Dr. Kirschbaum's Writings by Critics Dr. Kirschbaum's writings were bound to provoke favorable as well as unfavorable reaction. All his books and publications challenged numerous erroneous views on Slovakia's history and culture accepted in the West by scholars and political writers alike. Dr. Kirschbaum challenged these views by works with serious academic background and solid knowledge of matters discussed. In such a situation it was only natural that the reaction was on one hand favorable and on the other hand the author was unscrupulously attacked_. by adversaries of Slovakia's struggle for independence. *) After the publication of the book Slovakia--Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe, to which the Hon. Alvin M. Bentley, member of the Committee of Foreign Affaires of tae U. S. Congress, wrote an approving preface, Prague Government supplied some Czech and Communist newspapers in Canada and the U.S.A. with falsified documents destined to prevent Dr. Kirschbaum from teaching at universities or taking part in public life. A smear campaign on a large scale was organized against him especially in the Canadian press, and made news on radio and television. At the same time, pressure was excercised on the university authorities and academic associations. Even though it was clear that the campaign was politically motivated by the Prague Communist regime and had all the characteristics of "character assassination," Dr. Kirschbaum had to take legal action to clear his name. � 92 SLOVAKIA Select Bibliography of Foreign Language Writings by Prof. J. M. Kirschbaum Convinced that the main role of Slovak intellectuals abroad is to acquaint the West with Slovak history, culture and literature, and to defend Slovakia's right to freedom and independence, Dr. J.M. Kirschbaum used for the past 20 years his talent and knowledge of several languages for that purpose more than any other Slovak in the free world. He published the first reference book on Slovakia in English, the first complete history of Slovaks in Canada, and was the only Slovak scholar abroad who in numerous papers and essays put Slovak cultural and political history into proper perspective at meetings of Canadian and American Slavists and in Canadian, American and European academic periodicals and encyclopedias. His comments on and critical reviews of hundreds of books in foreign languages or in Slovak which he published in academic periodicals of which he was member of the editorial board (Etudes slaves et est-europeennes, Canadian Slavonic Papers, Slavs in Canada, Slavica Canadiana), or in the quarterlies Slovakia, Slowakei and Most also served the same aim: to present Slovakia and Slovak cultural life to the West in a proper light, and to correct the misconceptions which prevailed among American Slavists and historians of Ea:st Central Europe on Slovakia's past and present. As President of the Canadian Ethnic Press Federation and its branch in Ontario, Dr. Kirschbaum also deserves credit for many favorable articles on Slovak matters published in some 20 languages by the Canadian Ethnic Press. Articles published in newspapers are not, however, listed even though many of them were scholarly essays rather than newspaper articles. Altogether Dr. Kirschbaum published about 2000 articles and essays in Slovak news- �SLOVAKIA 93 papers and periodicals in the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia. As a result, the select bibliography listed below is far from being complete. On the occasion of the 60th birthday of Dr. Kirschbaum, we want to record at least his most important writings in foreign languages, assuming that scholars and students of Slovak political history and cultural matters would find them useful for their studies and research. - The Editor BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS Slovakia-Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe, Speller & Sons Pub., New York, 1960, XIX and 371 p., ill., bib!. Slovaks in Canada, Canadian Ethnic Press Association, Toronto, 1967, XIX and 468 p., ill., bib!. Nas boj o samostatnost' Slovens/ca, (The Struggle for Slovakia's In- dependence), Cleveland, Slovak Institute, 1958, 343 p. :Cudovit Stur and his Place in the Slavic World, Slavistica No. 32, Slovak Institute, (Winnipeg-Cleveland), 1956. Contemporary Tendencies in Slovak Philology, An offprint from Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. IV, No. 3-4, 1960. Hacia una nueva democracia para la Europa central, An offprint from Revista de Estudios Politicos, Vol. 125, Madrid, 1962. An Outline of Slovakia's Struggle for Independence, Toronto, Canadian Slovak League, 1964, 40 p. Slovakia in the de-Stalinization and Federalization Process of CzechoSlovakia, An offprint from Canadian Slavonic Papers ·(X, 4, 1968). Pavol Jozef Safarik and his Contribution to Slavic Studies, Slavistica No. 43, (Cleveland-Winnipeg), 1962. Anton Bernolak-The First Codifier of the Slovak Language, Slavistica No. 52, (Winnipeg-Cleveland), 1964. Pan-Slavism in Slovak Literature: Jan Kollar-Slovak Poet of PanSlavism, Slavistica No. 56, (Cleveland-Winnipeg), 1966. The Role of the Cyrillo-Methodian Tradition in Slovak National and Political Life. An offprint from Slovak Studies III, (Rome), 1963. Conceptions politi ques et philosophiques de £. Stur dans son oeiivre: Das Slawenthum und die Welt der Zukunft, An offprint from Etudes Slaves et Est- europeennes, Montreal, 1968. Slovakia, Historical and Cultural Backgrounds, Slovak World Congress, Toronto, 1971, 60 p. Editor and main contributor. Twenty Years of The Ethnic Press Association of Ontario, The Ethnic Press Association of Ontario, (Toronto, Ontario, 1971), p. 220. Editor and main contributor. Slovak Literary History in Marxist and Western Interpretation, An offprint from Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol. VI, (University of Toronto Press), 1964. �94 SLOVAKIA ARTICLES ON HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE IN ENGLISH "International Recognition of the Slovak Republic", Slovakia, Vol. I, 1951, pp. 23-31. "Slovakia and Central European Federation Plans", Slovakia, Vol m, No. 1, 1953, pp. 1-21. "Diplomatic Documents on Slovakia's Declaration of Independence". Slovakia, Vol. IV, No. 1, 1954, pp. 3-12. "The Constitution of the Slovak Republic", Slovakia, Vol IX, 1959, pp. 47-68. "Facts and Events Behind the Scenes of Slovakia's Declaration of Independence", Slovakia, Vol. IX, No. 4, 1959, pp. 1-23. "Slovakia and the Plans for Integration of Central Europe", Studies for a new Central Europe, Vol. I, 1964, pp. 22-7. "Twenty Years of the Czech and Communist Rule in Slovakia", Slovakia, xv (1965), pp. 78-92. "Slovakia in the de-Stalinization and Federalization Process of CzechoSlovakia", Canadian Slavonic Papers, X, 4, 1968. "The Role of the Cyrillo-Methodian Tradition in Slovak National Life", Slovak Studies, Vol. m, 1963. "The Slovak Press in Canada", Slovakia, Vol. XVIII, No. 41, 1968, pp. 79-106. "Slovakia in the Struggle for Liberalization and Federalization of Czecho-Slovakia", Slovakia, Vol. XIX, No. 42, 1969, pp. 3-31. "Slovaks and the Upheavals of Czecho-Slovakia", Jednota Annual Furdek, Vol. IX, January 1970, pp. 82-86. "The Assimilation Process of American Slovaks", Slovakia, Vol XXI, No. 44, 1971, pp. 79-84. "Slovaks in Canada", Slavs in Canada, Vol. I, Inter-University Committee on Canadian Slavs, University of Alberta, 1966. "The Ideological Orientation of the Canadian Slavic Press", Slavs in Canada, Vol III, University of Ottawa, 1969. "Slovakia and the Integration Plans of Central Europe", Symposium Toward a New Central Europe, Ed. Francis S. Wagner, Danubian Press, Inc. (Astor Park, Florida), 1970, pp. 259-265. "Prof. F. f>urcansky-Politician, Scholar and Fighter for Slovakia's Independence", Slovakia, Vol. XVII, No. 40, 1967, pp. 153-160. "The 15th Anniversary of the Untimely Death of Prof. Francis Hrusovsky, Ph.D.", Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, pp. 175-179. "Stephen B. Roman--Slovak Tycoon", Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, pp. 7-19. "Dr. Joseph Tiso-The Prelate Politician Who Died on the Gallows for His People", Slovakia, Vol. XXII, No. 45, 1972, pp. 5-20. "My Last Diplomatic Report to the President of Slovakia", Furdek, Vol. XI, 1972, pp. 81-87. "Prospects of Slovakia Under Husak's Leadership", Almanac, National Slovak Society, Pittsburgh, Pa. 1971, pp. 124-129. "Pittsburgh Pact and its Significance in Slovak Politics", Almanac, National Slovak Society, Pittsburgh, Pa. 1971, pp. 132-137. �SLOVAKIA 95 "The Truth and Legends About the Origin of the Slovak Republic", Furdek, (Middletown, Pa. 1973). IN FRENCH "La voie de la Slovaquie", La Correspondance slovaque, Bern, Switzerland, August 15, 1943. "La Slovaquie et son droit a !'independence", La Correspondance slovaque, November 15, 1943. "L'orientation politique de !'emigration slovaque", La Correspondance slovaque, February, 1944. "La tradition universitaire en Slovaquie", La Correspondance slovaque, March, 1944. "La Slovaquie dans la tourbillon des evenements", La Correspondance slovaque, October, 1944. "Les bases de collaboration et de paix en Europe centrale", La Correspondance slovaque, November, 1944. "La Slovaquie dans la lutte pour son avenir", La Correspondance slovaque, January, 1945. "L'apport des slovaques a !'organization culturelle et politique de L'Europe centrale", La Correspondance slovaque, November, 1944. "Les slovaques et les promesses des politiciens Tcheques", La Correspondance slovaque, January, 1945. "La Slovaquie apres cinq ans d'independance", Revue de droit internationale, de sciences diplomatiques et politiques, Geneve, 1944, XXII, No. 2, pp. 121-142. "La Tcheco-Slovaquie correspond-elle aux aspirations de ses habitants", Slovensky narod - La nation slovaque, Paris, 1949-1950. "Pour une nouvelle organization de L'Europe Centrale", Slovensky narod - La nation slovaque, Paris, February, 1949. "La declaration de l'independance slovaque en mars 1939", Slovensky ncirod - La nation slovaque, Paris, March 15, 1949. IN GERMAN "Der Kampf fiir eine freie Slowakei", Slowakische Korrespondenz, Munich, Germany, September, 1953, I, 9. "Wesen und Ursachen des Gegensatzes zwischen Tschechen und Slowaken", Slowakische Korrespondenz, Munich, 1953, I, 5. "Wir und Tschechen", Slowakische Korrespondenz, Munich, 1953, I, 3. "Die Slowakei und ihr Verhiiltnis zu den Nachbarn", Slowakische Korrespondenz, Munich, 1958, VI, 12. "Die internationale Anerkennung der Slowakischen Republik", Slowakei, Vol. II, No. 2, 1964. "Die Haltung Grossbritanniens zur Slowakei", Slowakei, Vol. III, No. 1, 1965, pp. 11-29. "Das Pittsburger Abkommen und seine Bedeutung in der slowakischen Politik", Slowakei, Vol. VI, No. 1-2, Munich, 1968, pp. 58-66. "Schicksal der slowakischen Gesandschaft in Bern", Slowakei, Vol. VII, No. 1-2, 1969, pp. 87-100. �96 SLOVAKIA "Die Rolle der Slowakei in der Nachkriegsentwicklung der TschechoSlowakei", Slowakei, Vol. VIII, No. 11, 1970. "Aussenpolitische Vorstellungen im slowakischen Exil", Wissenschaµ. licher Dienst fur Ostmitteleuropa, February, 1972. IN SPANISH "Hacia una nueva democracia para la Europa central", Rivista de Estudios Politicos", Vol. 125, Madrid, 1962. ARTICLES ON CULTURAL AND LITERARY MATTERS IN ENGLISH "The Slovaks and Slavonic Civilization", Quarterly Slovakia, Vol. V, No. 4, 1955, pp. 39-49. "A Note on Two Modern Slovak Translators of Mickiewicz" in W. Lednicki, Adam Mickiewicz in World Literature, University of California Press, (Berkley, 1956). "Louis Stu.r's Centennial", Slovakia, Vol. VI, No. 1, 1956, pp. 3-16. "Mickiewicz in Slovak Poetry and Translations", Slovakia, Vol. VII, No. 1, 1957, pp. 32-41. "University Traditions in Slovalda", Slovakia, Vol. VIII, No. 2, 1958, pp. 18-29. "Canadian Translator of Slovak Poetry-Prof. W. Kirkconnell", Slovakia, Vol. XIV, 1964, No. 1, pp. 9-18. "Notes on Slovak Culture, Literature and Language", Quarterly Most, Vol. VII, No. 1, 1960, pp. 1-14. "Misconceptions of American Slavists About Slovak Literature", Slovakia, Vol. XI, No. 1, 1961, pp. 22-42. "Mis~onceptions of American Slavists About Slovak Literature", Slovakia, Vol. XII, No. 1, 1962, pp. 25-49. "Bicentennial of Anton Bernolak", Annual Furdek, Vol. II, Cleveland, Ohio, 1963), pp. 18-27. "Love for Songs and Folklore Among Slovaks", Annual Furdek, Vol. II, (Cleveland-Ohio, 1963), pp. 83-88: "The Slovak Language and its Place Among the Slavic Languages", Annual Slovakia, Vol. XV, 1966, pp. 1-24. "Slovak Literature", The New Catholic Encyclopedia, The Catholic University of America, Washington, D. C., 1967, Vol. XIII, pp. 280, 292-295, 748, also in Vol. XIV and other volumes on Jan Holly, Jan Kollar, Cudovit Stur, P. 0. Hviezdoslav, M. Kukucil:1, S. H. Vajansky, Andrej Sladkovic, J. C. Hronsky. "Prof. D. Cyzevsky-Ukrainian Expert in Slovak Literature", Quarterly Most, Vol. VIII, No. 3-4, 1961, pp. 17-36. "A Note on the Theory on the Origin of the Name Slav", Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. III, No. 2, 1958, pp. 47-56. "Contemporary Tendencies in Slovak Philology", Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. IV, No. 3-4, 1960. �SLOVAKIA 97 "Slovak Literary History in Marxist and Western Interpretation", A reprint from Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol. VI, (University of Toronto Press), 1964. "Slavica Slovaca", Review article, Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol. XIII, 4, 1971. "J. C. Hronsky--Slovak Novelist and Writer", Annual Furdek, Vol. X, (Cleveland, Ohio, 1971), pp. 23-29. "The Slovaks and Slavonic Civilization", Furdek, Vol. X, (Cleveland, Ohio, 1971), pp. 69-79. "Old Cnlture and University Traditions in Slovakia", Furdek, Vol. XI, (Cleveland, Ohio, 1972), pp. 167-185. "Bilingualism in Slovak Literature", Almanac, National Slovak Society, Pittsburgh, Pa. 1972, pp. 144-147. " American and Canadian Translators of Slovak Poetry", Furdek, (Cleveland, Ohio, 1973). "Janko Kral', Slovak Poet, Honored by UNESCO", Furdek, (Cleveland, Ohio, 1973). "Andrej 2arnov - Poet of Slovak Patriotism", Festschrift Pozdrav Andrejovi Zarnovovi, Spolok slovenskych spisovatel'ov a umelcov, Cleveland, Ohio, 1963. IN FRENCH "La Grande-Moravie et son heritage cultural", Etudes slaves et esteuropeennes, Universite de Montreal, Vol. II, 1957, pp. 189-199. "Le centenaire d'un grand slaviste: Safarik", Etudes slaves et esteuropeennes, Montreal, 1960, Vol. V, pp. 69-80. "La litterature de la periode cyrillo-methodienne et la Slovaque", Slovak Studies III, (Rome), 1963. "La place du slovaque parmi les langues slaves", Etudes slaves et esteuropeennes, Vol. VIII, Fasc. 3-4, Universite de Montreal, 1963. "Conceptions politiques et philosophiques de I!. Stlir tirees de son oeuvre: Das Slawentum und die Welt der Zukunft", Etudes slaves et est-europeennes, Vol. XIII, 1969, pp. 32-45. IN GERMAN "Profil und Werk L'udovft Sturs", Slowakei, Vol III, No. 2, 1965. "Literarisch-kulturelles Schaffen des slowakischen Exils", Slowakei, Vol. IV, No. 1, 1966. BOOK REVIEWS BOOKS IN FRENCH, ENGLISH, GERMAN AND ITALIAN Joseph A. Miku§, La Slovaquie dans le Drame de l'Europe (Histoires politique de 1918 a 1950), Paris, Les Isles d'Or, 1955, 478 pp. Reviewed in Etudes slaves et est-europeennes, Vol. I, part 2, pp. 121-4. �98 SLOVAKIA Francis R. Preveden, A History of the Croatian People, New York, Philosophical Library, 1955, XVI, 134 p. Reviewed in The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. XIV, 3, 1956. Milovan Djilas, The New Class, an analysis of the Communist system, Praeger, N. Y. 1957, 214 pp. Reviewed in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. III, part 1, 60-1 p. Joseph G. Cincik, Ph.D., Ancient Slovak Fibulas and Pseudo-Fibulas, Whiting, Indiana, published by Rev. John J. Lach, 1957, 105 pp. Reviewed in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. II, part 4, 250-1 pp. Joseph G. Cincik, Anglo-Saxon and Slovak-Avar Patterns of Cuthbert's Gospel, Cleveland, Ohio, Slovak Institute, 1958, 124 p. Reviewed in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. III, part 4, Winter 1958-1959, 240-243 pp. Stephen Smrzik, S. J., The Glagolitic or Romano-Slavonic Liturgy, Rome, Slovak Institute, 1959, 120 p. Reviewed. in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. V, part 1-2, 118-119 pp. Bonaventure, B. Bue, Slovak Nationalism, (Middletown, Pa., Slovak League of America, 1960), 67 pp. Reviewed in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. VI, parts 1-2, 111-112 pp. Gilbert L. Oddo, Slovakia and its People, New York, Speller & Sons Inc:, 1960, XI, 361 pp. Reviewed in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. VI, parts 1-2, 112-114 pp. Ludwig v. Gogolak, Beitriige zur Geschichte des slowakischen Volke! I, (Contributions to the History of the Slovak People), Verlag R. Oldenburg, Miinchen, 1963, p. 265. Reviewed in Slovakia. Ludwig v. Gogolak, T. G. Masaryks slowakische und ungarlandische Politik (Masaryk's Slovak and Hungarian Policy), Munich, 1963, Vol. IV, pp. 174-227. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XVIII, 1968, No. 41. David L. Hoggan, Der erzwungene Krieg, die Ursachen und Urheber des z. Weltkrieus, Verlag der Deutschen Hochschullehrer-Zeitung, Tiibingen, 1963, bibliography, maps, photographs, pages 898. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, p. 210. J . A. Mikus, Slovakia-A Political History 1918-1950, Milwaukee, Wis., Marquette University Press, 1964, XXXIII, 392 pp. Reviewed in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. X, parts 1-2, p. 68. Milan St. :!'.>urica, La Slovacchia e le sue relazioni politiche con la Germania, (1938-1945), Padova, Marsilio Editori, 1964, 274 pp. Reviewed in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. X, parts 1-2, p. 68. Arved Grebert, Die Slowaken und das Grossmiihrisches Reich, (The Slovaks and the Great Moravian Empire), M. Cernak's Institute, Munich, 19615. Jorg K. Hoensch, Die Slowakei und Hitler's Ostpolitik (Hlinka's Slowakische Volkspartei zwischen Autonomie und Separation 19381939), Bohlau Verlag, Koln-Graz, 1965, p. 390. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XVIII, 1968, No. 41, and in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. XII, part 1, p. 61-3. Die Slowakei als mitteleuropiiisches Problem in Geschichte und Gege'ltwart, (Slavakia's Central European Problem in the Past arui �SLOVAKIA 99 Present), Lectures at Collegium Carolinum, Verlag Robert Lerche, Mtinchen, 1965, p. 240. Reviewed in Slavic and Ecut European Studies, Vol. XII, part 1, p. 61-3. Jorg K. Hoensch, Die GrundZagen des Programms der Slovakischen Volkspartei vor 1938 (The Basis of the Programme of the Slovak Populist Party Before 1938), Munich, 1966, Vol. VII, p. 320-356. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XVIII, 1968, No. 41. Heinrich Kuhn, Handbuch der Tschechoslowakei, (Verlag Robert Lerche, Milnchen), 1966, pp. 1,024. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XX, 1970, No. 43. Frantisek Vnuk, Dr. Jozef Tiso-President of the Slovak Republic, The Association of Australia Slovaks, Sydney, 1967, p. 50, ill. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XVII, 1968, No. 41. Milan S. f>urica, D'ie slowakische Politik 1938-1939 im Lichte der Staatslehre Tisos (Slovak Policy 1938-1939 in the Light of Tiso's Political Thought), Emil Semmel Verlag, Bonn, 1967, 49 p. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XVIII, 1968, No. 41. Rudolf Sturm, CzechoslovakieJ,-A Bibliographie Guide, Library of the Congress, Washington, 1967, 157 p. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol XX, 1970, No. 43. Beitrage zum Deutsch-Tschechischen Verhaltnis im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Veroffentlichungen des Collegium Carolinum), Verlag Robert Lerche, (Milnchen, 1967), pp. 178. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, p. 213. Slovak Studies V: Historica 3, Cleveland-Rome, Slovak Institute, 1967, p. 268. Reviewed in Canadian Slavonic Papers, XI, 1, 1969. Stefan Glejdura, Los Grandes Problemas del Este Europeo, Separata de la Revista de Politica International, Madrid, 1968-1969, Washington University. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XX, 1970, No. 43. Gorazd Zvonicky, Soltanto Rovine - Italian translation by Milan S. f>urica and Ernesto Simonetto. Published by Associazione di culturia ceca e slovaca "Arturo Cronia", Padua, 1968. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, p. 204. George F. Kennan, From Prague After Munich, Diplomatic Papers 19381940. Princeton University Press, 1968, 226 pages. Slavica Canadiana, No. 69, 1970. Lunghi and Ello, Dubcek' s Blue Print for Freedom (Kimber, London), 1968. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, pp. 205-208. Ladislav Mnacko, Die siebente Nacht, (Vienna, 1968). Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, pp. 205-208. Podolak Jan (Ed.), Ethnologia SZavica I, Universitas Comoniana, Facultas Philosophica, Bratislava, 1970, Most, Vol. 19, 1-2, 1972. Reitzner, Almar, Dubce k (Milnchen), 1970. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, pp. 205-208. Gromada, Thaddeus V., Pilsudski and the Slovak Autonomists, An off. print from Slavic Review, September, 1969, pp. 445-462, Washington University. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XX, No. 43, 1970, p. 167. Tigrid, Pavel, La chute irresisti ble d'Alexander Dubce k, (Calmann-Levy, Paris, 1969). Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, pp. 205-208. �SLOVAKIA 100 Fetjo, Frani;ois, Histoire des democracies populaires apres Stali-ne, (Editions du Seuil, Paris), 1969. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, pp. 205-208. Lob!, Eugen, und Grunwald, Leopold, Die intellektuelle Revolution, Hintergrilnde und Auswirkungen des "Prager Frilhlings'', (Dilsseldorf, Econ, 1969). Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, pp. 205-208. Wagner, Francis S., (Ed.), Toward a New Central Europe: A Symposium on the Problems of the Danubian Nations, Danubian Press, Inc., Astor Park, Florida, 1970. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, p. 211. Sprinc, Mikula§, Driftwood. Poems translated from the Slovak by the author Larz Pearson and Jaroslav Vajda. Published by the Slovak Institute in Cleveland, Ohio, 1969. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, p. 203. Noge Julius, An Outline of Slovakian Literature, (The Tatrapress Agency, Bratislava), 1968. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXII, No. 45, 1972, p. 208. BOOKS IN SLOVAK J. Mi~ianik, J. Minarik, M. Michalcova, A. Melichar~k, Dejint1 starsej slovenskej literatury (A History of the Older Slovak Literature), Bratislava, published by Slovenska akademia vied (Slovak Academy of Sciences), 1955, p. 230, ill. Reviewed In Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. V, parts 3-4, 243-4 pp. Franmek Vnuk, Sedemnast' neurodnych roko11 - Ndcrt de;tn slovenskej literatury v rokoch 1945-62 (Seventeen Barren Years - A Survey of Slovak Literature 1945-62), Middletown, Pa., Slovak v Amerike, 1965, p. 304, English Summary, Reviewed in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. XII, parts 2-3, 133-4 pp. Studia Historica Slovaca IV. Bratislava: Vydavatel'stvo Slovenskej akademie vied, 1966, p. 290. Reviewed in Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol. XI, 1, 1969. M. Lacko (ed.), Slovens/ca bibliografia v zahranici 1945-1965, Slovak Studies VII. The Slovak Institute (Cleveland-Rome), 1987, Slovakia, Vol. XXII, No. 45, 1972, p. 207, and Canadian Slavoni<: Papers, Vol. Xlli, 4, 1971. Ladislav Dvonc, Bibliografia slovenskej jazykovedy 1961-1965, Matica slovenska, (Martin, 1970), pages 804, Slovakia, Vol. XXII. No. ~ . 1972, p. 205. Ethnologia Slavica I, Universitas Comenian-a Bratislavensis, Facultas Philosophica, Bratislava, 1970, p. 226, Slovakia, Vol. XXII, No. 45, 1972, p. 214. Juraj Chovan, Letopis pama.tnika slovenskej literatury lf)70, (Matica slovenska, Martin, 1970), Slovakia, Vol. XXII, No. 45, 1972 p. 210. ~ubomir Liptak, Slovensko v 20. storoci (Slovakia in the Twentieth Century), (Bratislava, 19&8), 366 p. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XIX, No. 42, 1969, p. 198. �SLOVAKIA 101 Samo Falt'an, Slovenska otazka v teskoslovensku (The Slovak Question in Czechoslovakia), (Bratislava, 1968), 352 p. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XIX, No. 42, 1969, p. 200. Emilia Duchajova, Slovenskci slavistika 1968, Matica slovenska, Martin, 1970, p. 336. Reviewed in Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol. Xlll, 4, 197. Stefan Moyses 1869-1969, Edicia Literarneho archlvu, zviizok 7. Zbornik z vedeckej konferencie MS, Martin, 1971, stran 174, litogr. Reviewed in Most, Vol. 19, 1-2, 1972. Jan Chovan, Letopis pamatnika slovenskej literatury 1970, MS, Martin, 1970, p. 94. Reviewed in Most, Vol. 19, 1-2, 1972. Jan Okal', Voda a vino (Water and Wine, United States, 1970), p. 70. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XX, 1970 No. 43. Eugen Vesnin, Aj v etrurskych zahradach (Also in the Gardens of Etruria), Buenos Aires, 1970. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XX, 1970, No. 43. Evaluation of Dr. Kirschbaum's Writings by Critics Dr. Kirschbaum's writings were bound to provoke favorable as well as unfavorable reaction. All his books and publications challenged numerous erroneous views on Slovakia's history and culture accepted in the West by scholars and political writers alike. Dr. Kirschbaum challenged these views by works with serious academic background and solid knowledge of matters discussed. In such a situation it was only natural that the reaction was on one hand favorable and on the other hand the author was unscrupulously attacked_. by adversaries of Slovakia's struggle for independence. *) After the publication of the book Slovakia--Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe, to which the Hon. Alvin M. Bentley, member of the Committee of Foreign Affaires of tae U. S. Congress, wrote an approving preface, Prague Government supplied some Czech and Communist newspapers in Canada and the U.S.A. with falsified documents destined to prevent Dr. Kirschbaum from teaching at universities or taking part in public life. A smear campaign on a large scale was organized against him especially in the Canadian press, and made news on radio and television. At the same time, pressure was excercised on the university authorities and academic associations. Even though it was clear that the campaign was politically motivated by the Prague Communist regime and had all the characteristics of "character assassination," Dr. Kirschbaum had to take legal action to clear his name. � 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 1973, Vol. 23 Description An account of the resource Vol. 23 (No. 46), 1973. 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 1973 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 92 SLOVAKIA Select Bibliography of Foreign Language Writings by Prof. J. M. Kirschbaum Convinced that the main role of Slovak intellectuals abroad is to acquaint the West with Slovak history, culture and literature, and to defend Slovakia's right to freedom and independence, Dr. J.M. Kirschbaum used for the past 20 years his talent and knowledge of several languages for that purpose more than any other Slovak in the free world. He published the first reference book on Slovakia in English, the first complete history of Slovaks in Canada, and was the only Slovak scholar abroad who in numerous papers and essays put Slovak cultural and political history into proper perspective at meetings of Canadian and American Slavists and in Canadian, American and European academic periodicals and encyclopedias. His comments on and critical reviews of hundreds of books in foreign languages or in Slovak which he published in academic periodicals of which he was member of the editorial board (Etudes slaves et est-europeennes, Canadian Slavonic Papers, Slavs in Canada, Slavica Canadiana), or in the quarterlies Slovakia, Slowakei and Most also served the same aim: to present Slovakia and Slovak cultural life to the West in a proper light, and to correct the misconceptions which prevailed among American Slavists and historians of Ea:st Central Europe on Slovakia's past and present. As President of the Canadian Ethnic Press Federation and its branch in Ontario, Dr. Kirschbaum also deserves credit for many favorable articles on Slovak matters published in some 20 languages by the Canadian Ethnic Press. Articles published in newspapers are not, however, listed even though many of them were scholarly essays rather than newspaper articles. Altogether Dr. Kirschbaum published about 2000 articles and essays in Slovak news- SLOVAKIA 93 papers and periodicals in the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia. As a result, the select bibliography listed below is far from being complete. On the occasion of the 60th birthday of Dr. Kirschbaum, we want to record at least his most important writings in foreign languages, assuming that scholars and students of Slovak political history and cultural matters would find them useful for their studies and research. - The Editor BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS Slovakia-Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe, Speller & Sons Pub., New York, 1960, XIX and 371 p., ill., bib!. Slovaks in Canada, Canadian Ethnic Press Association, Toronto, 1967, XIX and 468 p., ill., bib!. Nas boj o samostatnost' Slovens/ca, (The Struggle for Slovakia's In- dependence), Cleveland, Slovak Institute, 1958, 343 p. :Cudovit Stur and his Place in the Slavic World, Slavistica No. 32, Slovak Institute, (Winnipeg-Cleveland), 1956. Contemporary Tendencies in Slovak Philology, An offprint from Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. IV, No. 3-4, 1960. Hacia una nueva democracia para la Europa central, An offprint from Revista de Estudios Politicos, Vol. 125, Madrid, 1962. An Outline of Slovakia's Struggle for Independence, Toronto, Canadian Slovak League, 1964, 40 p. Slovakia in the de-Stalinization and Federalization Process of CzechoSlovakia, An offprint from Canadian Slavonic Papers ·(X, 4, 1968). Pavol Jozef Safarik and his Contribution to Slavic Studies, Slavistica No. 43, (Cleveland-Winnipeg), 1962. Anton Bernolak-The First Codifier of the Slovak Language, Slavistica No. 52, (Winnipeg-Cleveland), 1964. Pan-Slavism in Slovak Literature: Jan Kollar-Slovak Poet of PanSlavism, Slavistica No. 56, (Cleveland-Winnipeg), 1966. The Role of the Cyrillo-Methodian Tradition in Slovak National and Political Life. An offprint from Slovak Studies III, (Rome), 1963. Conceptions politi ques et philosophiques de £. Stur dans son oeiivre: Das Slawenthum und die Welt der Zukunft, An offprint from Etudes Slaves et Est- europeennes, Montreal, 1968. Slovakia, Historical and Cultural Backgrounds, Slovak World Congress, Toronto, 1971, 60 p. Editor and main contributor. Twenty Years of The Ethnic Press Association of Ontario, The Ethnic Press Association of Ontario, (Toronto, Ontario, 1971), p. 220. Editor and main contributor. Slovak Literary History in Marxist and Western Interpretation, An offprint from Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol. VI, (University of Toronto Press), 1964. 94 SLOVAKIA ARTICLES ON HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE IN ENGLISH "International Recognition of the Slovak Republic", Slovakia, Vol. I, 1951, pp. 23-31. "Slovakia and Central European Federation Plans", Slovakia, Vol m, No. 1, 1953, pp. 1-21. "Diplomatic Documents on Slovakia's Declaration of Independence". Slovakia, Vol. IV, No. 1, 1954, pp. 3-12. "The Constitution of the Slovak Republic", Slovakia, Vol IX, 1959, pp. 47-68. "Facts and Events Behind the Scenes of Slovakia's Declaration of Independence", Slovakia, Vol. IX, No. 4, 1959, pp. 1-23. "Slovakia and the Plans for Integration of Central Europe", Studies for a new Central Europe, Vol. I, 1964, pp. 22-7. "Twenty Years of the Czech and Communist Rule in Slovakia", Slovakia, xv (1965), pp. 78-92. "Slovakia in the de-Stalinization and Federalization Process of CzechoSlovakia", Canadian Slavonic Papers, X, 4, 1968. "The Role of the Cyrillo-Methodian Tradition in Slovak National Life", Slovak Studies, Vol. m, 1963. "The Slovak Press in Canada", Slovakia, Vol. XVIII, No. 41, 1968, pp. 79-106. "Slovakia in the Struggle for Liberalization and Federalization of Czecho-Slovakia", Slovakia, Vol. XIX, No. 42, 1969, pp. 3-31. "Slovaks and the Upheavals of Czecho-Slovakia", Jednota Annual Furdek, Vol. IX, January 1970, pp. 82-86. "The Assimilation Process of American Slovaks", Slovakia, Vol XXI, No. 44, 1971, pp. 79-84. "Slovaks in Canada", Slavs in Canada, Vol. I, Inter-University Committee on Canadian Slavs, University of Alberta, 1966. "The Ideological Orientation of the Canadian Slavic Press", Slavs in Canada, Vol III, University of Ottawa, 1969. "Slovakia and the Integration Plans of Central Europe", Symposium Toward a New Central Europe, Ed. Francis S. Wagner, Danubian Press, Inc. (Astor Park, Florida), 1970, pp. 259-265. "Prof. F. f>urcansky-Politician, Scholar and Fighter for Slovakia's Independence", Slovakia, Vol. XVII, No. 40, 1967, pp. 153-160. "The 15th Anniversary of the Untimely Death of Prof. Francis Hrusovsky, Ph.D.", Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, pp. 175-179. "Stephen B. Roman--Slovak Tycoon", Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, pp. 7-19. "Dr. Joseph Tiso-The Prelate Politician Who Died on the Gallows for His People", Slovakia, Vol. XXII, No. 45, 1972, pp. 5-20. "My Last Diplomatic Report to the President of Slovakia", Furdek, Vol. XI, 1972, pp. 81-87. "Prospects of Slovakia Under Husak's Leadership", Almanac, National Slovak Society, Pittsburgh, Pa. 1971, pp. 124-129. "Pittsburgh Pact and its Significance in Slovak Politics", Almanac, National Slovak Society, Pittsburgh, Pa. 1971, pp. 132-137. SLOVAKIA 95 "The Truth and Legends About the Origin of the Slovak Republic", Furdek, (Middletown, Pa. 1973). IN FRENCH "La voie de la Slovaquie", La Correspondance slovaque, Bern, Switzerland, August 15, 1943. "La Slovaquie et son droit a !'independence", La Correspondance slovaque, November 15, 1943. "L'orientation politique de !'emigration slovaque", La Correspondance slovaque, February, 1944. "La tradition universitaire en Slovaquie", La Correspondance slovaque, March, 1944. "La Slovaquie dans la tourbillon des evenements", La Correspondance slovaque, October, 1944. "Les bases de collaboration et de paix en Europe centrale", La Correspondance slovaque, November, 1944. "La Slovaquie dans la lutte pour son avenir", La Correspondance slovaque, January, 1945. "L'apport des slovaques a !'organization culturelle et politique de L'Europe centrale", La Correspondance slovaque, November, 1944. "Les slovaques et les promesses des politiciens Tcheques", La Correspondance slovaque, January, 1945. "La Slovaquie apres cinq ans d'independance", Revue de droit internationale, de sciences diplomatiques et politiques, Geneve, 1944, XXII, No. 2, pp. 121-142. "La Tcheco-Slovaquie correspond-elle aux aspirations de ses habitants", Slovensky narod - La nation slovaque, Paris, 1949-1950. "Pour une nouvelle organization de L'Europe Centrale", Slovensky narod - La nation slovaque, Paris, February, 1949. "La declaration de l'independance slovaque en mars 1939", Slovensky ncirod - La nation slovaque, Paris, March 15, 1949. IN GERMAN "Der Kampf fiir eine freie Slowakei", Slowakische Korrespondenz, Munich, Germany, September, 1953, I, 9. "Wesen und Ursachen des Gegensatzes zwischen Tschechen und Slowaken", Slowakische Korrespondenz, Munich, 1953, I, 5. "Wir und Tschechen", Slowakische Korrespondenz, Munich, 1953, I, 3. "Die Slowakei und ihr Verhiiltnis zu den Nachbarn", Slowakische Korrespondenz, Munich, 1958, VI, 12. "Die internationale Anerkennung der Slowakischen Republik", Slowakei, Vol. II, No. 2, 1964. "Die Haltung Grossbritanniens zur Slowakei", Slowakei, Vol. III, No. 1, 1965, pp. 11-29. "Das Pittsburger Abkommen und seine Bedeutung in der slowakischen Politik", Slowakei, Vol. VI, No. 1-2, Munich, 1968, pp. 58-66. "Schicksal der slowakischen Gesandschaft in Bern", Slowakei, Vol. VII, No. 1-2, 1969, pp. 87-100. 96 SLOVAKIA "Die Rolle der Slowakei in der Nachkriegsentwicklung der TschechoSlowakei", Slowakei, Vol. VIII, No. 11, 1970. "Aussenpolitische Vorstellungen im slowakischen Exil", Wissenschaµ. licher Dienst fur Ostmitteleuropa, February, 1972. IN SPANISH "Hacia una nueva democracia para la Europa central", Rivista de Estudios Politicos", Vol. 125, Madrid, 1962. ARTICLES ON CULTURAL AND LITERARY MATTERS IN ENGLISH "The Slovaks and Slavonic Civilization", Quarterly Slovakia, Vol. V, No. 4, 1955, pp. 39-49. "A Note on Two Modern Slovak Translators of Mickiewicz" in W. Lednicki, Adam Mickiewicz in World Literature, University of California Press, (Berkley, 1956). "Louis Stu.r's Centennial", Slovakia, Vol. VI, No. 1, 1956, pp. 3-16. "Mickiewicz in Slovak Poetry and Translations", Slovakia, Vol. VII, No. 1, 1957, pp. 32-41. "University Traditions in Slovalda", Slovakia, Vol. VIII, No. 2, 1958, pp. 18-29. "Canadian Translator of Slovak Poetry-Prof. W. Kirkconnell", Slovakia, Vol. XIV, 1964, No. 1, pp. 9-18. "Notes on Slovak Culture, Literature and Language", Quarterly Most, Vol. VII, No. 1, 1960, pp. 1-14. "Misconceptions of American Slavists About Slovak Literature", Slovakia, Vol. XI, No. 1, 1961, pp. 22-42. "Mis~onceptions of American Slavists About Slovak Literature", Slovakia, Vol. XII, No. 1, 1962, pp. 25-49. "Bicentennial of Anton Bernolak", Annual Furdek, Vol. II, Cleveland, Ohio, 1963), pp. 18-27. "Love for Songs and Folklore Among Slovaks", Annual Furdek, Vol. II, (Cleveland-Ohio, 1963), pp. 83-88: "The Slovak Language and its Place Among the Slavic Languages", Annual Slovakia, Vol. XV, 1966, pp. 1-24. "Slovak Literature", The New Catholic Encyclopedia, The Catholic University of America, Washington, D. C., 1967, Vol. XIII, pp. 280, 292-295, 748, also in Vol. XIV and other volumes on Jan Holly, Jan Kollar, Cudovit Stur, P. 0. Hviezdoslav, M. Kukucil:1, S. H. Vajansky, Andrej Sladkovic, J. C. Hronsky. "Prof. D. Cyzevsky-Ukrainian Expert in Slovak Literature", Quarterly Most, Vol. VIII, No. 3-4, 1961, pp. 17-36. "A Note on the Theory on the Origin of the Name Slav", Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. III, No. 2, 1958, pp. 47-56. "Contemporary Tendencies in Slovak Philology", Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. IV, No. 3-4, 1960. SLOVAKIA 97 "Slovak Literary History in Marxist and Western Interpretation", A reprint from Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol. VI, (University of Toronto Press), 1964. "Slavica Slovaca", Review article, Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol. XIII, 4, 1971. "J. C. Hronsky--Slovak Novelist and Writer", Annual Furdek, Vol. X, (Cleveland, Ohio, 1971), pp. 23-29. "The Slovaks and Slavonic Civilization", Furdek, Vol. X, (Cleveland, Ohio, 1971), pp. 69-79. "Old Cnlture and University Traditions in Slovakia", Furdek, Vol. XI, (Cleveland, Ohio, 1972), pp. 167-185. "Bilingualism in Slovak Literature", Almanac, National Slovak Society, Pittsburgh, Pa. 1972, pp. 144-147. " American and Canadian Translators of Slovak Poetry", Furdek, (Cleveland, Ohio, 1973). "Janko Kral', Slovak Poet, Honored by UNESCO", Furdek, (Cleveland, Ohio, 1973). "Andrej 2arnov - Poet of Slovak Patriotism", Festschrift Pozdrav Andrejovi Zarnovovi, Spolok slovenskych spisovatel'ov a umelcov, Cleveland, Ohio, 1963. IN FRENCH "La Grande-Moravie et son heritage cultural", Etudes slaves et esteuropeennes, Universite de Montreal, Vol. II, 1957, pp. 189-199. "Le centenaire d'un grand slaviste: Safarik", Etudes slaves et esteuropeennes, Montreal, 1960, Vol. V, pp. 69-80. "La litterature de la periode cyrillo-methodienne et la Slovaque", Slovak Studies III, (Rome), 1963. "La place du slovaque parmi les langues slaves", Etudes slaves et esteuropeennes, Vol. VIII, Fasc. 3-4, Universite de Montreal, 1963. "Conceptions politiques et philosophiques de I!. Stlir tirees de son oeuvre: Das Slawentum und die Welt der Zukunft", Etudes slaves et est-europeennes, Vol. XIII, 1969, pp. 32-45. IN GERMAN "Profil und Werk L'udovft Sturs", Slowakei, Vol III, No. 2, 1965. "Literarisch-kulturelles Schaffen des slowakischen Exils", Slowakei, Vol. IV, No. 1, 1966. BOOK REVIEWS BOOKS IN FRENCH, ENGLISH, GERMAN AND ITALIAN Joseph A. Miku§, La Slovaquie dans le Drame de l'Europe (Histoires politique de 1918 a 1950), Paris, Les Isles d'Or, 1955, 478 pp. Reviewed in Etudes slaves et est-europeennes, Vol. I, part 2, pp. 121-4. 98 SLOVAKIA Francis R. Preveden, A History of the Croatian People, New York, Philosophical Library, 1955, XVI, 134 p. Reviewed in The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. XIV, 3, 1956. Milovan Djilas, The New Class, an analysis of the Communist system, Praeger, N. Y. 1957, 214 pp. Reviewed in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. III, part 1, 60-1 p. Joseph G. Cincik, Ph.D., Ancient Slovak Fibulas and Pseudo-Fibulas, Whiting, Indiana, published by Rev. John J. Lach, 1957, 105 pp. Reviewed in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. II, part 4, 250-1 pp. Joseph G. Cincik, Anglo-Saxon and Slovak-Avar Patterns of Cuthbert's Gospel, Cleveland, Ohio, Slovak Institute, 1958, 124 p. Reviewed in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. III, part 4, Winter 1958-1959, 240-243 pp. Stephen Smrzik, S. J., The Glagolitic or Romano-Slavonic Liturgy, Rome, Slovak Institute, 1959, 120 p. Reviewed. in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. V, part 1-2, 118-119 pp. Bonaventure, B. Bue, Slovak Nationalism, (Middletown, Pa., Slovak League of America, 1960), 67 pp. Reviewed in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. VI, parts 1-2, 111-112 pp. Gilbert L. Oddo, Slovakia and its People, New York, Speller & Sons Inc:, 1960, XI, 361 pp. Reviewed in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. VI, parts 1-2, 112-114 pp. Ludwig v. Gogolak, Beitriige zur Geschichte des slowakischen Volke! I, (Contributions to the History of the Slovak People), Verlag R. Oldenburg, Miinchen, 1963, p. 265. Reviewed in Slovakia. Ludwig v. Gogolak, T. G. Masaryks slowakische und ungarlandische Politik (Masaryk's Slovak and Hungarian Policy), Munich, 1963, Vol. IV, pp. 174-227. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XVIII, 1968, No. 41. David L. Hoggan, Der erzwungene Krieg, die Ursachen und Urheber des z. Weltkrieus, Verlag der Deutschen Hochschullehrer-Zeitung, Tiibingen, 1963, bibliography, maps, photographs, pages 898. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, p. 210. J . A. Mikus, Slovakia-A Political History 1918-1950, Milwaukee, Wis., Marquette University Press, 1964, XXXIII, 392 pp. Reviewed in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. X, parts 1-2, p. 68. Milan St. :!'.>urica, La Slovacchia e le sue relazioni politiche con la Germania, (1938-1945), Padova, Marsilio Editori, 1964, 274 pp. Reviewed in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. X, parts 1-2, p. 68. Arved Grebert, Die Slowaken und das Grossmiihrisches Reich, (The Slovaks and the Great Moravian Empire), M. Cernak's Institute, Munich, 19615. Jorg K. Hoensch, Die Slowakei und Hitler's Ostpolitik (Hlinka's Slowakische Volkspartei zwischen Autonomie und Separation 19381939), Bohlau Verlag, Koln-Graz, 1965, p. 390. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XVIII, 1968, No. 41, and in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. XII, part 1, p. 61-3. Die Slowakei als mitteleuropiiisches Problem in Geschichte und Gege'ltwart, (Slavakia's Central European Problem in the Past arui SLOVAKIA 99 Present), Lectures at Collegium Carolinum, Verlag Robert Lerche, Mtinchen, 1965, p. 240. Reviewed in Slavic and Ecut European Studies, Vol. XII, part 1, p. 61-3. Jorg K. Hoensch, Die GrundZagen des Programms der Slovakischen Volkspartei vor 1938 (The Basis of the Programme of the Slovak Populist Party Before 1938), Munich, 1966, Vol. VII, p. 320-356. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XVIII, 1968, No. 41. Heinrich Kuhn, Handbuch der Tschechoslowakei, (Verlag Robert Lerche, Milnchen), 1966, pp. 1,024. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XX, 1970, No. 43. Frantisek Vnuk, Dr. Jozef Tiso-President of the Slovak Republic, The Association of Australia Slovaks, Sydney, 1967, p. 50, ill. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XVII, 1968, No. 41. Milan S. f>urica, D'ie slowakische Politik 1938-1939 im Lichte der Staatslehre Tisos (Slovak Policy 1938-1939 in the Light of Tiso's Political Thought), Emil Semmel Verlag, Bonn, 1967, 49 p. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XVIII, 1968, No. 41. Rudolf Sturm, CzechoslovakieJ,-A Bibliographie Guide, Library of the Congress, Washington, 1967, 157 p. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol XX, 1970, No. 43. Beitrage zum Deutsch-Tschechischen Verhaltnis im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Veroffentlichungen des Collegium Carolinum), Verlag Robert Lerche, (Milnchen, 1967), pp. 178. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, p. 213. Slovak Studies V: Historica 3, Cleveland-Rome, Slovak Institute, 1967, p. 268. Reviewed in Canadian Slavonic Papers, XI, 1, 1969. Stefan Glejdura, Los Grandes Problemas del Este Europeo, Separata de la Revista de Politica International, Madrid, 1968-1969, Washington University. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XX, 1970, No. 43. Gorazd Zvonicky, Soltanto Rovine - Italian translation by Milan S. f>urica and Ernesto Simonetto. Published by Associazione di culturia ceca e slovaca "Arturo Cronia", Padua, 1968. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, p. 204. George F. Kennan, From Prague After Munich, Diplomatic Papers 19381940. Princeton University Press, 1968, 226 pages. Slavica Canadiana, No. 69, 1970. Lunghi and Ello, Dubcek' s Blue Print for Freedom (Kimber, London), 1968. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, pp. 205-208. Ladislav Mnacko, Die siebente Nacht, (Vienna, 1968). Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, pp. 205-208. Podolak Jan (Ed.), Ethnologia SZavica I, Universitas Comoniana, Facultas Philosophica, Bratislava, 1970, Most, Vol. 19, 1-2, 1972. Reitzner, Almar, Dubce k (Milnchen), 1970. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, pp. 205-208. Gromada, Thaddeus V., Pilsudski and the Slovak Autonomists, An off. print from Slavic Review, September, 1969, pp. 445-462, Washington University. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XX, No. 43, 1970, p. 167. Tigrid, Pavel, La chute irresisti ble d'Alexander Dubce k, (Calmann-Levy, Paris, 1969). Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, pp. 205-208. SLOVAKIA 100 Fetjo, Frani;ois, Histoire des democracies populaires apres Stali-ne, (Editions du Seuil, Paris), 1969. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, pp. 205-208. Lob!, Eugen, und Grunwald, Leopold, Die intellektuelle Revolution, Hintergrilnde und Auswirkungen des "Prager Frilhlings'', (Dilsseldorf, Econ, 1969). Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, pp. 205-208. Wagner, Francis S., (Ed.), Toward a New Central Europe: A Symposium on the Problems of the Danubian Nations, Danubian Press, Inc., Astor Park, Florida, 1970. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, p. 211. Sprinc, Mikula§, Driftwood. Poems translated from the Slovak by the author Larz Pearson and Jaroslav Vajda. Published by the Slovak Institute in Cleveland, Ohio, 1969. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXI, No. 44, 1971, p. 203. Noge Julius, An Outline of Slovakian Literature, (The Tatrapress Agency, Bratislava), 1968. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XXII, No. 45, 1972, p. 208. BOOKS IN SLOVAK J. Mi~ianik, J. Minarik, M. Michalcova, A. Melichar~k, Dejint1 starsej slovenskej literatury (A History of the Older Slovak Literature), Bratislava, published by Slovenska akademia vied (Slovak Academy of Sciences), 1955, p. 230, ill. Reviewed In Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. V, parts 3-4, 243-4 pp. Franmek Vnuk, Sedemnast' neurodnych roko11 - Ndcrt de;tn slovenskej literatury v rokoch 1945-62 (Seventeen Barren Years - A Survey of Slovak Literature 1945-62), Middletown, Pa., Slovak v Amerike, 1965, p. 304, English Summary, Reviewed in Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. XII, parts 2-3, 133-4 pp. Studia Historica Slovaca IV. Bratislava: Vydavatel'stvo Slovenskej akademie vied, 1966, p. 290. Reviewed in Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol. XI, 1, 1969. M. Lacko (ed.), Slovens/ca bibliografia v zahranici 1945-1965, Slovak Studies VII. The Slovak Institute (Cleveland-Rome), 1987, Slovakia, Vol. XXII, No. 45, 1972, p. 207, and Canadian Slavoni<: Papers, Vol. Xlli, 4, 1971. Ladislav Dvonc, Bibliografia slovenskej jazykovedy 1961-1965, Matica slovenska, (Martin, 1970), pages 804, Slovakia, Vol. XXII. No. ~ . 1972, p. 205. Ethnologia Slavica I, Universitas Comenian-a Bratislavensis, Facultas Philosophica, Bratislava, 1970, p. 226, Slovakia, Vol. XXII, No. 45, 1972, p. 214. Juraj Chovan, Letopis pama.tnika slovenskej literatury lf)70, (Matica slovenska, Martin, 1970), Slovakia, Vol. XXII, No. 45, 1972 p. 210. ~ubomir Liptak, Slovensko v 20. storoci (Slovakia in the Twentieth Century), (Bratislava, 19&8), 366 p. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XIX, No. 42, 1969, p. 198. SLOVAKIA 101 Samo Falt'an, Slovenska otazka v teskoslovensku (The Slovak Question in Czechoslovakia), (Bratislava, 1968), 352 p. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XIX, No. 42, 1969, p. 200. Emilia Duchajova, Slovenskci slavistika 1968, Matica slovenska, Martin, 1970, p. 336. Reviewed in Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol. Xlll, 4, 197. Stefan Moyses 1869-1969, Edicia Literarneho archlvu, zviizok 7. Zbornik z vedeckej konferencie MS, Martin, 1971, stran 174, litogr. Reviewed in Most, Vol. 19, 1-2, 1972. Jan Chovan, Letopis pamatnika slovenskej literatury 1970, MS, Martin, 1970, p. 94. Reviewed in Most, Vol. 19, 1-2, 1972. Jan Okal', Voda a vino (Water and Wine, United States, 1970), p. 70. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XX, 1970 No. 43. Eugen Vesnin, Aj v etrurskych zahradach (Also in the Gardens of Etruria), Buenos Aires, 1970. Reviewed in Slovakia, Vol. XX, 1970, No. 43. Evaluation of Dr. Kirschbaum's Writings by Critics Dr. Kirschbaum's writings were bound to provoke favorable as well as unfavorable reaction. All his books and publications challenged numerous erroneous views on Slovakia's history and culture accepted in the West by scholars and political writers alike. Dr. Kirschbaum challenged these views by works with serious academic background and solid knowledge of matters discussed. In such a situation it was only natural that the reaction was on one hand favorable and on the other hand the author was unscrupulously attacked_. by adversaries of Slovakia's struggle for independence. *) After the publication of the book Slovakia--Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe, to which the Hon. Alvin M. Bentley, member of the Committee of Foreign Affaires of tae U. S. Congress, wrote an approving preface, Prague Government supplied some Czech and Communist newspapers in Canada and the U.S.A. with falsified documents destined to prevent Dr. Kirschbaum from teaching at universities or taking part in public life. A smear campaign on a large scale was organized against him especially in the Canadian press, and made news on radio and television. At the same time, pressure was excercised on the university authorities and academic associations. Even though it was clear that the campaign was politically motivated by the Prague Communist regime and had all the characteristics of "character assassination," Dr. Kirschbaum had to take legal action to clear his name.  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 Select Bibliography of Foreign Language Writings by Prof. J. M. Kirschbaum Description An account of the resource Slovakia, Vol. 23 (No. 46), 1973 pp. 92-101 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/1d03466e355cfdad7b25342ce320a66c.pdf 150d6e4c02c48cbfd5c70d17ffdd573c PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 87 AN ANTHOLOGY OF SLOVAK UTERA TURE Introductory Remarks ANDREW CINCURA \ An Anthology of Slovak Literature, compiled recently with financial support from The Rockefeller Foundation, presents the most representative selections from the works of over 70 Slovak authors. Consisting primarily of translations from Slovak poetry, prose , and drama, this anthology contains, in addition, a general introduction by Dr. Michael Novak, a long aesthetic-historical essay "Slovak Literature : A Brief History" by Dr. Karol StrmeN, and an appendix presenting several selections from Slovak-American authors. Several scholars and artists, including the well-known Slovak-American poet, Reverend Jaroslav J. Vajda, and American poet and scholar, Dr. Michael Collings , assisted the compiler in the project. The Anthology of Slovak Literature is - in the words of Dr. Novak - ''a work of major importance (connecting) the United States and one other small part of the world . . . This anthology is done with taste, intelligence, judgment, and perception. I read it with excitement, and I am sure that hundreds of thousands of others from Eastern Europe will find in it nourishment over the next generation, for it is a landmark book, certain to endure. " Although just a minute part of the work itself, the following excerpts from An Anthology of Slovak Literature will give the reader a foretaste of the character and artistry of the book. An Anthology of Slovak Literature has been available since May 1, 1976, at : University Hardcovers P . 0. Box 248 Riverside , California 92502 or from the major Slovak newspapers and bookstores throughout the United States and Canada. If ordered directly from the publisher, the price of the book is $16.50 for individual copies. A discount of 10 percent will be given on orders of 5-10 copies , and a discount of 20 percent on orders of 11 or more copies. The following selections are reprinted with perrmss10n of University Hardcovers, P. 0 . Box 248, Riverside, California 92502, from An Anthology of Slovak Literature by Andrew Cincura. Copyright © 1976 by Andrew Cincura. �88 SLOVAKIA On Skulls JAN HOLLY (1785-1849) Tell me, you skulls, so neatly stacked in dark bone-bins, whose were you once, a peasant's or a lord's? Which one of you was held aloof on a wealthy, mighty neck, and which drooped languid from a beggar's spine? Upon which, while alive, did fortune cast her smile, and which was crushed by lifelong slavery? Is this one whiter from the fawning adulation so many offered it in lavish awe? And that one darker having suffered undeserved ingratitude and cruel ridicule? Speechless in terrifying silence, not one of you is able to give me an answer to my question. In frightful heaps you lie, looking so very much like gathered shards of stony desolations; or like those grief-bent forests when the white-maned wind denudes them of their leafy captivating beauty. So when a man is gone: with him all honor dies and glory and every deference bestowed by others. (Ba1ne rozmanite, n. d.) Translated by J aroslav J. Vajda �SLOVAKIA God in Heaven \ AN"DREJ SLADKOVIC (1820-1872) God in heaven , see what sorrow when our young are cast abroad out into the world to borrow, toil, or beg a crust of bread. See them mercilessly driven, scattered by life's cruel hoax, what were solitary ravens have become falcon flocks . God in heaven, thus forsaken, if I stay, what can I earn? Into this world came I naked, naked I shall there return . In that hour, pray, be responsive to my final, inmost need: mercy , God, 0 God, have mercy when I stand alone with Thee. Translated by Jaroslav J. Vajda 89 �90 SLOVAKIA Bloody Sonnets (a fragment) PA VOL ORSAGH-HVIEZDOSLAV (1849-1921) I A song of blood: - what madness can this be? And which shall be our theme? The sudden rush rose-red, that leaps into a maiden 's blush, the sleeping infant's pink we love to see , that pulses under angel custody ; or shall it be the ardent crimson gush that fires the zealot 's brow with fervid flush: then let the song resound with rapture free! Oh, blood is a wonder-working fluid! Hidden like some rare vintage seething ~ithin the heart , it pounds with the might and rage of tempest-ridden breakers ; or bursting the tranquil pulse apart, it charges one with frenzy God-forbidden . .. Do thoughts like these engage the butcher's art? Translated by Jaroslav J. Vajda �SLOVAKIA The Guests , IVANKRASKO (1876-1958) Courteously , though with a mystic fearfulness, I welcomed nonetheless my funeral guests, somber, with psalters under thei:r arms, having arrived from distant lands . Ceremonially , with chalky, dry and bony hands each reverenced the icon of my dusty home, and bowing to the waist (to me - if not, to whom?), they sat around the table , a solemn, black-swathed ring. Searching the psalter for long-lost hymns, they then began to sing in deep sepulchral voice - the harshest kind of air of bitter fruit the tree of life was found to bear, of Mother Earth's original condition - as one she was before the thrice-cursed lust of slithering Diabolos ... And then as gloomily they left (under the smiles of those who never dared to take from Eve the apple of her wiles), and said they would return to us again next year to visit those they now considered brothers, or at least as near. Eunice! Where are you? Look how one by one they disappear. (Verse, 1912) Translated by Jaroslav J . Vajda 91 �92 SLOVAKIA The Hundred and First Tale of Boccaccio VALENTIN BENIAK (1894-1973) Quill in hand, I wrote a letter home: I shall stay on till Autumn here in Florence. And yes, I met Boccaccio carrying his Decameron, followed by a band of noble virgins. One I knew - Donna Clara - led her beast and handed me the leather bridle as she went. In Fiesole we met a priest bearing on his shoulder a battered trident. Neptune it was, reaping hay - despite his wont the pagan seas had scorned him, one and all. ''Sir,'' he asked, ' 'might you be the Duke of Brabant on your way to my confessional?" He would have liked the stole and blessed oil, would pray my soul to heaven's halls, would hire wicked men to toil rip Botticelli's Venus from the U(fizi's walls . . Slip her from her canvas world - be done! she would return with him to her sea-home . (For this is but the hundredth tale and one, carved from Carrara marble and sea-foam.) (Ozveny krokov, 1931) Translated by Andrew Cincura �SLOVAKIA ' Carmen EMIL B. LUKAC (1900) Dance and sing, you naked bajadera, throughout this long and melancholy era. Dance and sing, the golden calf is bleating, and dragon claws the kettle-fires are heating. In flaming dance your many limbs entwine to form a beast half-hydra, half-divine. Dance and sing, you universal axis, you contradictory, convoluted maxims: maze, lie, and death - not way and truth and life. Dance and sing, deaf.to the din of strife. The blood of millions suck, you golden flea. Machine guns bark, and cracks the gallows-tree. (Moloch, 1938) Translated by Jaroslav J. Vajda 93 �94 SLOVAKIA Two Days at Chujava (a Iragment) JONASZABORSKY (1812-1876) Zajac, a slovenly peasant and the village clown, entered the inn's hall. The youngsters surrounded him at once, and, as always, he launched into a narrative of his heroic exploits inBombardy. (1) "Every Bombardian bee, believe me, is as large as a Slovak sheep," Zajac said, to introduce his story. "And what about the beehives - how large are they?" Pelechavy asked from the other side of the table, smiling broadly. "Only as large as ours." "Then how can the bees enter the beehives?" "That's their problem, "the ex-hussar Zajac roared, laughing and half-seriously accusing Pelechavy of r.itting at the table without ever touching his full glass . "Why don't you drink like all the other right men do? May a hundred thunderclaps deafen your soul.'' A guffaw shook the room. The men emptied their glasses, while the Jewish innkeeper did his best to keep them filled. Zajac continued with his tall tales: "Did you know that macaroni is really nothing but tapeworms seventy yards long? People buy them by the foot. To eat macaroni, all one has to do is sit in the most comfortable position, open his mouth, and let the tapeworm run down his throat by itself, while the waitress measures its length by the yard and cuts it with scissors when the customer has eaten his fill.'' Zajac then related the tale of his love affair with an Italian countess. "As soon as I rode into the castle yard," he said, "she started to wink at me, her mouth watering with anticipation. She thought, 'By Jove, there's a lad. I'm sure he has no eq~al in the entire world!' And when I dismounted and handed my horse over to the servant, she shook my hand and took me by arm, saying, ''If you will, please!' Then we went into the house. After a good supper, she prepared a bed for her husband on the bench at the hearth. 'You'll sleep here tonight,' she said, patting his arm, 'but please be quiet and don't disturb the hussar in his sleep.' - For me she spread a sheaf of straw on the floor in the middle of the room. The count, listening to her soft conversation with me, coughed and said, 'Erzha, is that hussar whispering with you?' " 'So what if he is?' " 'Why don't you stop him?' the count said. " 'I can't. I don't speak his language,' the countess replied." �SLOVAKIA 95 '' And what about your meeting with Napoleon?'' a youngster with a broom-like feather on his hat called, prompting Zajac to further narration. '' All right, listen! WhE!n the Frenchmen had annoyed us with their frequent attacks, our Emperor met with his generals to find out which one of the Austro-Hungarian soldiers wore his cap most rakishly and would therefore be best suited to be sent to Napoleon . All the generals, of course, agreed that only I, Zajac, was the proper hero, willing and able to go on such an important mission. I mounted my horse and was off to Paris. On my arrival there, I tethered my horse to a fence . Mrs. Napoleon, the Empress of France, immediately ran to me, bringing oats for my horse in her apron and taking me into her kitchen . She cooked pirohy (a) for me, filled with minced pears. They were really good, better than any I'd ever seen or tasted! Large as peasant moccasins, they were greased with the tallow collected from seven melted candles. I swear to God, they were so good that the grease flowed down my chin as profusely as down Aaron's beard. I ate almost two of them. As an extra treat the Empress also cooked hriate (b) and baked pag<ice (c) with cracklings for my return trip." "And what about Napoleon?" "Well, he patted my shoulder and said, ' My dear fellow! I wish I had a regiment of hussars like you! With men like you I would easily conquer the entire world, and all the nations in it.' - And you should have seen it - I give you my word of honor and cross my heart - he embraced and kissed me as if I were his lady love.'' "And did he sue for peace?" ' 'Of course , what else could he do when I asked him to? He gave me ten farthings for whisky and asked me to convince our Emperor and generals not to stir until he took over as many lands as he wanted. He whetted his appetite for our Bombardy (1) and bombarded us out of it, may thunder and lightning strike his sideways-turned hat! We looked around, hoping that some Cossack would appear and help us, but the world is ungrateful! We assisted the Frenchmen in Crimea against the Muscovites and the thankless Muscovites did not come to repay our courtesy and help us against the Frenchmen. That's the kind of honor you find in this world! . . . " "You' re the greatest liar I've ever seen! " Buchak remarked, wiping his moustache. ''Yes, and all of you are great fools,'' the ex-hussar Zajac laughed. "You should take my words as seriously as you take the print on paper money, which sa: ·s you may exchange it for silver any time, or believe me as much as yo I can the saying that all men are equal." (1883) (Translated by Andrew Cincura) �96 SLOVAKIA NOTES: jocular term for Lombardy . Lombardy belonged to the AustroHungarian Empire until 1859. (1) Bombardy - (a) pirohy - cheese or fruit dumplings (b) hriate - hot whisky with goose-fat topping (c) pagace (pagaache) - small unsweetened cakes The nDiscovery" of Gunpowder (a frag111cnt) TEREZIA VANSOV A (1857-1941) Autumn had progressed considerably, but our children were still enjoying the golden freedom of summer vacation. In our village, there was a tradition that school started only after the Tisovec Fair. After the pupil's mothers had sold a goose or a piece of homespun linen and had bought clothes for their children and the primers with the picture of a rooster on the front cover. Then, and only then, could the children walk proudly to school. Our boys conducted great military maneuvers in the parsonage orchard. Danny, who continually pestered Srnchik with his questions about military strategy, commanded his "rank-and-file" comrades, who were equipped with wooden sabres, guns, and a supply of dry-pea bullets in their pockets. One-two-one-two - the company marched up the orchard path, and when Danny thought they had reached their position, he called, "H-a-a-a-1-t!" Then he turned to his "men" and drilled them in the proper ways of military know-how. He was naturally dissatisfied with the over-all results. The ''men'' halted, once with one leg in the forward position, then with the ~ther. Some of them were stooped, some crooked; some did not add to iih.e glory of the tight-knit military unit at all. "How are you standing there, Private Misho? Don't you know anything about proper military bearing? Up! Straighten your legs! No, no! Don't stand there like a duckling! Pull your belly in! Out with your chest!'' Misho tried his best, but he never succeeded in acquiring a proper stance. His face was one broad grin. He opened his mouth wide and held his hands tightly to his knees (his monkey-like hands actually reached lower than his knees!). Yet regardless of his efforts, he was never praised for his achievements. �SLOVAKIA 97 Then Danny drilled the ''troops'' in the proper use of weapons, but he became really upset when even his own gun refused to obey his command. "F-i-r-e! F-i-r-e!" Danny repeated in exasperation. What was the purpose of military games without a weapon that really shoots? Why use a weapon which neither fires nor kills? He had already almost worn out his brains in an effort to acquire gunpowder. What all he had done, and all for nothing! He would have bought some powder, and he certainly could have obtained the money for it somehow. But what good would it do when neither he nor any of his comrades were big enough to buy powder in Tisovec. He was just a child, and his request, however small, would have been considered too dangerous anyway. Danny's friend Johnny had not taken part in the military drill today. Johnny would have been subject to a reprimand from his stem commander had he not appeared when the game was about to end. Running through the orchard, Johnny finally stopped near the formation. With a book in his hand, he waved and shouted, almost out of breath, "Hurrah, we've got gunpowder!" The boys turned around. Forgetting their military discipline, they jumped out of their lines and surrounded Johnny. Johnny showed them the book - the Almanac of Fejerpataky. The boys stopped, bewildered. They thought their comrade had brought some real gunpowder with him; and instead, he only showed them an old book. Danny snatched the book from Johnny's hand and asked with contempt and suspicion, "Why did you bring this book?" "Here, look! Here it is!" Johnny replied, still gasping for breath. "What?" Danny asked impatiently. ''The formula for making gunpowder!'' Johnny's reply electrified Danny. "Let's see!" He grabbed the book again, sank to the turf, and started to turn the leaves. Johnny showed him the article in the almanac. Both boys plunged into reading and quickly forgot their comrades, who resumed their own play. Danny studied the well-known recipe like a cook about the prepare a tasty cake. While reading, he wondered how he could obtain and measure all the ingredients necessary for gunpowder. Seventy-five parts saltpeter (but what is "saltpeter" and where he could buy it?); eleven parts sulfur (ah, he had it; luckily, he had already taken some from his father's supply); and fourteen parts hazel-wood charcoal (that's the easiest to get: they could cut hazel twigs anywhere, and they could bum charcoal by themselves). The scales for weighing the ingredients? No problem - they would construct it from twigs, strings, and an apple. And now to work! Danny stood up, his face gleaming. He gave the necessary instructions immediately. The boys were to go tomorrow morning to cut hazel wood. They were to store the supply at the upper end of the orchard, and they were to build a charcoal-pile there. Johnny was to go to Tisovec to buy saltpeter. (Danny knew that he could not get any �98 SLOVAKIA himself because of his previous "contacts" with the city merchants.) Danny would try to find out what saltpeter was and where they could buy it. The orders dispensed, Danny hit the shortest path to his grandmother' s. He found her in front of her house thrashing hemp. He addressed her directly, "Grandma!" "What do you want, my son?" ' 'What ' s saltpeter?'' "Saltpeter?" the old woman repeated the question with surprise. "What is he dabbling in now, this Danny?" she thought with suspicion, unable to find a good reason behind the question. She was familiar with saltpeter, a harmless ingredient which was used for certain jobs in the household. She told him that the druggists in Tisovec kept saltpeter in their stores. This information was all Danny needed. Early the next morning, he sent Johnny to the city with three farthings to buy the saltpeter. In the meantime, Danny found a large apple, a "funtovka" apple (1) growing in the school garden, cut the apple in two equal halves, carving them into bowl-like plates, he attached the two halves first to strings and then to twigs arranged as primitive scales. When the charcoal was prepared and all the ingredients collected, he weighed the proper amounts of saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur, triturated every ingredient separately, and mixed them together. It made a little pile when he poured the mixture on a sheet of paper. He was as pleased with the feat as a chemist might have been with a successful experiment in his laboratory. The boys soon found that their experiment was successful, when one of them put the compound on the fire; the gunpowder wheezed up and hit Mis ho directly on his nose, for he was too curious and had stuck his head close to the compound "to see everything better." Fortunately, the amount allotted for the experiment was small, and Misho's accident thus was not too serious. A.similar result was attained in another experiment when one of the boys ~laced a capsule on a stone and hit it with another stone. The explosion again produced "casualties" - one "well-done thumb" and one "medium-done nose.'' The boys' summer games were brought to a sudden end with the announcement that school would open and classes would begin again immediately after the Tisovec Fair. (1934) Translated by Andrew Cincura NOTE: (1) funt (Slovak) - "pound. " "Funtovky" (pl.; funtovka, sg.) are very large apples that grow in Central Europe. In Slovak folk etymology, they are supposed to weigh at least one pound each. �SLOVAKIA 99 More About the Fair (11 fr1111111ent) MARTIN KUKUCfN (1860-1928) \ An African afternoon heat seemed to rest on our exhilarated city. There was almost no shade, not even next to the house walls. The sun was inescapable, burning mercilessly as if trying to suck the last drop of moisture from emaciated, desiccated Mother Earth. And still no one even thought of hitting the bunk for an hour or so, as the human constitution should require, especially after a festive dinner, when limbs become as heavy as lead and eyelids droop; when a sweet dream flutters about despite straining efforts to keep one's eyes open. Eyes grow stiff and seem to be bulging and enveloped by a fog in which objects merge with each other. In the end, you cannot do anything but give up and lie down sinking deeply into the embraces of a sweet nap. But who could have slept this afternoon? Recently rising from the table to sip black coffee, everyone shook off his drowsiness and went off to the square. The entire city swarmed and dawdled among the tents, buying and extorting presents without shyness or courtesy. Everyone was happy, alert, and lively. The bells, tolling four o'clock, put an end to the hurly-burly. At once the square became as empty as if swept. The tents were closed, and people either entered the church or - not finding a place inside surrounded the church in a numberless mass. After somewhat abbreviated vespers, a procession started. People forged out of the church in waves, reeling from side to side, and finally taking their position in rows. The most difficult task remained - to set the procession in motion. At the head there were school children under the church banner, followed by endless rows of men. Two by two, each of the men carried a faintly-smoldering candle into the dazzling sun's rays. The young boys following the men carried huge candles and torches in multicolored lanterns. The church banners fluttered in the air, then hung limply as the faint breeze died in the torrid stillness. Then the church kantadurs (1) marched under the ,leadership of mester (2) Ivo, all singing monotonous psalms with strong but dragging voices. The echo of their song thundered amid the houses and immediately died in the dead silence of the surroundings. Four youngsters in white albs, walking after the singers, carried on their shoulders the statue of the Virgin Mary, removed from the main altar. Mary sat majestically, with the smiling child on her knees. Crowns of pure gold glittered on the heads �100 SLOVAKIA of the Mother and Son. The Christ-Child spread his plump hands as if surprised by the sudden trip from the gloomy altar niche into the blinding sun. A brocade-like garment fell in colorful folds down the statue of the Mother of God. The image, laden with jewels and precious stones, glittered, flashed, and sparkled. After the company of priests, led by our Don Roko in a festive cape, sor Ilija Zorkovic walked in black clothes, with a hard hat in one hand and a black cane trimmed with a massive silver handle in the other. He walked alone. Pacing slowly and gravely, he looked neither to the right nor to the left, conscious of his authority and elevated rank which surpassed all the other laymen in the procession. Ilija is the chairman of the church board, curator and controller of all church holdings. He is responsible for the care of church fields and wine cellars. He manages the wine until it is sold to the merchants. Everything in the church - even the candles used in such large numbers every year - rests on his shoulders. He is, in addition, the manager of the Virgin Mary, the patroness of our city - he protects all jewelry and precious stones, earrings and golden chains, bracelets and rings. Sor Ilija Zorkovic keeps all the trinkets that are hung and poured over the statue in his own house in a heavy, ironbound chest. Such a grave responsibility entails much work and many pains, but the reward is splendid - during every procession, he occupies the most prominent place, alone, right behind the baldachin, before the eyes of the entire world, seen by friends and enemies, well-wishers and envious men. Why should his chest not swell with pride and self-assurance? Why should he not walk seriously and solemnly? Behind sor Ilija Zorkovic came the mayor surrounded by all the assessors. The mayor, too, walked gravely, but one way or another, his entire countenance was a far cry from Zorkovic's. After the representatives of the opcina, (4) there was a gap of five or six paces in the procession - the women walking separately behind the men's rows. The military retinue, with rifles on, their shoulders and their "hay-straw, hay-straw" cadence, flanked the statue and priests on both sides. · It was really a magnificent sight! The continuous tolling of the bells - urgent, fancy, heavy, tremulous - you name it! The bellman, holding the clapper in his fist and shaking it with his hand, struck the bell. Everyone looked forward to the procession; for weeks and weeks everyone delighted in its anticipation. Every member of the family took part in it if he had strength enough to move his limbs. Doddering elders, hardly able to drag their feet, were present, as were the little children, just managing their first attempts to stay on their feet. Mothers carried infants in their arms, so that no one would miss the procession. Among those present, there were also many non-residents. Many guests took pains to join the procession to express their devotion to the Mother of God either for restored health or for other favors �SLOVAKIA 101 granted them or their relatives. No wonder, then, that the magnificence and number of participants serve as a gauge for evaluating whether the fair was a complete or only a partial success. And the "mark" of relative success or failure was an important thing - every citizen was proud if his city's fair was famous far and wide . The entire processioJJ. dragged slowly across the square and through the short street, out,of the city toward the cross standing in the flat field on a marble pedestal. From there, following the promenade, the procession returned to the city, submerging into narrow alleys, flanked either by blunt fence walls or one-story houses . The streets were swept and sprinkled with white sand. The balconies of the more stately houses were transformed into fragrant flower groves; draperies or ornamental rugs hung from the windows and banisters . Even the teiaks (5) decorated their cottages for the occasion. The low roofs of some cottages were covered with flowerpots. In other cottages - those with marriageable daughters - the girls spread their dowries out on the roofs or on adjacent stone walls. The school children had already entered the narrow streets when sora (6) Andrejana's group was just leaving the church yard. The stylish young misses, as always, remained at the very end of the procession. Because of their relative distance from the statue of the Virgin, they may have forgotten the reason for their presence. While the lingering song of the church singers reverberated and a muffled prayer recited with the rosary beads murmured above the crowd, whispered conversations and giggles flowed among the young ladies, accompanied by glances cast toward the balcony of Citaonica (7) where a number of the young elite assembled to see the magnificent march. It is necessary to stress that hardly any of the young ladies wore a hat in most cases they wore black veils with the ends flowing picturesquely down their breasts. Since they had no parasols, they held fans in their hands, and were able to throw coquettish glances here and there, to the side or up toward the windows. The merchants remained at their tents. With the approach of the procession, they fell to their knees , contritely beating their chests. The bells warbled and tinkled. Dust clouds rose, especially behind the women. The mortars thundered in volleys. Sor Hija Zorkovic tied a knot on the cord in his hand after every volley, in order to have an exact count of the gunpowder used and prevent youngsters from stealing part of the explosives for hunting rabbits or partridges. And the Mother of God looked down kindly from her throne. Her Son , as if bewildered, threw his chubby hands about, smiling. With almost vertical rays, the sun blazed from above, and the dark-blue sky seemed to stretch absent-mindedly above this multicolored world. (1904) Translated by Andrew Cincura �102 SLOVAKIA Note: "More About the Fair," a fragment from Kukucin's novel, Dom u strcini (The House on the Hillside), is fundamentally a representative sample of the author's "second creative period," which coincided with his life in Dalmatia. (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) kantadurs (Dalmatian): singers mester (meshter, Dalmatian): master sor (shor, Dalmatian): mister, sir opcina (Croatian): commune, township teiaks (tezhaks, Croatian): poor peasants, farm hands sora (shora, Dalmatian): Mrs. citaonica (chitaonica, Croatian): reading club, library Joe Mak (a fr111111ent) JOZEF CIGER-HRONSKY (1896-1960) Just as Joe Mak returned on Thursday afternoon from hauling and had finished watering his horses, his employer, Baniar-Banoci, came into the yard and called, "Joe! J-o-o-e! Where are you?" ''Here! I'm here,'' Joe replied, coming out of the stable. Joe followed Baniar-Banoci to the hallway leading to the kitchen. "Take this and go home!" Baniar-Banoci gave Joe a large bottle of whisky, some flour, sugar, and other victuals. Joe Mak looked at Baniar and at the f~od in surprise, hesitating before taking the offered goods. ''Just take everything and hurry, go home! And send someone for the milk in the evening. But let me warn you, you'd better leave your sheepskin cap here and go home with a bare head!'' At that moment Joe's hands fell motionless. His lips moved into a smile. He looked first at the floor , then again at Baniar. He understood. "A girl?" " No, it's a boy!" Baniar replied. "The women said that he is big enough to post the banns and get married right away.'' "Well ... ," Joe Mak said, standing on one spot without a gesture and without any real thoughts in his head. He lifted his sheepskin cap somewhat automatically and thanked God from the bottom of his soul. "Julia wanted a girl," Joe said. "She still can have one. " "Yes, she can ... But I wouldn't have minded if she had had one now.'' �SLOVAKIA 103 Then he left. The flour and sugar on his back convinced him that everything was all right. He could believe Baniar's words. He did not need to ask anyone else. But the distance from Baniar's homestead to Joe's cottage was relatively long. Joe suddenly noticed that he was walking rapidly and began to drag his steps. If someone were to meet him, he would stop; he would talk at length as he would be expected to do; he would speak of the commonest things, for he wanted everything to be simple. He would say, ''Baniar told me that we have an additional member in our family, so I'm going to see. Of course, there will be more worries again .... And what a dry winter this is! The snow is late . Very likely we won 't have any snow this winter. One needs a bit of snow. Otherwise one loses track of the time, not knowing how far winter has progressed and why his fi1'gers get numb." He prepared the remarks about winter in the event that someone stopped him. But no one did. He was obliged to go home directly. And there he had only one opportunity to compliment Baniar for giving him so many things. Even so, he referred to Baniar only in order to have an excuse to stop at the hearth, unload the gifts slowly and carefully, and listen to the words of Mary Klachovka and Hana and little Joe, his son. It was easy for Joe to straighten his back. It was difficult to look at Julia, his wife. Almost transparent and with her eyes closed, she was lying in bed as if asleep; yet she was not asleep. She knew Joe was standing at her bedside unable to find words to fit the occasion. Her eyelids quivered. And when she opened her eyes, tears flowed down her cheeks. "Don't be angry with me , Joe!" Julia's lips moved, and Joe thought that she deliberately said the words softly so that no one but he could hear them. And Joe Mak was ashamed. Ordinary shame, though perhaps deeper than usual, overcame him. It was a merciless shame. Joe's face reddened as always, but this time the shame reached into his veins. Driving forward, it benumbed all of Joe's blood vessels. He pressed his knee to the sideboard of the bed, feeling that he could not stay on his feet otherwise. He pressed his hands together behind his back in an effort to cover his excitement. He clenched his teeth, realizing that both his eyelids and his eyesockets had begun to tremble. He knew they would gush tears like a little child if he relaxed his cheek muscles even slightly. Would that not be embarrassing? Or was there something else? Yes, there was! Mary Klachovka was present. She should not be lingering in the room at this time. Her presence was a sacrilege. She should not interfere with Joe's intimate conversation with Julia. No one likes to be surprised in a moment of weakness. No one wants to be caught at a time when he is nothing but a human being; �104 SLOVAKIA when he is neither rich nor poor, neither Joe nor Mak; when everything - work and clothing and everything bestowed on a man by destiny falls off of him for a while, and when nothing but fundamental wisdom remains in him. Klachovka felt it. She unconsciously sensed the moment. She left the room, taking the children with her so that Joe Mak did not have to hide his humanity, so that all his wisdom - a wisdom possessed by every man in such moments - would remain his in its entirety. Without Klachovka in the room, Joe Mak could reflect on those things which other men can think of in advance and thus prepare themselves for any contingency, so as to know when and how one should weep or when and how one should laugh. But the wise man Joe Mak found that in all his life he had learned nothing for such occasions and that he might better remain silent, without word or gesture, for it would be funny if his heavy hands started doing something they had never learned before and his mouth began a speech which he had not prepared. His hands could not attempt any tenderness, for they were calloused and rough, suitable only for heavy work. This way he was also able to hold back the assault of tears, however unusual, which welled in his eyes, since heretofore he had experienced only one kind of moisture on his face - that of sweat, drying either in the sun or frost, etching deep wrinkles into his face. Be that as it may, Joe just wanted Julia to know that even a laborer has a heart, although he cannot show it as much as a gentle man or a lighthearted youngster. Joe had more than enough warmth and kindness and love in his heart for this moment. Because his love for Julia was born with difficulty, it had become purer and more secure - a love on which one could rely. Surely Julia knew of all this. "God help us, Julia," Joe said like a weather-beaten priest who had plowed a cliff and was about to deliver his first sermon. A wan, almost invisible smile touched Julia's lips, lightly caressing her cheeks and eyes. The pure white smile then spread to her forehead. Had she been able to do anything~t all, she would have lifted both her hands so that Joe Mak could have placed his head in her palms. Had she been stronger, she would certainly have smiled more clearly and would have spoken loudly: "Joe, my dear husband! I didn't think I would live through this childbirth. I thought you and I would never understand each other. And everything I thought was wrong. Now I see clearly that you love me. I see everything and I know for sure that God will help us. Why shouldn't He? But don't be angry with me, Joe! Surely you aren't angry because of what I said. How could I imagine that you would be angry? I knew beforehand that you would be good to me when you returned home. A dream pressed its way into my eyes, and the women around by bed thought I was really sleeping. But I was just waiting for you, because all �SLOVAKIA 105 the others around me were strangers. I'll sleep soundly now. If you place your hand on my body, you can feel that my heart is still motionless; it feels as hard as a stone. But now that you've returned, now that I can see you, I'll rest peacefully, and my heart will start beating again. Do you know, my dear husband, what will happen when my heart begins to beat again? My entire world will start for me again.'' ''Banoci didn't tell me., what happened or how it happened. But I can guess," Joe Mak said quietly. Perspiration flowed down his hard face, but what could he do? What else could he do when he knew no other way of telling Julia that today was different from all other days? Joe Mak saw Julia's white smile. But he knew that a white smile was a very fragile thing; one must be very careful to not touch such a smile at all. Joe thought it would have been a blasphemy to desecrate such a smile with words. And Joe did not want to offend God today nor to hinder the beating of Julia's heart in any way. Julia's heart started slowly. Thump, thump .... Some blood had reached its auricles and ventricles and warmed up immediately. Happiness began glowing in Julia's cheeks. This happiness, small as it was in the beginning, started to grow and fly and flow and fill the entire room. Even the loud-mouthed Klachovka, returning to the room, refrained from disturbing the couple's bliss. Joe Mak lifted his oldest son up high and tickled him under his chin. And the boy broke into such laughter that the glass shook in the window frame. Little Joe laughed because he was a little boy. All this took place on Thursday. The hoarfrost came on the following Monday. Everyone knows that hoarfrost is like a beautiful veil. You cannot find it in any anticipated place or at any predetermined time. The hoarfrost's veil is beautiful on bleached meadows. But this one did not spread over plains or slopes. The hoarfrost usually settles on the birch twigs. It glitters opaquely, a demure element of nature's magnificence, reluctant to impose itself on anyone's sight. But this particular frost did not encase the birch twigs . The hoarfrost did not settle on the firs and willows either. It did not come at midnight as usual. This one came in the daylight and settled only on Mak's cottage. But even there, the hoarfrost did not spread over the entire cottage. It did not cover either the roof or the threshold, or the room. This day's hoarfrost settled only on Julia's face, on her forehead, on her closed eyes, on her white lips, on Julia's white smile. Yes, Julia was smiling even then, as she died. (1933) Translated by Andrew Cincura � SLOVAKIA 87 AN ANTHOLOGY OF SLOVAK UTERA TURE Introductory Remarks ANDREW CINCURA \ An Anthology of Slovak Literature, compiled recently with financial support from The Rockefeller Foundation, presents the most representative selections from the works of over 70 Slovak authors. Consisting primarily of translations from Slovak poetry, prose , and drama, this anthology contains, in addition, a general introduction by Dr. Michael Novak, a long aesthetic-historical essay "Slovak Literature : A Brief History" by Dr. Karol StrmeN, and an appendix presenting several selections from Slovak-American authors. Several scholars and artists, including the well-known Slovak-American poet, Reverend Jaroslav J. Vajda, and American poet and scholar, Dr. Michael Collings , assisted the compiler in the project. The Anthology of Slovak Literature is - in the words of Dr. Novak - ''a work of major importance (connecting) the United States and one other small part of the world . . . This anthology is done with taste, intelligence, judgment, and perception. I read it with excitement, and I am sure that hundreds of thousands of others from Eastern Europe will find in it nourishment over the next generation, for it is a landmark book, certain to endure. " Although just a minute part of the work itself, the following excerpts from An Anthology of Slovak Literature will give the reader a foretaste of the character and artistry of the book. An Anthology of Slovak Literature has been available since May 1, 1976, at : University Hardcovers P . 0. Box 248 Riverside , California 92502 or from the major Slovak newspapers and bookstores throughout the United States and Canada. If ordered directly from the publisher, the price of the book is $16.50 for individual copies. A discount of 10 percent will be given on orders of 5-10 copies , and a discount of 20 percent on orders of 11 or more copies. The following selections are reprinted with perrmss10n of University Hardcovers, P. 0 . Box 248, Riverside, California 92502, from An Anthology of Slovak Literature by Andrew Cincura. Copyright © 1976 by Andrew Cincura. �88 SLOVAKIA On Skulls JAN HOLLY (1785-1849) Tell me, you skulls, so neatly stacked in dark bone-bins, whose were you once, a peasant's or a lord's? Which one of you was held aloof on a wealthy, mighty neck, and which drooped languid from a beggar's spine? Upon which, while alive, did fortune cast her smile, and which was crushed by lifelong slavery? Is this one whiter from the fawning adulation so many offered it in lavish awe? And that one darker having suffered undeserved ingratitude and cruel ridicule? Speechless in terrifying silence, not one of you is able to give me an answer to my question. In frightful heaps you lie, looking so very much like gathered shards of stony desolations; or like those grief-bent forests when the white-maned wind denudes them of their leafy captivating beauty. So when a man is gone: with him all honor dies and glory and every deference bestowed by others. (Ba1ne rozmanite, n. d.) Translated by J aroslav J. Vajda �SLOVAKIA God in Heaven \ AN"DREJ SLADKOVIC (1820-1872) God in heaven , see what sorrow when our young are cast abroad out into the world to borrow, toil, or beg a crust of bread. See them mercilessly driven, scattered by life's cruel hoax, what were solitary ravens have become falcon flocks . God in heaven, thus forsaken, if I stay, what can I earn? Into this world came I naked, naked I shall there return . In that hour, pray, be responsive to my final, inmost need: mercy , God, 0 God, have mercy when I stand alone with Thee. Translated by Jaroslav J. Vajda 89 �90 SLOVAKIA Bloody Sonnets (a fragment) PA VOL ORSAGH-HVIEZDOSLAV (1849-1921) I A song of blood: - what madness can this be? And which shall be our theme? The sudden rush rose-red, that leaps into a maiden 's blush, the sleeping infant's pink we love to see , that pulses under angel custody ; or shall it be the ardent crimson gush that fires the zealot 's brow with fervid flush: then let the song resound with rapture free! Oh, blood is a wonder-working fluid! Hidden like some rare vintage seething ~ithin the heart , it pounds with the might and rage of tempest-ridden breakers ; or bursting the tranquil pulse apart, it charges one with frenzy God-forbidden . .. Do thoughts like these engage the butcher's art? Translated by Jaroslav J. Vajda �SLOVAKIA The Guests , IVANKRASKO (1876-1958) Courteously , though with a mystic fearfulness, I welcomed nonetheless my funeral guests, somber, with psalters under thei:r arms, having arrived from distant lands . Ceremonially , with chalky, dry and bony hands each reverenced the icon of my dusty home, and bowing to the waist (to me - if not, to whom?), they sat around the table , a solemn, black-swathed ring. Searching the psalter for long-lost hymns, they then began to sing in deep sepulchral voice - the harshest kind of air of bitter fruit the tree of life was found to bear, of Mother Earth's original condition - as one she was before the thrice-cursed lust of slithering Diabolos ... And then as gloomily they left (under the smiles of those who never dared to take from Eve the apple of her wiles), and said they would return to us again next year to visit those they now considered brothers, or at least as near. Eunice! Where are you? Look how one by one they disappear. (Verse, 1912) Translated by Jaroslav J . Vajda 91 �92 SLOVAKIA The Hundred and First Tale of Boccaccio VALENTIN BENIAK (1894-1973) Quill in hand, I wrote a letter home: I shall stay on till Autumn here in Florence. And yes, I met Boccaccio carrying his Decameron, followed by a band of noble virgins. One I knew - Donna Clara - led her beast and handed me the leather bridle as she went. In Fiesole we met a priest bearing on his shoulder a battered trident. Neptune it was, reaping hay - despite his wont the pagan seas had scorned him, one and all. ''Sir,'' he asked, ' 'might you be the Duke of Brabant on your way to my confessional?" He would have liked the stole and blessed oil, would pray my soul to heaven's halls, would hire wicked men to toil rip Botticelli's Venus from the U(fizi's walls . . Slip her from her canvas world - be done! she would return with him to her sea-home . (For this is but the hundredth tale and one, carved from Carrara marble and sea-foam.) (Ozveny krokov, 1931) Translated by Andrew Cincura �SLOVAKIA ' Carmen EMIL B. LUKAC (1900) Dance and sing, you naked bajadera, throughout this long and melancholy era. Dance and sing, the golden calf is bleating, and dragon claws the kettle-fires are heating. In flaming dance your many limbs entwine to form a beast half-hydra, half-divine. Dance and sing, you universal axis, you contradictory, convoluted maxims: maze, lie, and death - not way and truth and life. Dance and sing, deaf.to the din of strife. The blood of millions suck, you golden flea. Machine guns bark, and cracks the gallows-tree. (Moloch, 1938) Translated by Jaroslav J. Vajda 93 �94 SLOVAKIA Two Days at Chujava (a Iragment) JONASZABORSKY (1812-1876) Zajac, a slovenly peasant and the village clown, entered the inn's hall. The youngsters surrounded him at once, and, as always, he launched into a narrative of his heroic exploits inBombardy. (1) "Every Bombardian bee, believe me, is as large as a Slovak sheep," Zajac said, to introduce his story. "And what about the beehives - how large are they?" Pelechavy asked from the other side of the table, smiling broadly. "Only as large as ours." "Then how can the bees enter the beehives?" "That's their problem, "the ex-hussar Zajac roared, laughing and half-seriously accusing Pelechavy of r.itting at the table without ever touching his full glass . "Why don't you drink like all the other right men do? May a hundred thunderclaps deafen your soul.'' A guffaw shook the room. The men emptied their glasses, while the Jewish innkeeper did his best to keep them filled. Zajac continued with his tall tales: "Did you know that macaroni is really nothing but tapeworms seventy yards long? People buy them by the foot. To eat macaroni, all one has to do is sit in the most comfortable position, open his mouth, and let the tapeworm run down his throat by itself, while the waitress measures its length by the yard and cuts it with scissors when the customer has eaten his fill.'' Zajac then related the tale of his love affair with an Italian countess. "As soon as I rode into the castle yard," he said, "she started to wink at me, her mouth watering with anticipation. She thought, 'By Jove, there's a lad. I'm sure he has no eq~al in the entire world!' And when I dismounted and handed my horse over to the servant, she shook my hand and took me by arm, saying, ''If you will, please!' Then we went into the house. After a good supper, she prepared a bed for her husband on the bench at the hearth. 'You'll sleep here tonight,' she said, patting his arm, 'but please be quiet and don't disturb the hussar in his sleep.' - For me she spread a sheaf of straw on the floor in the middle of the room. The count, listening to her soft conversation with me, coughed and said, 'Erzha, is that hussar whispering with you?' " 'So what if he is?' " 'Why don't you stop him?' the count said. " 'I can't. I don't speak his language,' the countess replied." �SLOVAKIA 95 '' And what about your meeting with Napoleon?'' a youngster with a broom-like feather on his hat called, prompting Zajac to further narration. '' All right, listen! WhE!n the Frenchmen had annoyed us with their frequent attacks, our Emperor met with his generals to find out which one of the Austro-Hungarian soldiers wore his cap most rakishly and would therefore be best suited to be sent to Napoleon . All the generals, of course, agreed that only I, Zajac, was the proper hero, willing and able to go on such an important mission. I mounted my horse and was off to Paris. On my arrival there, I tethered my horse to a fence . Mrs. Napoleon, the Empress of France, immediately ran to me, bringing oats for my horse in her apron and taking me into her kitchen . She cooked pirohy (a) for me, filled with minced pears. They were really good, better than any I'd ever seen or tasted! Large as peasant moccasins, they were greased with the tallow collected from seven melted candles. I swear to God, they were so good that the grease flowed down my chin as profusely as down Aaron's beard. I ate almost two of them. As an extra treat the Empress also cooked hriate (b) and baked pag<ice (c) with cracklings for my return trip." "And what about Napoleon?" "Well, he patted my shoulder and said, ' My dear fellow! I wish I had a regiment of hussars like you! With men like you I would easily conquer the entire world, and all the nations in it.' - And you should have seen it - I give you my word of honor and cross my heart - he embraced and kissed me as if I were his lady love.'' "And did he sue for peace?" ' 'Of course , what else could he do when I asked him to? He gave me ten farthings for whisky and asked me to convince our Emperor and generals not to stir until he took over as many lands as he wanted. He whetted his appetite for our Bombardy (1) and bombarded us out of it, may thunder and lightning strike his sideways-turned hat! We looked around, hoping that some Cossack would appear and help us, but the world is ungrateful! We assisted the Frenchmen in Crimea against the Muscovites and the thankless Muscovites did not come to repay our courtesy and help us against the Frenchmen. That's the kind of honor you find in this world! . . . " "You' re the greatest liar I've ever seen! " Buchak remarked, wiping his moustache. ''Yes, and all of you are great fools,'' the ex-hussar Zajac laughed. "You should take my words as seriously as you take the print on paper money, which sa: ·s you may exchange it for silver any time, or believe me as much as yo I can the saying that all men are equal." (1883) (Translated by Andrew Cincura) �96 SLOVAKIA NOTES: jocular term for Lombardy . Lombardy belonged to the AustroHungarian Empire until 1859. (1) Bombardy - (a) pirohy - cheese or fruit dumplings (b) hriate - hot whisky with goose-fat topping (c) pagace (pagaache) - small unsweetened cakes The nDiscovery" of Gunpowder (a frag111cnt) TEREZIA VANSOV A (1857-1941) Autumn had progressed considerably, but our children were still enjoying the golden freedom of summer vacation. In our village, there was a tradition that school started only after the Tisovec Fair. After the pupil's mothers had sold a goose or a piece of homespun linen and had bought clothes for their children and the primers with the picture of a rooster on the front cover. Then, and only then, could the children walk proudly to school. Our boys conducted great military maneuvers in the parsonage orchard. Danny, who continually pestered Srnchik with his questions about military strategy, commanded his "rank-and-file" comrades, who were equipped with wooden sabres, guns, and a supply of dry-pea bullets in their pockets. One-two-one-two - the company marched up the orchard path, and when Danny thought they had reached their position, he called, "H-a-a-a-1-t!" Then he turned to his "men" and drilled them in the proper ways of military know-how. He was naturally dissatisfied with the over-all results. The ''men'' halted, once with one leg in the forward position, then with the ~ther. Some of them were stooped, some crooked; some did not add to iih.e glory of the tight-knit military unit at all. "How are you standing there, Private Misho? Don't you know anything about proper military bearing? Up! Straighten your legs! No, no! Don't stand there like a duckling! Pull your belly in! Out with your chest!'' Misho tried his best, but he never succeeded in acquiring a proper stance. His face was one broad grin. He opened his mouth wide and held his hands tightly to his knees (his monkey-like hands actually reached lower than his knees!). Yet regardless of his efforts, he was never praised for his achievements. �SLOVAKIA 97 Then Danny drilled the ''troops'' in the proper use of weapons, but he became really upset when even his own gun refused to obey his command. "F-i-r-e! F-i-r-e!" Danny repeated in exasperation. What was the purpose of military games without a weapon that really shoots? Why use a weapon which neither fires nor kills? He had already almost worn out his brains in an effort to acquire gunpowder. What all he had done, and all for nothing! He would have bought some powder, and he certainly could have obtained the money for it somehow. But what good would it do when neither he nor any of his comrades were big enough to buy powder in Tisovec. He was just a child, and his request, however small, would have been considered too dangerous anyway. Danny's friend Johnny had not taken part in the military drill today. Johnny would have been subject to a reprimand from his stem commander had he not appeared when the game was about to end. Running through the orchard, Johnny finally stopped near the formation. With a book in his hand, he waved and shouted, almost out of breath, "Hurrah, we've got gunpowder!" The boys turned around. Forgetting their military discipline, they jumped out of their lines and surrounded Johnny. Johnny showed them the book - the Almanac of Fejerpataky. The boys stopped, bewildered. They thought their comrade had brought some real gunpowder with him; and instead, he only showed them an old book. Danny snatched the book from Johnny's hand and asked with contempt and suspicion, "Why did you bring this book?" "Here, look! Here it is!" Johnny replied, still gasping for breath. "What?" Danny asked impatiently. ''The formula for making gunpowder!'' Johnny's reply electrified Danny. "Let's see!" He grabbed the book again, sank to the turf, and started to turn the leaves. Johnny showed him the article in the almanac. Both boys plunged into reading and quickly forgot their comrades, who resumed their own play. Danny studied the well-known recipe like a cook about the prepare a tasty cake. While reading, he wondered how he could obtain and measure all the ingredients necessary for gunpowder. Seventy-five parts saltpeter (but what is "saltpeter" and where he could buy it?); eleven parts sulfur (ah, he had it; luckily, he had already taken some from his father's supply); and fourteen parts hazel-wood charcoal (that's the easiest to get: they could cut hazel twigs anywhere, and they could bum charcoal by themselves). The scales for weighing the ingredients? No problem - they would construct it from twigs, strings, and an apple. And now to work! Danny stood up, his face gleaming. He gave the necessary instructions immediately. The boys were to go tomorrow morning to cut hazel wood. They were to store the supply at the upper end of the orchard, and they were to build a charcoal-pile there. Johnny was to go to Tisovec to buy saltpeter. (Danny knew that he could not get any �98 SLOVAKIA himself because of his previous "contacts" with the city merchants.) Danny would try to find out what saltpeter was and where they could buy it. The orders dispensed, Danny hit the shortest path to his grandmother' s. He found her in front of her house thrashing hemp. He addressed her directly, "Grandma!" "What do you want, my son?" ' 'What ' s saltpeter?'' "Saltpeter?" the old woman repeated the question with surprise. "What is he dabbling in now, this Danny?" she thought with suspicion, unable to find a good reason behind the question. She was familiar with saltpeter, a harmless ingredient which was used for certain jobs in the household. She told him that the druggists in Tisovec kept saltpeter in their stores. This information was all Danny needed. Early the next morning, he sent Johnny to the city with three farthings to buy the saltpeter. In the meantime, Danny found a large apple, a "funtovka" apple (1) growing in the school garden, cut the apple in two equal halves, carving them into bowl-like plates, he attached the two halves first to strings and then to twigs arranged as primitive scales. When the charcoal was prepared and all the ingredients collected, he weighed the proper amounts of saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur, triturated every ingredient separately, and mixed them together. It made a little pile when he poured the mixture on a sheet of paper. He was as pleased with the feat as a chemist might have been with a successful experiment in his laboratory. The boys soon found that their experiment was successful, when one of them put the compound on the fire; the gunpowder wheezed up and hit Mis ho directly on his nose, for he was too curious and had stuck his head close to the compound "to see everything better." Fortunately, the amount allotted for the experiment was small, and Misho's accident thus was not too serious. A.similar result was attained in another experiment when one of the boys ~laced a capsule on a stone and hit it with another stone. The explosion again produced "casualties" - one "well-done thumb" and one "medium-done nose.'' The boys' summer games were brought to a sudden end with the announcement that school would open and classes would begin again immediately after the Tisovec Fair. (1934) Translated by Andrew Cincura NOTE: (1) funt (Slovak) - "pound. " "Funtovky" (pl.; funtovka, sg.) are very large apples that grow in Central Europe. In Slovak folk etymology, they are supposed to weigh at least one pound each. �SLOVAKIA 99 More About the Fair (11 fr1111111ent) MARTIN KUKUCfN (1860-1928) \ An African afternoon heat seemed to rest on our exhilarated city. There was almost no shade, not even next to the house walls. The sun was inescapable, burning mercilessly as if trying to suck the last drop of moisture from emaciated, desiccated Mother Earth. And still no one even thought of hitting the bunk for an hour or so, as the human constitution should require, especially after a festive dinner, when limbs become as heavy as lead and eyelids droop; when a sweet dream flutters about despite straining efforts to keep one's eyes open. Eyes grow stiff and seem to be bulging and enveloped by a fog in which objects merge with each other. In the end, you cannot do anything but give up and lie down sinking deeply into the embraces of a sweet nap. But who could have slept this afternoon? Recently rising from the table to sip black coffee, everyone shook off his drowsiness and went off to the square. The entire city swarmed and dawdled among the tents, buying and extorting presents without shyness or courtesy. Everyone was happy, alert, and lively. The bells, tolling four o'clock, put an end to the hurly-burly. At once the square became as empty as if swept. The tents were closed, and people either entered the church or - not finding a place inside surrounded the church in a numberless mass. After somewhat abbreviated vespers, a procession started. People forged out of the church in waves, reeling from side to side, and finally taking their position in rows. The most difficult task remained - to set the procession in motion. At the head there were school children under the church banner, followed by endless rows of men. Two by two, each of the men carried a faintly-smoldering candle into the dazzling sun's rays. The young boys following the men carried huge candles and torches in multicolored lanterns. The church banners fluttered in the air, then hung limply as the faint breeze died in the torrid stillness. Then the church kantadurs (1) marched under the ,leadership of mester (2) Ivo, all singing monotonous psalms with strong but dragging voices. The echo of their song thundered amid the houses and immediately died in the dead silence of the surroundings. Four youngsters in white albs, walking after the singers, carried on their shoulders the statue of the Virgin Mary, removed from the main altar. Mary sat majestically, with the smiling child on her knees. Crowns of pure gold glittered on the heads �100 SLOVAKIA of the Mother and Son. The Christ-Child spread his plump hands as if surprised by the sudden trip from the gloomy altar niche into the blinding sun. A brocade-like garment fell in colorful folds down the statue of the Mother of God. The image, laden with jewels and precious stones, glittered, flashed, and sparkled. After the company of priests, led by our Don Roko in a festive cape, sor Ilija Zorkovic walked in black clothes, with a hard hat in one hand and a black cane trimmed with a massive silver handle in the other. He walked alone. Pacing slowly and gravely, he looked neither to the right nor to the left, conscious of his authority and elevated rank which surpassed all the other laymen in the procession. Ilija is the chairman of the church board, curator and controller of all church holdings. He is responsible for the care of church fields and wine cellars. He manages the wine until it is sold to the merchants. Everything in the church - even the candles used in such large numbers every year - rests on his shoulders. He is, in addition, the manager of the Virgin Mary, the patroness of our city - he protects all jewelry and precious stones, earrings and golden chains, bracelets and rings. Sor Ilija Zorkovic keeps all the trinkets that are hung and poured over the statue in his own house in a heavy, ironbound chest. Such a grave responsibility entails much work and many pains, but the reward is splendid - during every procession, he occupies the most prominent place, alone, right behind the baldachin, before the eyes of the entire world, seen by friends and enemies, well-wishers and envious men. Why should his chest not swell with pride and self-assurance? Why should he not walk seriously and solemnly? Behind sor Ilija Zorkovic came the mayor surrounded by all the assessors. The mayor, too, walked gravely, but one way or another, his entire countenance was a far cry from Zorkovic's. After the representatives of the opcina, (4) there was a gap of five or six paces in the procession - the women walking separately behind the men's rows. The military retinue, with rifles on, their shoulders and their "hay-straw, hay-straw" cadence, flanked the statue and priests on both sides. · It was really a magnificent sight! The continuous tolling of the bells - urgent, fancy, heavy, tremulous - you name it! The bellman, holding the clapper in his fist and shaking it with his hand, struck the bell. Everyone looked forward to the procession; for weeks and weeks everyone delighted in its anticipation. Every member of the family took part in it if he had strength enough to move his limbs. Doddering elders, hardly able to drag their feet, were present, as were the little children, just managing their first attempts to stay on their feet. Mothers carried infants in their arms, so that no one would miss the procession. Among those present, there were also many non-residents. Many guests took pains to join the procession to express their devotion to the Mother of God either for restored health or for other favors �SLOVAKIA 101 granted them or their relatives. No wonder, then, that the magnificence and number of participants serve as a gauge for evaluating whether the fair was a complete or only a partial success. And the "mark" of relative success or failure was an important thing - every citizen was proud if his city's fair was famous far and wide . The entire processioJJ. dragged slowly across the square and through the short street, out,of the city toward the cross standing in the flat field on a marble pedestal. From there, following the promenade, the procession returned to the city, submerging into narrow alleys, flanked either by blunt fence walls or one-story houses . The streets were swept and sprinkled with white sand. The balconies of the more stately houses were transformed into fragrant flower groves; draperies or ornamental rugs hung from the windows and banisters . Even the teiaks (5) decorated their cottages for the occasion. The low roofs of some cottages were covered with flowerpots. In other cottages - those with marriageable daughters - the girls spread their dowries out on the roofs or on adjacent stone walls. The school children had already entered the narrow streets when sora (6) Andrejana's group was just leaving the church yard. The stylish young misses, as always, remained at the very end of the procession. Because of their relative distance from the statue of the Virgin, they may have forgotten the reason for their presence. While the lingering song of the church singers reverberated and a muffled prayer recited with the rosary beads murmured above the crowd, whispered conversations and giggles flowed among the young ladies, accompanied by glances cast toward the balcony of Citaonica (7) where a number of the young elite assembled to see the magnificent march. It is necessary to stress that hardly any of the young ladies wore a hat in most cases they wore black veils with the ends flowing picturesquely down their breasts. Since they had no parasols, they held fans in their hands, and were able to throw coquettish glances here and there, to the side or up toward the windows. The merchants remained at their tents. With the approach of the procession, they fell to their knees , contritely beating their chests. The bells warbled and tinkled. Dust clouds rose, especially behind the women. The mortars thundered in volleys. Sor Hija Zorkovic tied a knot on the cord in his hand after every volley, in order to have an exact count of the gunpowder used and prevent youngsters from stealing part of the explosives for hunting rabbits or partridges. And the Mother of God looked down kindly from her throne. Her Son , as if bewildered, threw his chubby hands about, smiling. With almost vertical rays, the sun blazed from above, and the dark-blue sky seemed to stretch absent-mindedly above this multicolored world. (1904) Translated by Andrew Cincura �102 SLOVAKIA Note: "More About the Fair," a fragment from Kukucin's novel, Dom u strcini (The House on the Hillside), is fundamentally a representative sample of the author's "second creative period," which coincided with his life in Dalmatia. (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) kantadurs (Dalmatian): singers mester (meshter, Dalmatian): master sor (shor, Dalmatian): mister, sir opcina (Croatian): commune, township teiaks (tezhaks, Croatian): poor peasants, farm hands sora (shora, Dalmatian): Mrs. citaonica (chitaonica, Croatian): reading club, library Joe Mak (a fr111111ent) JOZEF CIGER-HRONSKY (1896-1960) Just as Joe Mak returned on Thursday afternoon from hauling and had finished watering his horses, his employer, Baniar-Banoci, came into the yard and called, "Joe! J-o-o-e! Where are you?" ''Here! I'm here,'' Joe replied, coming out of the stable. Joe followed Baniar-Banoci to the hallway leading to the kitchen. "Take this and go home!" Baniar-Banoci gave Joe a large bottle of whisky, some flour, sugar, and other victuals. Joe Mak looked at Baniar and at the f~od in surprise, hesitating before taking the offered goods. ''Just take everything and hurry, go home! And send someone for the milk in the evening. But let me warn you, you'd better leave your sheepskin cap here and go home with a bare head!'' At that moment Joe's hands fell motionless. His lips moved into a smile. He looked first at the floor , then again at Baniar. He understood. "A girl?" " No, it's a boy!" Baniar replied. "The women said that he is big enough to post the banns and get married right away.'' "Well ... ," Joe Mak said, standing on one spot without a gesture and without any real thoughts in his head. He lifted his sheepskin cap somewhat automatically and thanked God from the bottom of his soul. "Julia wanted a girl," Joe said. "She still can have one. " "Yes, she can ... But I wouldn't have minded if she had had one now.'' �SLOVAKIA 103 Then he left. The flour and sugar on his back convinced him that everything was all right. He could believe Baniar's words. He did not need to ask anyone else. But the distance from Baniar's homestead to Joe's cottage was relatively long. Joe suddenly noticed that he was walking rapidly and began to drag his steps. If someone were to meet him, he would stop; he would talk at length as he would be expected to do; he would speak of the commonest things, for he wanted everything to be simple. He would say, ''Baniar told me that we have an additional member in our family, so I'm going to see. Of course, there will be more worries again .... And what a dry winter this is! The snow is late . Very likely we won 't have any snow this winter. One needs a bit of snow. Otherwise one loses track of the time, not knowing how far winter has progressed and why his fi1'gers get numb." He prepared the remarks about winter in the event that someone stopped him. But no one did. He was obliged to go home directly. And there he had only one opportunity to compliment Baniar for giving him so many things. Even so, he referred to Baniar only in order to have an excuse to stop at the hearth, unload the gifts slowly and carefully, and listen to the words of Mary Klachovka and Hana and little Joe, his son. It was easy for Joe to straighten his back. It was difficult to look at Julia, his wife. Almost transparent and with her eyes closed, she was lying in bed as if asleep; yet she was not asleep. She knew Joe was standing at her bedside unable to find words to fit the occasion. Her eyelids quivered. And when she opened her eyes, tears flowed down her cheeks. "Don't be angry with me , Joe!" Julia's lips moved, and Joe thought that she deliberately said the words softly so that no one but he could hear them. And Joe Mak was ashamed. Ordinary shame, though perhaps deeper than usual, overcame him. It was a merciless shame. Joe's face reddened as always, but this time the shame reached into his veins. Driving forward, it benumbed all of Joe's blood vessels. He pressed his knee to the sideboard of the bed, feeling that he could not stay on his feet otherwise. He pressed his hands together behind his back in an effort to cover his excitement. He clenched his teeth, realizing that both his eyelids and his eyesockets had begun to tremble. He knew they would gush tears like a little child if he relaxed his cheek muscles even slightly. Would that not be embarrassing? Or was there something else? Yes, there was! Mary Klachovka was present. She should not be lingering in the room at this time. Her presence was a sacrilege. She should not interfere with Joe's intimate conversation with Julia. No one likes to be surprised in a moment of weakness. No one wants to be caught at a time when he is nothing but a human being; �104 SLOVAKIA when he is neither rich nor poor, neither Joe nor Mak; when everything - work and clothing and everything bestowed on a man by destiny falls off of him for a while, and when nothing but fundamental wisdom remains in him. Klachovka felt it. She unconsciously sensed the moment. She left the room, taking the children with her so that Joe Mak did not have to hide his humanity, so that all his wisdom - a wisdom possessed by every man in such moments - would remain his in its entirety. Without Klachovka in the room, Joe Mak could reflect on those things which other men can think of in advance and thus prepare themselves for any contingency, so as to know when and how one should weep or when and how one should laugh. But the wise man Joe Mak found that in all his life he had learned nothing for such occasions and that he might better remain silent, without word or gesture, for it would be funny if his heavy hands started doing something they had never learned before and his mouth began a speech which he had not prepared. His hands could not attempt any tenderness, for they were calloused and rough, suitable only for heavy work. This way he was also able to hold back the assault of tears, however unusual, which welled in his eyes, since heretofore he had experienced only one kind of moisture on his face - that of sweat, drying either in the sun or frost, etching deep wrinkles into his face. Be that as it may, Joe just wanted Julia to know that even a laborer has a heart, although he cannot show it as much as a gentle man or a lighthearted youngster. Joe had more than enough warmth and kindness and love in his heart for this moment. Because his love for Julia was born with difficulty, it had become purer and more secure - a love on which one could rely. Surely Julia knew of all this. "God help us, Julia," Joe said like a weather-beaten priest who had plowed a cliff and was about to deliver his first sermon. A wan, almost invisible smile touched Julia's lips, lightly caressing her cheeks and eyes. The pure white smile then spread to her forehead. Had she been able to do anything~t all, she would have lifted both her hands so that Joe Mak could have placed his head in her palms. Had she been stronger, she would certainly have smiled more clearly and would have spoken loudly: "Joe, my dear husband! I didn't think I would live through this childbirth. I thought you and I would never understand each other. And everything I thought was wrong. Now I see clearly that you love me. I see everything and I know for sure that God will help us. Why shouldn't He? But don't be angry with me, Joe! Surely you aren't angry because of what I said. How could I imagine that you would be angry? I knew beforehand that you would be good to me when you returned home. A dream pressed its way into my eyes, and the women around by bed thought I was really sleeping. But I was just waiting for you, because all �SLOVAKIA 105 the others around me were strangers. I'll sleep soundly now. If you place your hand on my body, you can feel that my heart is still motionless; it feels as hard as a stone. But now that you've returned, now that I can see you, I'll rest peacefully, and my heart will start beating again. Do you know, my dear husband, what will happen when my heart begins to beat again? My entire world will start for me again.'' ''Banoci didn't tell me., what happened or how it happened. But I can guess," Joe Mak said quietly. Perspiration flowed down his hard face, but what could he do? What else could he do when he knew no other way of telling Julia that today was different from all other days? Joe Mak saw Julia's white smile. But he knew that a white smile was a very fragile thing; one must be very careful to not touch such a smile at all. Joe thought it would have been a blasphemy to desecrate such a smile with words. And Joe did not want to offend God today nor to hinder the beating of Julia's heart in any way. Julia's heart started slowly. Thump, thump .... Some blood had reached its auricles and ventricles and warmed up immediately. Happiness began glowing in Julia's cheeks. This happiness, small as it was in the beginning, started to grow and fly and flow and fill the entire room. Even the loud-mouthed Klachovka, returning to the room, refrained from disturbing the couple's bliss. Joe Mak lifted his oldest son up high and tickled him under his chin. And the boy broke into such laughter that the glass shook in the window frame. Little Joe laughed because he was a little boy. All this took place on Thursday. The hoarfrost came on the following Monday. Everyone knows that hoarfrost is like a beautiful veil. You cannot find it in any anticipated place or at any predetermined time. The hoarfrost's veil is beautiful on bleached meadows. But this one did not spread over plains or slopes. The hoarfrost usually settles on the birch twigs. It glitters opaquely, a demure element of nature's magnificence, reluctant to impose itself on anyone's sight. But this particular frost did not encase the birch twigs . The hoarfrost did not settle on the firs and willows either. It did not come at midnight as usual. This one came in the daylight and settled only on Mak's cottage. But even there, the hoarfrost did not spread over the entire cottage. It did not cover either the roof or the threshold, or the room. This day's hoarfrost settled only on Julia's face, on her forehead, on her closed eyes, on her white lips, on Julia's white smile. Yes, Julia was smiling even then, as she died. (1933) Translated by Andrew Cincura � 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 87 AN ANTHOLOGY OF SLOVAK UTERA TURE Introductory Remarks ANDREW CINCURA \ An Anthology of Slovak Literature, compiled recently with financial support from The Rockefeller Foundation, presents the most representative selections from the works of over 70 Slovak authors. Consisting primarily of translations from Slovak poetry, prose , and drama, this anthology contains, in addition, a general introduction by Dr. Michael Novak, a long aesthetic-historical essay "Slovak Literature : A Brief History" by Dr. Karol StrmeN, and an appendix presenting several selections from Slovak-American authors. Several scholars and artists, including the well-known Slovak-American poet, Reverend Jaroslav J. Vajda, and American poet and scholar, Dr. Michael Collings , assisted the compiler in the project. The Anthology of Slovak Literature is - in the words of Dr. Novak - ''a work of major importance (connecting) the United States and one other small part of the world . . . This anthology is done with taste, intelligence, judgment, and perception. I read it with excitement, and I am sure that hundreds of thousands of others from Eastern Europe will find in it nourishment over the next generation, for it is a landmark book, certain to endure. " Although just a minute part of the work itself, the following excerpts from An Anthology of Slovak Literature will give the reader a foretaste of the character and artistry of the book. An Anthology of Slovak Literature has been available since May 1, 1976, at : University Hardcovers P . 0. Box 248 Riverside , California 92502 or from the major Slovak newspapers and bookstores throughout the United States and Canada. If ordered directly from the publisher, the price of the book is $16.50 for individual copies. A discount of 10 percent will be given on orders of 5-10 copies , and a discount of 20 percent on orders of 11 or more copies. The following selections are reprinted with perrmss10n of University Hardcovers, P. 0 . Box 248, Riverside, California 92502, from An Anthology of Slovak Literature by Andrew Cincura. Copyright © 1976 by Andrew Cincura. 88 SLOVAKIA On Skulls JAN HOLLY (1785-1849) Tell me, you skulls, so neatly stacked in dark bone-bins, whose were you once, a peasant's or a lord's? Which one of you was held aloof on a wealthy, mighty neck, and which drooped languid from a beggar's spine? Upon which, while alive, did fortune cast her smile, and which was crushed by lifelong slavery? Is this one whiter from the fawning adulation so many offered it in lavish awe? And that one darker having suffered undeserved ingratitude and cruel ridicule? Speechless in terrifying silence, not one of you is able to give me an answer to my question. In frightful heaps you lie, looking so very much like gathered shards of stony desolations; or like those grief-bent forests when the white-maned wind denudes them of their leafy captivating beauty. So when a man is gone: with him all honor dies and glory and every deference bestowed by others. (Ba1ne rozmanite, n. d.) Translated by J aroslav J. Vajda SLOVAKIA God in Heaven \ AN"DREJ SLADKOVIC (1820-1872) God in heaven , see what sorrow when our young are cast abroad out into the world to borrow, toil, or beg a crust of bread. See them mercilessly driven, scattered by life's cruel hoax, what were solitary ravens have become falcon flocks . God in heaven, thus forsaken, if I stay, what can I earn? Into this world came I naked, naked I shall there return . In that hour, pray, be responsive to my final, inmost need: mercy , God, 0 God, have mercy when I stand alone with Thee. Translated by Jaroslav J. Vajda 89 90 SLOVAKIA Bloody Sonnets (a fragment) PA VOL ORSAGH-HVIEZDOSLAV (1849-1921) I A song of blood: - what madness can this be? And which shall be our theme? The sudden rush rose-red, that leaps into a maiden 's blush, the sleeping infant's pink we love to see , that pulses under angel custody ; or shall it be the ardent crimson gush that fires the zealot 's brow with fervid flush: then let the song resound with rapture free! Oh, blood is a wonder-working fluid! Hidden like some rare vintage seething ~ithin the heart , it pounds with the might and rage of tempest-ridden breakers ; or bursting the tranquil pulse apart, it charges one with frenzy God-forbidden . .. Do thoughts like these engage the butcher's art? Translated by Jaroslav J. Vajda SLOVAKIA The Guests , IVANKRASKO (1876-1958) Courteously , though with a mystic fearfulness, I welcomed nonetheless my funeral guests, somber, with psalters under thei:r arms, having arrived from distant lands . Ceremonially , with chalky, dry and bony hands each reverenced the icon of my dusty home, and bowing to the waist (to me - if not, to whom?), they sat around the table , a solemn, black-swathed ring. Searching the psalter for long-lost hymns, they then began to sing in deep sepulchral voice - the harshest kind of air of bitter fruit the tree of life was found to bear, of Mother Earth's original condition - as one she was before the thrice-cursed lust of slithering Diabolos ... And then as gloomily they left (under the smiles of those who never dared to take from Eve the apple of her wiles), and said they would return to us again next year to visit those they now considered brothers, or at least as near. Eunice! Where are you? Look how one by one they disappear. (Verse, 1912) Translated by Jaroslav J . Vajda 91 92 SLOVAKIA The Hundred and First Tale of Boccaccio VALENTIN BENIAK (1894-1973) Quill in hand, I wrote a letter home: I shall stay on till Autumn here in Florence. And yes, I met Boccaccio carrying his Decameron, followed by a band of noble virgins. One I knew - Donna Clara - led her beast and handed me the leather bridle as she went. In Fiesole we met a priest bearing on his shoulder a battered trident. Neptune it was, reaping hay - despite his wont the pagan seas had scorned him, one and all. ''Sir,'' he asked, ' 'might you be the Duke of Brabant on your way to my confessional?" He would have liked the stole and blessed oil, would pray my soul to heaven's halls, would hire wicked men to toil rip Botticelli's Venus from the U(fizi's walls . . Slip her from her canvas world - be done! she would return with him to her sea-home . (For this is but the hundredth tale and one, carved from Carrara marble and sea-foam.) (Ozveny krokov, 1931) Translated by Andrew Cincura SLOVAKIA ' Carmen EMIL B. LUKAC (1900) Dance and sing, you naked bajadera, throughout this long and melancholy era. Dance and sing, the golden calf is bleating, and dragon claws the kettle-fires are heating. In flaming dance your many limbs entwine to form a beast half-hydra, half-divine. Dance and sing, you universal axis, you contradictory, convoluted maxims: maze, lie, and death - not way and truth and life. Dance and sing, deaf.to the din of strife. The blood of millions suck, you golden flea. Machine guns bark, and cracks the gallows-tree. (Moloch, 1938) Translated by Jaroslav J. Vajda 93 94 SLOVAKIA Two Days at Chujava (a Iragment) JONASZABORSKY (1812-1876) Zajac, a slovenly peasant and the village clown, entered the inn's hall. The youngsters surrounded him at once, and, as always, he launched into a narrative of his heroic exploits inBombardy. (1) "Every Bombardian bee, believe me, is as large as a Slovak sheep," Zajac said, to introduce his story. "And what about the beehives - how large are they?" Pelechavy asked from the other side of the table, smiling broadly. "Only as large as ours." "Then how can the bees enter the beehives?" "That's their problem, "the ex-hussar Zajac roared, laughing and half-seriously accusing Pelechavy of r.itting at the table without ever touching his full glass . "Why don't you drink like all the other right men do? May a hundred thunderclaps deafen your soul.'' A guffaw shook the room. The men emptied their glasses, while the Jewish innkeeper did his best to keep them filled. Zajac continued with his tall tales: "Did you know that macaroni is really nothing but tapeworms seventy yards long? People buy them by the foot. To eat macaroni, all one has to do is sit in the most comfortable position, open his mouth, and let the tapeworm run down his throat by itself, while the waitress measures its length by the yard and cuts it with scissors when the customer has eaten his fill.'' Zajac then related the tale of his love affair with an Italian countess. "As soon as I rode into the castle yard," he said, "she started to wink at me, her mouth watering with anticipation. She thought, 'By Jove, there's a lad. I'm sure he has no eq~al in the entire world!' And when I dismounted and handed my horse over to the servant, she shook my hand and took me by arm, saying, ''If you will, please!' Then we went into the house. After a good supper, she prepared a bed for her husband on the bench at the hearth. 'You'll sleep here tonight,' she said, patting his arm, 'but please be quiet and don't disturb the hussar in his sleep.' - For me she spread a sheaf of straw on the floor in the middle of the room. The count, listening to her soft conversation with me, coughed and said, 'Erzha, is that hussar whispering with you?' " 'So what if he is?' " 'Why don't you stop him?' the count said. " 'I can't. I don't speak his language,' the countess replied." SLOVAKIA 95 '' And what about your meeting with Napoleon?'' a youngster with a broom-like feather on his hat called, prompting Zajac to further narration. '' All right, listen! WhE!n the Frenchmen had annoyed us with their frequent attacks, our Emperor met with his generals to find out which one of the Austro-Hungarian soldiers wore his cap most rakishly and would therefore be best suited to be sent to Napoleon . All the generals, of course, agreed that only I, Zajac, was the proper hero, willing and able to go on such an important mission. I mounted my horse and was off to Paris. On my arrival there, I tethered my horse to a fence . Mrs. Napoleon, the Empress of France, immediately ran to me, bringing oats for my horse in her apron and taking me into her kitchen . She cooked pirohy (a) for me, filled with minced pears. They were really good, better than any I'd ever seen or tasted! Large as peasant moccasins, they were greased with the tallow collected from seven melted candles. I swear to God, they were so good that the grease flowed down my chin as profusely as down Aaron's beard. I ate almost two of them. As an extra treat the Empress also cooked hriate (b) and baked pag<ice (c) with cracklings for my return trip." "And what about Napoleon?" "Well, he patted my shoulder and said, ' My dear fellow! I wish I had a regiment of hussars like you! With men like you I would easily conquer the entire world, and all the nations in it.' - And you should have seen it - I give you my word of honor and cross my heart - he embraced and kissed me as if I were his lady love.'' "And did he sue for peace?" ' 'Of course , what else could he do when I asked him to? He gave me ten farthings for whisky and asked me to convince our Emperor and generals not to stir until he took over as many lands as he wanted. He whetted his appetite for our Bombardy (1) and bombarded us out of it, may thunder and lightning strike his sideways-turned hat! We looked around, hoping that some Cossack would appear and help us, but the world is ungrateful! We assisted the Frenchmen in Crimea against the Muscovites and the thankless Muscovites did not come to repay our courtesy and help us against the Frenchmen. That's the kind of honor you find in this world! . . . " "You' re the greatest liar I've ever seen! " Buchak remarked, wiping his moustache. ''Yes, and all of you are great fools,'' the ex-hussar Zajac laughed. "You should take my words as seriously as you take the print on paper money, which sa: ·s you may exchange it for silver any time, or believe me as much as yo I can the saying that all men are equal." (1883) (Translated by Andrew Cincura) 96 SLOVAKIA NOTES: jocular term for Lombardy . Lombardy belonged to the AustroHungarian Empire until 1859. (1) Bombardy - (a) pirohy - cheese or fruit dumplings (b) hriate - hot whisky with goose-fat topping (c) pagace (pagaache) - small unsweetened cakes The nDiscovery" of Gunpowder (a frag111cnt) TEREZIA VANSOV A (1857-1941) Autumn had progressed considerably, but our children were still enjoying the golden freedom of summer vacation. In our village, there was a tradition that school started only after the Tisovec Fair. After the pupil's mothers had sold a goose or a piece of homespun linen and had bought clothes for their children and the primers with the picture of a rooster on the front cover. Then, and only then, could the children walk proudly to school. Our boys conducted great military maneuvers in the parsonage orchard. Danny, who continually pestered Srnchik with his questions about military strategy, commanded his "rank-and-file" comrades, who were equipped with wooden sabres, guns, and a supply of dry-pea bullets in their pockets. One-two-one-two - the company marched up the orchard path, and when Danny thought they had reached their position, he called, "H-a-a-a-1-t!" Then he turned to his "men" and drilled them in the proper ways of military know-how. He was naturally dissatisfied with the over-all results. The ''men'' halted, once with one leg in the forward position, then with the ~ther. Some of them were stooped, some crooked; some did not add to iih.e glory of the tight-knit military unit at all. "How are you standing there, Private Misho? Don't you know anything about proper military bearing? Up! Straighten your legs! No, no! Don't stand there like a duckling! Pull your belly in! Out with your chest!'' Misho tried his best, but he never succeeded in acquiring a proper stance. His face was one broad grin. He opened his mouth wide and held his hands tightly to his knees (his monkey-like hands actually reached lower than his knees!). Yet regardless of his efforts, he was never praised for his achievements. SLOVAKIA 97 Then Danny drilled the ''troops'' in the proper use of weapons, but he became really upset when even his own gun refused to obey his command. "F-i-r-e! F-i-r-e!" Danny repeated in exasperation. What was the purpose of military games without a weapon that really shoots? Why use a weapon which neither fires nor kills? He had already almost worn out his brains in an effort to acquire gunpowder. What all he had done, and all for nothing! He would have bought some powder, and he certainly could have obtained the money for it somehow. But what good would it do when neither he nor any of his comrades were big enough to buy powder in Tisovec. He was just a child, and his request, however small, would have been considered too dangerous anyway. Danny's friend Johnny had not taken part in the military drill today. Johnny would have been subject to a reprimand from his stem commander had he not appeared when the game was about to end. Running through the orchard, Johnny finally stopped near the formation. With a book in his hand, he waved and shouted, almost out of breath, "Hurrah, we've got gunpowder!" The boys turned around. Forgetting their military discipline, they jumped out of their lines and surrounded Johnny. Johnny showed them the book - the Almanac of Fejerpataky. The boys stopped, bewildered. They thought their comrade had brought some real gunpowder with him; and instead, he only showed them an old book. Danny snatched the book from Johnny's hand and asked with contempt and suspicion, "Why did you bring this book?" "Here, look! Here it is!" Johnny replied, still gasping for breath. "What?" Danny asked impatiently. ''The formula for making gunpowder!'' Johnny's reply electrified Danny. "Let's see!" He grabbed the book again, sank to the turf, and started to turn the leaves. Johnny showed him the article in the almanac. Both boys plunged into reading and quickly forgot their comrades, who resumed their own play. Danny studied the well-known recipe like a cook about the prepare a tasty cake. While reading, he wondered how he could obtain and measure all the ingredients necessary for gunpowder. Seventy-five parts saltpeter (but what is "saltpeter" and where he could buy it?); eleven parts sulfur (ah, he had it; luckily, he had already taken some from his father's supply); and fourteen parts hazel-wood charcoal (that's the easiest to get: they could cut hazel twigs anywhere, and they could bum charcoal by themselves). The scales for weighing the ingredients? No problem - they would construct it from twigs, strings, and an apple. And now to work! Danny stood up, his face gleaming. He gave the necessary instructions immediately. The boys were to go tomorrow morning to cut hazel wood. They were to store the supply at the upper end of the orchard, and they were to build a charcoal-pile there. Johnny was to go to Tisovec to buy saltpeter. (Danny knew that he could not get any 98 SLOVAKIA himself because of his previous "contacts" with the city merchants.) Danny would try to find out what saltpeter was and where they could buy it. The orders dispensed, Danny hit the shortest path to his grandmother' s. He found her in front of her house thrashing hemp. He addressed her directly, "Grandma!" "What do you want, my son?" ' 'What ' s saltpeter?'' "Saltpeter?" the old woman repeated the question with surprise. "What is he dabbling in now, this Danny?" she thought with suspicion, unable to find a good reason behind the question. She was familiar with saltpeter, a harmless ingredient which was used for certain jobs in the household. She told him that the druggists in Tisovec kept saltpeter in their stores. This information was all Danny needed. Early the next morning, he sent Johnny to the city with three farthings to buy the saltpeter. In the meantime, Danny found a large apple, a "funtovka" apple (1) growing in the school garden, cut the apple in two equal halves, carving them into bowl-like plates, he attached the two halves first to strings and then to twigs arranged as primitive scales. When the charcoal was prepared and all the ingredients collected, he weighed the proper amounts of saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur, triturated every ingredient separately, and mixed them together. It made a little pile when he poured the mixture on a sheet of paper. He was as pleased with the feat as a chemist might have been with a successful experiment in his laboratory. The boys soon found that their experiment was successful, when one of them put the compound on the fire; the gunpowder wheezed up and hit Mis ho directly on his nose, for he was too curious and had stuck his head close to the compound "to see everything better." Fortunately, the amount allotted for the experiment was small, and Misho's accident thus was not too serious. A.similar result was attained in another experiment when one of the boys ~laced a capsule on a stone and hit it with another stone. The explosion again produced "casualties" - one "well-done thumb" and one "medium-done nose.'' The boys' summer games were brought to a sudden end with the announcement that school would open and classes would begin again immediately after the Tisovec Fair. (1934) Translated by Andrew Cincura NOTE: (1) funt (Slovak) - "pound. " "Funtovky" (pl.; funtovka, sg.) are very large apples that grow in Central Europe. In Slovak folk etymology, they are supposed to weigh at least one pound each. SLOVAKIA 99 More About the Fair (11 fr1111111ent) MARTIN KUKUCfN (1860-1928) \ An African afternoon heat seemed to rest on our exhilarated city. There was almost no shade, not even next to the house walls. The sun was inescapable, burning mercilessly as if trying to suck the last drop of moisture from emaciated, desiccated Mother Earth. And still no one even thought of hitting the bunk for an hour or so, as the human constitution should require, especially after a festive dinner, when limbs become as heavy as lead and eyelids droop; when a sweet dream flutters about despite straining efforts to keep one's eyes open. Eyes grow stiff and seem to be bulging and enveloped by a fog in which objects merge with each other. In the end, you cannot do anything but give up and lie down sinking deeply into the embraces of a sweet nap. But who could have slept this afternoon? Recently rising from the table to sip black coffee, everyone shook off his drowsiness and went off to the square. The entire city swarmed and dawdled among the tents, buying and extorting presents without shyness or courtesy. Everyone was happy, alert, and lively. The bells, tolling four o'clock, put an end to the hurly-burly. At once the square became as empty as if swept. The tents were closed, and people either entered the church or - not finding a place inside surrounded the church in a numberless mass. After somewhat abbreviated vespers, a procession started. People forged out of the church in waves, reeling from side to side, and finally taking their position in rows. The most difficult task remained - to set the procession in motion. At the head there were school children under the church banner, followed by endless rows of men. Two by two, each of the men carried a faintly-smoldering candle into the dazzling sun's rays. The young boys following the men carried huge candles and torches in multicolored lanterns. The church banners fluttered in the air, then hung limply as the faint breeze died in the torrid stillness. Then the church kantadurs (1) marched under the ,leadership of mester (2) Ivo, all singing monotonous psalms with strong but dragging voices. The echo of their song thundered amid the houses and immediately died in the dead silence of the surroundings. Four youngsters in white albs, walking after the singers, carried on their shoulders the statue of the Virgin Mary, removed from the main altar. Mary sat majestically, with the smiling child on her knees. Crowns of pure gold glittered on the heads 100 SLOVAKIA of the Mother and Son. The Christ-Child spread his plump hands as if surprised by the sudden trip from the gloomy altar niche into the blinding sun. A brocade-like garment fell in colorful folds down the statue of the Mother of God. The image, laden with jewels and precious stones, glittered, flashed, and sparkled. After the company of priests, led by our Don Roko in a festive cape, sor Ilija Zorkovic walked in black clothes, with a hard hat in one hand and a black cane trimmed with a massive silver handle in the other. He walked alone. Pacing slowly and gravely, he looked neither to the right nor to the left, conscious of his authority and elevated rank which surpassed all the other laymen in the procession. Ilija is the chairman of the church board, curator and controller of all church holdings. He is responsible for the care of church fields and wine cellars. He manages the wine until it is sold to the merchants. Everything in the church - even the candles used in such large numbers every year - rests on his shoulders. He is, in addition, the manager of the Virgin Mary, the patroness of our city - he protects all jewelry and precious stones, earrings and golden chains, bracelets and rings. Sor Ilija Zorkovic keeps all the trinkets that are hung and poured over the statue in his own house in a heavy, ironbound chest. Such a grave responsibility entails much work and many pains, but the reward is splendid - during every procession, he occupies the most prominent place, alone, right behind the baldachin, before the eyes of the entire world, seen by friends and enemies, well-wishers and envious men. Why should his chest not swell with pride and self-assurance? Why should he not walk seriously and solemnly? Behind sor Ilija Zorkovic came the mayor surrounded by all the assessors. The mayor, too, walked gravely, but one way or another, his entire countenance was a far cry from Zorkovic's. After the representatives of the opcina, (4) there was a gap of five or six paces in the procession - the women walking separately behind the men's rows. The military retinue, with rifles on, their shoulders and their "hay-straw, hay-straw" cadence, flanked the statue and priests on both sides. · It was really a magnificent sight! The continuous tolling of the bells - urgent, fancy, heavy, tremulous - you name it! The bellman, holding the clapper in his fist and shaking it with his hand, struck the bell. Everyone looked forward to the procession; for weeks and weeks everyone delighted in its anticipation. Every member of the family took part in it if he had strength enough to move his limbs. Doddering elders, hardly able to drag their feet, were present, as were the little children, just managing their first attempts to stay on their feet. Mothers carried infants in their arms, so that no one would miss the procession. Among those present, there were also many non-residents. Many guests took pains to join the procession to express their devotion to the Mother of God either for restored health or for other favors SLOVAKIA 101 granted them or their relatives. No wonder, then, that the magnificence and number of participants serve as a gauge for evaluating whether the fair was a complete or only a partial success. And the "mark" of relative success or failure was an important thing - every citizen was proud if his city's fair was famous far and wide . The entire processioJJ. dragged slowly across the square and through the short street, out,of the city toward the cross standing in the flat field on a marble pedestal. From there, following the promenade, the procession returned to the city, submerging into narrow alleys, flanked either by blunt fence walls or one-story houses . The streets were swept and sprinkled with white sand. The balconies of the more stately houses were transformed into fragrant flower groves; draperies or ornamental rugs hung from the windows and banisters . Even the teiaks (5) decorated their cottages for the occasion. The low roofs of some cottages were covered with flowerpots. In other cottages - those with marriageable daughters - the girls spread their dowries out on the roofs or on adjacent stone walls. The school children had already entered the narrow streets when sora (6) Andrejana's group was just leaving the church yard. The stylish young misses, as always, remained at the very end of the procession. Because of their relative distance from the statue of the Virgin, they may have forgotten the reason for their presence. While the lingering song of the church singers reverberated and a muffled prayer recited with the rosary beads murmured above the crowd, whispered conversations and giggles flowed among the young ladies, accompanied by glances cast toward the balcony of Citaonica (7) where a number of the young elite assembled to see the magnificent march. It is necessary to stress that hardly any of the young ladies wore a hat in most cases they wore black veils with the ends flowing picturesquely down their breasts. Since they had no parasols, they held fans in their hands, and were able to throw coquettish glances here and there, to the side or up toward the windows. The merchants remained at their tents. With the approach of the procession, they fell to their knees , contritely beating their chests. The bells warbled and tinkled. Dust clouds rose, especially behind the women. The mortars thundered in volleys. Sor Hija Zorkovic tied a knot on the cord in his hand after every volley, in order to have an exact count of the gunpowder used and prevent youngsters from stealing part of the explosives for hunting rabbits or partridges. And the Mother of God looked down kindly from her throne. Her Son , as if bewildered, threw his chubby hands about, smiling. With almost vertical rays, the sun blazed from above, and the dark-blue sky seemed to stretch absent-mindedly above this multicolored world. (1904) Translated by Andrew Cincura 102 SLOVAKIA Note: "More About the Fair," a fragment from Kukucin's novel, Dom u strcini (The House on the Hillside), is fundamentally a representative sample of the author's "second creative period," which coincided with his life in Dalmatia. (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) kantadurs (Dalmatian): singers mester (meshter, Dalmatian): master sor (shor, Dalmatian): mister, sir opcina (Croatian): commune, township teiaks (tezhaks, Croatian): poor peasants, farm hands sora (shora, Dalmatian): Mrs. citaonica (chitaonica, Croatian): reading club, library Joe Mak (a fr111111ent) JOZEF CIGER-HRONSKY (1896-1960) Just as Joe Mak returned on Thursday afternoon from hauling and had finished watering his horses, his employer, Baniar-Banoci, came into the yard and called, "Joe! J-o-o-e! Where are you?" ''Here! I'm here,'' Joe replied, coming out of the stable. Joe followed Baniar-Banoci to the hallway leading to the kitchen. "Take this and go home!" Baniar-Banoci gave Joe a large bottle of whisky, some flour, sugar, and other victuals. Joe Mak looked at Baniar and at the f~od in surprise, hesitating before taking the offered goods. ''Just take everything and hurry, go home! And send someone for the milk in the evening. But let me warn you, you'd better leave your sheepskin cap here and go home with a bare head!'' At that moment Joe's hands fell motionless. His lips moved into a smile. He looked first at the floor , then again at Baniar. He understood. "A girl?" " No, it's a boy!" Baniar replied. "The women said that he is big enough to post the banns and get married right away.'' "Well ... ," Joe Mak said, standing on one spot without a gesture and without any real thoughts in his head. He lifted his sheepskin cap somewhat automatically and thanked God from the bottom of his soul. "Julia wanted a girl," Joe said. "She still can have one. " "Yes, she can ... But I wouldn't have minded if she had had one now.'' SLOVAKIA 103 Then he left. The flour and sugar on his back convinced him that everything was all right. He could believe Baniar's words. He did not need to ask anyone else. But the distance from Baniar's homestead to Joe's cottage was relatively long. Joe suddenly noticed that he was walking rapidly and began to drag his steps. If someone were to meet him, he would stop; he would talk at length as he would be expected to do; he would speak of the commonest things, for he wanted everything to be simple. He would say, ''Baniar told me that we have an additional member in our family, so I'm going to see. Of course, there will be more worries again .... And what a dry winter this is! The snow is late . Very likely we won 't have any snow this winter. One needs a bit of snow. Otherwise one loses track of the time, not knowing how far winter has progressed and why his fi1'gers get numb." He prepared the remarks about winter in the event that someone stopped him. But no one did. He was obliged to go home directly. And there he had only one opportunity to compliment Baniar for giving him so many things. Even so, he referred to Baniar only in order to have an excuse to stop at the hearth, unload the gifts slowly and carefully, and listen to the words of Mary Klachovka and Hana and little Joe, his son. It was easy for Joe to straighten his back. It was difficult to look at Julia, his wife. Almost transparent and with her eyes closed, she was lying in bed as if asleep; yet she was not asleep. She knew Joe was standing at her bedside unable to find words to fit the occasion. Her eyelids quivered. And when she opened her eyes, tears flowed down her cheeks. "Don't be angry with me , Joe!" Julia's lips moved, and Joe thought that she deliberately said the words softly so that no one but he could hear them. And Joe Mak was ashamed. Ordinary shame, though perhaps deeper than usual, overcame him. It was a merciless shame. Joe's face reddened as always, but this time the shame reached into his veins. Driving forward, it benumbed all of Joe's blood vessels. He pressed his knee to the sideboard of the bed, feeling that he could not stay on his feet otherwise. He pressed his hands together behind his back in an effort to cover his excitement. He clenched his teeth, realizing that both his eyelids and his eyesockets had begun to tremble. He knew they would gush tears like a little child if he relaxed his cheek muscles even slightly. Would that not be embarrassing? Or was there something else? Yes, there was! Mary Klachovka was present. She should not be lingering in the room at this time. Her presence was a sacrilege. She should not interfere with Joe's intimate conversation with Julia. No one likes to be surprised in a moment of weakness. No one wants to be caught at a time when he is nothing but a human being; 104 SLOVAKIA when he is neither rich nor poor, neither Joe nor Mak; when everything - work and clothing and everything bestowed on a man by destiny falls off of him for a while, and when nothing but fundamental wisdom remains in him. Klachovka felt it. She unconsciously sensed the moment. She left the room, taking the children with her so that Joe Mak did not have to hide his humanity, so that all his wisdom - a wisdom possessed by every man in such moments - would remain his in its entirety. Without Klachovka in the room, Joe Mak could reflect on those things which other men can think of in advance and thus prepare themselves for any contingency, so as to know when and how one should weep or when and how one should laugh. But the wise man Joe Mak found that in all his life he had learned nothing for such occasions and that he might better remain silent, without word or gesture, for it would be funny if his heavy hands started doing something they had never learned before and his mouth began a speech which he had not prepared. His hands could not attempt any tenderness, for they were calloused and rough, suitable only for heavy work. This way he was also able to hold back the assault of tears, however unusual, which welled in his eyes, since heretofore he had experienced only one kind of moisture on his face - that of sweat, drying either in the sun or frost, etching deep wrinkles into his face. Be that as it may, Joe just wanted Julia to know that even a laborer has a heart, although he cannot show it as much as a gentle man or a lighthearted youngster. Joe had more than enough warmth and kindness and love in his heart for this moment. Because his love for Julia was born with difficulty, it had become purer and more secure - a love on which one could rely. Surely Julia knew of all this. "God help us, Julia," Joe said like a weather-beaten priest who had plowed a cliff and was about to deliver his first sermon. A wan, almost invisible smile touched Julia's lips, lightly caressing her cheeks and eyes. The pure white smile then spread to her forehead. Had she been able to do anything~t all, she would have lifted both her hands so that Joe Mak could have placed his head in her palms. Had she been stronger, she would certainly have smiled more clearly and would have spoken loudly: "Joe, my dear husband! I didn't think I would live through this childbirth. I thought you and I would never understand each other. And everything I thought was wrong. Now I see clearly that you love me. I see everything and I know for sure that God will help us. Why shouldn't He? But don't be angry with me, Joe! Surely you aren't angry because of what I said. How could I imagine that you would be angry? I knew beforehand that you would be good to me when you returned home. A dream pressed its way into my eyes, and the women around by bed thought I was really sleeping. But I was just waiting for you, because all SLOVAKIA 105 the others around me were strangers. I'll sleep soundly now. If you place your hand on my body, you can feel that my heart is still motionless; it feels as hard as a stone. But now that you've returned, now that I can see you, I'll rest peacefully, and my heart will start beating again. Do you know, my dear husband, what will happen when my heart begins to beat again? My entire world will start for me again.'' ''Banoci didn't tell me., what happened or how it happened. But I can guess," Joe Mak said quietly. Perspiration flowed down his hard face, but what could he do? What else could he do when he knew no other way of telling Julia that today was different from all other days? Joe Mak saw Julia's white smile. But he knew that a white smile was a very fragile thing; one must be very careful to not touch such a smile at all. Joe thought it would have been a blasphemy to desecrate such a smile with words. And Joe did not want to offend God today nor to hinder the beating of Julia's heart in any way. Julia's heart started slowly. Thump, thump .... Some blood had reached its auricles and ventricles and warmed up immediately. Happiness began glowing in Julia's cheeks. This happiness, small as it was in the beginning, started to grow and fly and flow and fill the entire room. Even the loud-mouthed Klachovka, returning to the room, refrained from disturbing the couple's bliss. Joe Mak lifted his oldest son up high and tickled him under his chin. And the boy broke into such laughter that the glass shook in the window frame. Little Joe laughed because he was a little boy. All this took place on Thursday. The hoarfrost came on the following Monday. Everyone knows that hoarfrost is like a beautiful veil. You cannot find it in any anticipated place or at any predetermined time. The hoarfrost's veil is beautiful on bleached meadows. But this one did not spread over plains or slopes. The hoarfrost usually settles on the birch twigs. It glitters opaquely, a demure element of nature's magnificence, reluctant to impose itself on anyone's sight. But this particular frost did not encase the birch twigs . The hoarfrost did not settle on the firs and willows either. It did not come at midnight as usual. This one came in the daylight and settled only on Mak's cottage. But even there, the hoarfrost did not spread over the entire cottage. It did not cover either the roof or the threshold, or the room. This day's hoarfrost settled only on Julia's face, on her forehead, on her closed eyes, on her white lips, on Julia's white smile. Yes, Julia was smiling even then, as she died. (1933) Translated by Andrew Cincura  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 Selections from An Anthology of Slovak Literature Description An account of the resource Andrew Cincurra<br />Slovakia, Vol. 26 (No. 49), 1976<br />pp. 87-105<br /><ol><li>Introductory Remarks / Andrew Cincura (p. 87).</li> <li>On Skulls / Ján Hollý, translated by Jaroslav J. Vajda (p. 88).</li> <li>God in Heaven / Andrej Sládkovič, translated by Jaroslav J. Vajda (p. 89).</li> <li>Bloody Sonnets (a fragment) / Pavol Orságh-Hviezdoslav, translated by Jaroslav J. Vajda (p. 90).</li> <li>The Guests / Ivan Krasko, translated by Jaroslav J. Vajda (p. 91).</li> <li>The Hundred and First Tale of Boccaccio / Valentín Beniak, translated by Andrew Cincura (p. 92).</li> <li>Carmen / Emil B. Lukáč, translated by Jaroslav J. Vajda (p. 93).</li> <li>Two Days at Chujava (a fragment) / Jonáš Záborský, translated by Andrew Cincura (pp. 94-95).</li> <li>The "Discovery" of Gunpowder (a fragment) / Terézia Vansová, translated by Andrew Cincura (pp. 96-98).</li> <li>More About the Fair (a fragment) / Martin Kukučín, translated by Andrew Cincura (pp. 99-101).</li> <li>Joe Mak (a fragment) / Jozef Cíger-Hronský, translated by Andrew Cincura (pp. 102-105).</li> </ol> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cincura, Andrew, 1917- Vajda, Jaroslav J., 1919-2008 Hollý, Ján, 1785-1849 Sládkovič, Andrej, 1820-1872 Hviezdoslav, Pavol Országh, 1849-1921 Krasko, Ivan, 1876-1958 Beniak, Valentín, 1894-1973 Lukáč, Emil Boleslav, 1900-1979 Záborský, Jonáš, 1812-1876 Vansová, Terézia, 1857-1942 Kukučín, Martin, 1860-1928 Hronský, Jozef Cíger, 1896-1960 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1976 LCNAF SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/10e68fbdd8ce87e96ba2f99b53a79fbd.pdf 3d17297cd173f1813d92dbf10fef63f3 PDF Text Text 52 SLOVAKIA SELF-DETERMINATION FOR ALL (Address of P. A. Hrobak in Cologne, Germany, on the occasion of Su• deten German Day, May 20, 1961. The Charles IV Award was given Mr. Hrobak in 1961 by the Sudeten German Council of West Germany.) I feel highly honored, privileged and extremely happy to be with you here today for this "'Sudeten German Day" to voice together with you our rededication to the fundamental principles which are the foundation of every genuine democracy, the principles of justice and liberty. At the very outset, from the bottom of my heart, I thank the Sudeten German Council for the honor of bestowing on me the Award of Charles IV, particularly Herr Minister HansChristoph Seebohm and Herr Dr. Walter Becher. In the name of the Slovak League of America, the outstanding and most representative civic and cultural organization of American of Slovak descent, I greet you sincerely and pray that God hastens the day of your return to your ancestral homeland where you shall be able to fully enjoy the exercise of your God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We commend you wholeheartedly for your patience and, particularly, for the great courage displayed throughout the years under most trydng circumstances to uphold the right of all peoples to self-determina'tion, the right of nations to freely govern themselves as they best see fit. The Slovaks of America are grateful to the West German Government and to the German people for offering asylum to Slovaks who fled the terror and violence which enveloped their homeland in 1945. By the practical application of the Go'lden Rule (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you), you have earned the admiration and respect of the entire free world. The hristory of the Sudetenland is very much like the history of Slovakia. The people of both territories were faced with a "fait accompli" in 1918, with their demand to exercise the right of self-determinaiton completely ignored. This happened after a war which was fought for the rights of nationality and of national self-determina- �SLOVAKIA 53 tion and "a territorial settlement ... ibased on the right of self-determination or the consent of the governed" was one of three fundamental conditions of a permanent peace. With the creation of Czecho-Slovakia under the leadership of T. G. Masaryk and Edward Benes both the Sudeten Germans and the Slovaks were exploited and treated like second-class citizens. The Sudeten Germans, like the Slovaks, wanted nothing that belonged to the Czech people; they did not seek Czech territory, nor the spiritual or material wealth of the Czechs. And they did not want special treatment, but only that they, too, be able to exercise the prerogative of self-determination. Because this right of self-determination was denied the Sudetenland Germans and the Slovaks, amd others, a grave injustice was done them. The vio1ation of the principle of self-determination at that time led to the crisis of democracy in Central Europe and eventually to the horrible holocaust of World War Two. There was and still is nothing wrong with the great democratic principle of self-determination. Objective observers, I am sure, will agree that the disintegration of large political and economic units following the First World War and the creation of incoherent smaller units at a time when strategic and economic fa:ctors demanded more integration was the result of applying the principle of self-determination avbitrarily. At that time, the notion to build national states in East Central Europe, where many nationalities or ethnic groups had lived intermingled for many centuries had gained the favor of the peacemakers. Unfortunately, experienced and able statesmen and political experts allowed themselves to be persuaded by politically inexperienced, shortsighted and morally unbalanced men, particularly by T. G. Masaryk and Edward Benes, to accept the idea of creating political units which had no basis in the history of the peoples concerned. Tearing asunder large multi-national political units to esta:blish smaller multi-national units under the guise of the great democratic principle of self-determination could only result in political monstrosities. And that, in my con- �54 SLOVAKIA sidered opm1on, is exactly what, for example, Czecho-Slovakia was - and still is. This violation of the Wilsonian principle presaged only more trouble not only for Central Europe but also for the whole world. The attempt to build a national state in traditionally ,a nd historically multi-national areas failed - and failed miserably. It is a matter of historical record that the violation of the great democratic principle of self-determination led first to discontent and prevented wholesome and peaceful cooperation. As the years rolled by it engendered and fomented hatred of those who ruled high and mighty, utterly disregarding the Creator-endowed rights of the other nations within the state, particularly, in the case of Czecho~Slovakia, the rights of millions of Sudeten Germans and Slovaks. The arbitrary and unjust reorganization of East Central Europe between the wars, characterized as it was by chauvinism, contributed largely to the outbreak of the most horrible slaughter in the history of mankind, and, by a strange and distorted logic, resulted in vengeance and retri~ bution not against those who violated the principle of selfdetermination, but against the victims of chauvinism and oppression in the interwar period. Certainly it must be crystal clear today that the policy of vengeance and unlbridled retribution, depriving millions of Central Europeans of their homes without any compensation and expelling them on the grounds of "collective guilt" can never be justified in the minds of men who are truly interested in justice and the right. The charge of collective guilt, so hastily accepted by some governments against the defeated nations and their nationals in other countries, was and still is, in my humble opinion, as absurd as the label of collective innocence t:o which the victors laid claim. History shall never b'e able to reconcile and justify the brutal mass expulsions of the Sudeten Germans and others which took place after 1945. It is not my intention to resort to recriminations. I believe that peoples of the free democratic world should be more concerned with remedying the injustices of the past �SLOVAKIA 55 - and then pushing on in earnest with the task of establishing a just and lasting peace. First of all, it seems to me, restitution must be made by allowing all expellees to return to their homelands and returning to them all their possessions. Then the East Central European peoples should return to the great democratic principle of the right of self-determination and use it as a basis of a new and more just organization of the area, applying the principle to all nations without exception, with due consideration for the pressing demands of the time. I am greatly inclined to believe the claim or proposition that there is only one answer to the problem of the reorganization of East Central Europe: a federation of free peoples or free states - a United States of East Central Europe or a United States encompassing the whole of Europe proper - guaranteeing the several states composing it full states' rights so that they might freely cultivate and develop their own national traditions, their languages and cultures, not only in their own interest, but also in the highest interest of the welfare and security of the federation. With the passage of time, I am sure, a situation similar to that in the United States of America would develop, where citizens of all ethnic origins and religious persuasions are not only free, but even encouraged, to preserve and enhance the national traditions and customs of their ancestors. History has taught us this one great lesson: no nation can have, or presume to have, a monopoly on freedom; and certainly no nation or state has the right to enslave other nations or states. Freedom is the greatest of God's gifts and blessings to mankind; it is the universal heritage of all the ages. The more we develop and share it, the more abundant are its fruits, and the more secure is our own freedom. History has also taught us that evil, unprincipled men cannot make good citizens and so much the less good public servants and honest advocates of lasting peace. It is impossible that a nation of infidels and idolaters should be a nation · of freemen. It is when people forget God - the ultimate Truth and Prince of Peace - that tyrants forge their �56 SLOVAKIA chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. In America "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain un:alienaJble righ'ts, and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." But we do not hold that life is so dear and peace so sweet that it must be purchased at the price of chains and slavery! The people of the democratic republic of the United States of America believe that all men should be free; that all nations without exception have an inherent, God-given right to establish their own political units in their ancestral homelands and to determine their form of government. If at times in the past the impression was given that this is not so, that is the fault not of the American people, but the fault of those in authority who as their representatives yielded to the force of expediency, forgetting that expedients are but of the hour - principles for the ages. The time has come, I believe, that we must do more than just pay lip service to the nolJle principles which are the foundation of genuine democracy and liberty. The time has come for all men to seek the things that unite them and not divide them; the time has come for all free nations to demand a stop to the shadow-boxing in the United Nations and more real action in support of the noble aims of its charter; the time has come to deal justly with all, not just some, crimes against humanity no matter by whom they were perpetrated: the time is here to supplement words for peace with concrete actions for a genuine and lasting peace. But how can we possibly expect a just peace and a lasting settlement, as long as the great democratic principle of self-determination is denied the Sudeten Germans and the Slovaks and other nations, and as long as the right of expellees and forcibly departed ethnic groups to freely return to their ancestral homelands is not recognized and respected? Indeed, as long as some earthly power is seriously dedicated to the enslavement of mankind? We in the Slovak League of America still regard the brutal expulsion of the Germans from their centuries-old �57 SLOVAKIA homeland as immoral and criminal. The expulsion of any people from their rightful homeland cannot be justified by or reconciled with the expressed political beliefs of any civilized, genuinely democratic country. And certainly not with the political beliefs of the United States of America. In the land of my parents - the land inhabited by the Slovak people since time immemorial - the Slovaks have lived with the Germans in peace and friendship for many long years. Here is a shining example of the cohabitation of a nation with a minority. Indeed, a cohabitation much like that of many ethnic groups of America. There is nothing better I could wish for the whole of Europe, for the entire world. God bless you and all of Germany! God bless America and the rest of the free world! And may God hasten the day of liberation of my hapless Slovak people! LONG-RANGE m1i:ssile ramps are bei,n,g constructed by the Red Czechs of Prague i,n, Slova'kia. 'Dhey are locla'ted near the town, Olf Spi.s• ska Nova Vres a·nd are the first Communist intercon:tinental missile siltes located outside the bordrers of the Soviet Union. Medilum-range siites harvre been operationia1 i,n, Czecho-Slovakiia at bases near Uzhorod, Kosice, RufomlbeTok, Frydek (all in Slovaki-a) and Moravska Ostrava siruce Jruly 1959. The Czech Reds together with the Kremlin preferred to sel~ct Slovakia foc most of these sites, since they know tha't they will.I be the prdmary targets in the event of a nuclear war. The Slovaks are expendaible, accOTdi,n-g to the Czech Red bosses. lJ(l lJ(l lJ(l helart" as it is teruned by Prague R-eds, were draJWn up lin the USSR. It wiU be the largest foundry in alll. Europe and one of the ten largest works of its kind in the world. It will cost an esti• mated 10.5 binions Crow,ns. S·o viet experts are in charge Olf construction and operation. lJ(l )l{l )l{l IN C2lECiHO-S·L OVAKIA pension- ers were recalled to work in October and women were recruited to make up for ma,n,poiwer lost in the -emergency bulild-up of the armed forces, a'Ccord'ing to offiloilal Prague sources. Forty per cent of the adult women in Czecho-Sllovakiia already held jobs in the paradise of the Red Czechs. )l{l )l{l )l{l "CRUCIFIXE•S must go" - ac- ONIE OF THE MOST urgent as· cordling to tlhe Czech Reds under ,si:gnimenrt:s of the new Five-Year Plan (1001-'1965) Olf the Czech Oommunist Party's Oen'.tTal Committee is the completion ·o f the huge Ironwoiics ini K!osice, Slovakia. Blueprinrt:s for 1Jhis "second steel Anton,ini Novotny. NotMng has changed ffilllCh sin'Ce the birth of Czecho-Slovaklia. Novotny is contin udng the policy of Masaryk and Benes: in 1918, c,rucif.ixes were hauled in wagons to manure pill.es! � 52 SLOVAKIA SELF-DETERMINATION FOR ALL (Address of P. A. Hrobak in Cologne, Germany, on the occasion of Su• deten German Day, May 20, 1961. The Charles IV Award was given Mr. Hrobak in 1961 by the Sudeten German Council of West Germany.) I feel highly honored, privileged and extremely happy to be with you here today for this "'Sudeten German Day" to voice together with you our rededication to the fundamental principles which are the foundation of every genuine democracy, the principles of justice and liberty. At the very outset, from the bottom of my heart, I thank the Sudeten German Council for the honor of bestowing on me the Award of Charles IV, particularly Herr Minister HansChristoph Seebohm and Herr Dr. Walter Becher. In the name of the Slovak League of America, the outstanding and most representative civic and cultural organization of American of Slovak descent, I greet you sincerely and pray that God hastens the day of your return to your ancestral homeland where you shall be able to fully enjoy the exercise of your God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We commend you wholeheartedly for your patience and, particularly, for the great courage displayed throughout the years under most trydng circumstances to uphold the right of all peoples to self-determina'tion, the right of nations to freely govern themselves as they best see fit. The Slovaks of America are grateful to the West German Government and to the German people for offering asylum to Slovaks who fled the terror and violence which enveloped their homeland in 1945. By the practical application of the Go'lden Rule (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you), you have earned the admiration and respect of the entire free world. The hristory of the Sudetenland is very much like the history of Slovakia. The people of both territories were faced with a "fait accompli" in 1918, with their demand to exercise the right of self-determinaiton completely ignored. This happened after a war which was fought for the rights of nationality and of national self-determina- �SLOVAKIA 53 tion and "a territorial settlement ... ibased on the right of self-determination or the consent of the governed" was one of three fundamental conditions of a permanent peace. With the creation of Czecho-Slovakia under the leadership of T. G. Masaryk and Edward Benes both the Sudeten Germans and the Slovaks were exploited and treated like second-class citizens. The Sudeten Germans, like the Slovaks, wanted nothing that belonged to the Czech people; they did not seek Czech territory, nor the spiritual or material wealth of the Czechs. And they did not want special treatment, but only that they, too, be able to exercise the prerogative of self-determination. Because this right of self-determination was denied the Sudetenland Germans and the Slovaks, amd others, a grave injustice was done them. The vio1ation of the principle of self-determination at that time led to the crisis of democracy in Central Europe and eventually to the horrible holocaust of World War Two. There was and still is nothing wrong with the great democratic principle of self-determination. Objective observers, I am sure, will agree that the disintegration of large political and economic units following the First World War and the creation of incoherent smaller units at a time when strategic and economic fa:ctors demanded more integration was the result of applying the principle of self-determination avbitrarily. At that time, the notion to build national states in East Central Europe, where many nationalities or ethnic groups had lived intermingled for many centuries had gained the favor of the peacemakers. Unfortunately, experienced and able statesmen and political experts allowed themselves to be persuaded by politically inexperienced, shortsighted and morally unbalanced men, particularly by T. G. Masaryk and Edward Benes, to accept the idea of creating political units which had no basis in the history of the peoples concerned. Tearing asunder large multi-national political units to esta:blish smaller multi-national units under the guise of the great democratic principle of self-determination could only result in political monstrosities. And that, in my con- �54 SLOVAKIA sidered opm1on, is exactly what, for example, Czecho-Slovakia was - and still is. This violation of the Wilsonian principle presaged only more trouble not only for Central Europe but also for the whole world. The attempt to build a national state in traditionally ,a nd historically multi-national areas failed - and failed miserably. It is a matter of historical record that the violation of the great democratic principle of self-determination led first to discontent and prevented wholesome and peaceful cooperation. As the years rolled by it engendered and fomented hatred of those who ruled high and mighty, utterly disregarding the Creator-endowed rights of the other nations within the state, particularly, in the case of Czecho~Slovakia, the rights of millions of Sudeten Germans and Slovaks. The arbitrary and unjust reorganization of East Central Europe between the wars, characterized as it was by chauvinism, contributed largely to the outbreak of the most horrible slaughter in the history of mankind, and, by a strange and distorted logic, resulted in vengeance and retri~ bution not against those who violated the principle of selfdetermination, but against the victims of chauvinism and oppression in the interwar period. Certainly it must be crystal clear today that the policy of vengeance and unlbridled retribution, depriving millions of Central Europeans of their homes without any compensation and expelling them on the grounds of "collective guilt" can never be justified in the minds of men who are truly interested in justice and the right. The charge of collective guilt, so hastily accepted by some governments against the defeated nations and their nationals in other countries, was and still is, in my humble opinion, as absurd as the label of collective innocence t:o which the victors laid claim. History shall never b'e able to reconcile and justify the brutal mass expulsions of the Sudeten Germans and others which took place after 1945. It is not my intention to resort to recriminations. I believe that peoples of the free democratic world should be more concerned with remedying the injustices of the past �SLOVAKIA 55 - and then pushing on in earnest with the task of establishing a just and lasting peace. First of all, it seems to me, restitution must be made by allowing all expellees to return to their homelands and returning to them all their possessions. Then the East Central European peoples should return to the great democratic principle of the right of self-determination and use it as a basis of a new and more just organization of the area, applying the principle to all nations without exception, with due consideration for the pressing demands of the time. I am greatly inclined to believe the claim or proposition that there is only one answer to the problem of the reorganization of East Central Europe: a federation of free peoples or free states - a United States of East Central Europe or a United States encompassing the whole of Europe proper - guaranteeing the several states composing it full states' rights so that they might freely cultivate and develop their own national traditions, their languages and cultures, not only in their own interest, but also in the highest interest of the welfare and security of the federation. With the passage of time, I am sure, a situation similar to that in the United States of America would develop, where citizens of all ethnic origins and religious persuasions are not only free, but even encouraged, to preserve and enhance the national traditions and customs of their ancestors. History has taught us this one great lesson: no nation can have, or presume to have, a monopoly on freedom; and certainly no nation or state has the right to enslave other nations or states. Freedom is the greatest of God's gifts and blessings to mankind; it is the universal heritage of all the ages. The more we develop and share it, the more abundant are its fruits, and the more secure is our own freedom. History has also taught us that evil, unprincipled men cannot make good citizens and so much the less good public servants and honest advocates of lasting peace. It is impossible that a nation of infidels and idolaters should be a nation · of freemen. It is when people forget God - the ultimate Truth and Prince of Peace - that tyrants forge their �56 SLOVAKIA chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. In America "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain un:alienaJble righ'ts, and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." But we do not hold that life is so dear and peace so sweet that it must be purchased at the price of chains and slavery! The people of the democratic republic of the United States of America believe that all men should be free; that all nations without exception have an inherent, God-given right to establish their own political units in their ancestral homelands and to determine their form of government. If at times in the past the impression was given that this is not so, that is the fault not of the American people, but the fault of those in authority who as their representatives yielded to the force of expediency, forgetting that expedients are but of the hour - principles for the ages. The time has come, I believe, that we must do more than just pay lip service to the nolJle principles which are the foundation of genuine democracy and liberty. The time has come for all men to seek the things that unite them and not divide them; the time has come for all free nations to demand a stop to the shadow-boxing in the United Nations and more real action in support of the noble aims of its charter; the time has come to deal justly with all, not just some, crimes against humanity no matter by whom they were perpetrated: the time is here to supplement words for peace with concrete actions for a genuine and lasting peace. But how can we possibly expect a just peace and a lasting settlement, as long as the great democratic principle of self-determination is denied the Sudeten Germans and the Slovaks and other nations, and as long as the right of expellees and forcibly departed ethnic groups to freely return to their ancestral homelands is not recognized and respected? Indeed, as long as some earthly power is seriously dedicated to the enslavement of mankind? We in the Slovak League of America still regard the brutal expulsion of the Germans from their centuries-old �57 SLOVAKIA homeland as immoral and criminal. The expulsion of any people from their rightful homeland cannot be justified by or reconciled with the expressed political beliefs of any civilized, genuinely democratic country. And certainly not with the political beliefs of the United States of America. In the land of my parents - the land inhabited by the Slovak people since time immemorial - the Slovaks have lived with the Germans in peace and friendship for many long years. Here is a shining example of the cohabitation of a nation with a minority. Indeed, a cohabitation much like that of many ethnic groups of America. There is nothing better I could wish for the whole of Europe, for the entire world. God bless you and all of Germany! God bless America and the rest of the free world! And may God hasten the day of liberation of my hapless Slovak people! LONG-RANGE m1i:ssile ramps are bei,n,g constructed by the Red Czechs of Prague i,n, Slova'kia. 'Dhey are locla'ted near the town, Olf Spi.s• ska Nova Vres a·nd are the first Communist intercon:tinental missile siltes located outside the bordrers of the Soviet Union. Medilum-range siites harvre been operationia1 i,n, Czecho-Slovakiia at bases near Uzhorod, Kosice, RufomlbeTok, Frydek (all in Slovaki-a) and Moravska Ostrava siruce Jruly 1959. The Czech Reds together with the Kremlin preferred to sel~ct Slovakia foc most of these sites, since they know tha't they will.I be the prdmary targets in the event of a nuclear war. The Slovaks are expendaible, accOTdi,n-g to the Czech Red bosses. lJ(l lJ(l lJ(l helart" as it is teruned by Prague R-eds, were draJWn up lin the USSR. It wiU be the largest foundry in alll. Europe and one of the ten largest works of its kind in the world. It will cost an esti• mated 10.5 binions Crow,ns. S·o viet experts are in charge Olf construction and operation. lJ(l )l{l )l{l IN C2lECiHO-S·L OVAKIA pension- ers were recalled to work in October and women were recruited to make up for ma,n,poiwer lost in the -emergency bulild-up of the armed forces, a'Ccord'ing to offiloilal Prague sources. Forty per cent of the adult women in Czecho-Sllovakiia already held jobs in the paradise of the Red Czechs. )l{l )l{l )l{l "CRUCIFIXE•S must go" - ac- ONIE OF THE MOST urgent as· cordling to tlhe Czech Reds under ,si:gnimenrt:s of the new Five-Year Plan (1001-'1965) Olf the Czech Oommunist Party's Oen'.tTal Committee is the completion ·o f the huge Ironwoiics ini K!osice, Slovakia. Blueprinrt:s for 1Jhis "second steel Anton,ini Novotny. NotMng has changed ffilllCh sin'Ce the birth of Czecho-Slovaklia. Novotny is contin udng the policy of Masaryk and Benes: in 1918, c,rucif.ixes were hauled in wagons to manure pill.es! � 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 1961, Vol. 11 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 1 (No. 33), March-June 1961.</li> <li>Issue 2 (No. 34), September-December June 1961.</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 1961 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 52 SLOVAKIA SELF-DETERMINATION FOR ALL (Address of P. A. Hrobak in Cologne, Germany, on the occasion of Su• deten German Day, May 20, 1961. The Charles IV Award was given Mr. Hrobak in 1961 by the Sudeten German Council of West Germany.) I feel highly honored, privileged and extremely happy to be with you here today for this "'Sudeten German Day" to voice together with you our rededication to the fundamental principles which are the foundation of every genuine democracy, the principles of justice and liberty. At the very outset, from the bottom of my heart, I thank the Sudeten German Council for the honor of bestowing on me the Award of Charles IV, particularly Herr Minister HansChristoph Seebohm and Herr Dr. Walter Becher. In the name of the Slovak League of America, the outstanding and most representative civic and cultural organization of American of Slovak descent, I greet you sincerely and pray that God hastens the day of your return to your ancestral homeland where you shall be able to fully enjoy the exercise of your God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We commend you wholeheartedly for your patience and, particularly, for the great courage displayed throughout the years under most trydng circumstances to uphold the right of all peoples to self-determina'tion, the right of nations to freely govern themselves as they best see fit. The Slovaks of America are grateful to the West German Government and to the German people for offering asylum to Slovaks who fled the terror and violence which enveloped their homeland in 1945. By the practical application of the Go'lden Rule (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you), you have earned the admiration and respect of the entire free world. The hristory of the Sudetenland is very much like the history of Slovakia. The people of both territories were faced with a "fait accompli" in 1918, with their demand to exercise the right of self-determinaiton completely ignored. This happened after a war which was fought for the rights of nationality and of national self-determina- SLOVAKIA 53 tion and "a territorial settlement ... ibased on the right of self-determination or the consent of the governed" was one of three fundamental conditions of a permanent peace. With the creation of Czecho-Slovakia under the leadership of T. G. Masaryk and Edward Benes both the Sudeten Germans and the Slovaks were exploited and treated like second-class citizens. The Sudeten Germans, like the Slovaks, wanted nothing that belonged to the Czech people; they did not seek Czech territory, nor the spiritual or material wealth of the Czechs. And they did not want special treatment, but only that they, too, be able to exercise the prerogative of self-determination. Because this right of self-determination was denied the Sudetenland Germans and the Slovaks, amd others, a grave injustice was done them. The vio1ation of the principle of self-determination at that time led to the crisis of democracy in Central Europe and eventually to the horrible holocaust of World War Two. There was and still is nothing wrong with the great democratic principle of self-determination. Objective observers, I am sure, will agree that the disintegration of large political and economic units following the First World War and the creation of incoherent smaller units at a time when strategic and economic fa:ctors demanded more integration was the result of applying the principle of self-determination avbitrarily. At that time, the notion to build national states in East Central Europe, where many nationalities or ethnic groups had lived intermingled for many centuries had gained the favor of the peacemakers. Unfortunately, experienced and able statesmen and political experts allowed themselves to be persuaded by politically inexperienced, shortsighted and morally unbalanced men, particularly by T. G. Masaryk and Edward Benes, to accept the idea of creating political units which had no basis in the history of the peoples concerned. Tearing asunder large multi-national political units to esta:blish smaller multi-national units under the guise of the great democratic principle of self-determination could only result in political monstrosities. And that, in my con- 54 SLOVAKIA sidered opm1on, is exactly what, for example, Czecho-Slovakia was - and still is. This violation of the Wilsonian principle presaged only more trouble not only for Central Europe but also for the whole world. The attempt to build a national state in traditionally ,a nd historically multi-national areas failed - and failed miserably. It is a matter of historical record that the violation of the great democratic principle of self-determination led first to discontent and prevented wholesome and peaceful cooperation. As the years rolled by it engendered and fomented hatred of those who ruled high and mighty, utterly disregarding the Creator-endowed rights of the other nations within the state, particularly, in the case of Czecho~Slovakia, the rights of millions of Sudeten Germans and Slovaks. The arbitrary and unjust reorganization of East Central Europe between the wars, characterized as it was by chauvinism, contributed largely to the outbreak of the most horrible slaughter in the history of mankind, and, by a strange and distorted logic, resulted in vengeance and retri~ bution not against those who violated the principle of selfdetermination, but against the victims of chauvinism and oppression in the interwar period. Certainly it must be crystal clear today that the policy of vengeance and unlbridled retribution, depriving millions of Central Europeans of their homes without any compensation and expelling them on the grounds of "collective guilt" can never be justified in the minds of men who are truly interested in justice and the right. The charge of collective guilt, so hastily accepted by some governments against the defeated nations and their nationals in other countries, was and still is, in my humble opinion, as absurd as the label of collective innocence t:o which the victors laid claim. History shall never b'e able to reconcile and justify the brutal mass expulsions of the Sudeten Germans and others which took place after 1945. It is not my intention to resort to recriminations. I believe that peoples of the free democratic world should be more concerned with remedying the injustices of the past SLOVAKIA 55 - and then pushing on in earnest with the task of establishing a just and lasting peace. First of all, it seems to me, restitution must be made by allowing all expellees to return to their homelands and returning to them all their possessions. Then the East Central European peoples should return to the great democratic principle of the right of self-determination and use it as a basis of a new and more just organization of the area, applying the principle to all nations without exception, with due consideration for the pressing demands of the time. I am greatly inclined to believe the claim or proposition that there is only one answer to the problem of the reorganization of East Central Europe: a federation of free peoples or free states - a United States of East Central Europe or a United States encompassing the whole of Europe proper - guaranteeing the several states composing it full states' rights so that they might freely cultivate and develop their own national traditions, their languages and cultures, not only in their own interest, but also in the highest interest of the welfare and security of the federation. With the passage of time, I am sure, a situation similar to that in the United States of America would develop, where citizens of all ethnic origins and religious persuasions are not only free, but even encouraged, to preserve and enhance the national traditions and customs of their ancestors. History has taught us this one great lesson: no nation can have, or presume to have, a monopoly on freedom; and certainly no nation or state has the right to enslave other nations or states. Freedom is the greatest of God's gifts and blessings to mankind; it is the universal heritage of all the ages. The more we develop and share it, the more abundant are its fruits, and the more secure is our own freedom. History has also taught us that evil, unprincipled men cannot make good citizens and so much the less good public servants and honest advocates of lasting peace. It is impossible that a nation of infidels and idolaters should be a nation · of freemen. It is when people forget God - the ultimate Truth and Prince of Peace - that tyrants forge their 56 SLOVAKIA chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. In America "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain un:alienaJble righ'ts, and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." But we do not hold that life is so dear and peace so sweet that it must be purchased at the price of chains and slavery! The people of the democratic republic of the United States of America believe that all men should be free; that all nations without exception have an inherent, God-given right to establish their own political units in their ancestral homelands and to determine their form of government. If at times in the past the impression was given that this is not so, that is the fault not of the American people, but the fault of those in authority who as their representatives yielded to the force of expediency, forgetting that expedients are but of the hour - principles for the ages. The time has come, I believe, that we must do more than just pay lip service to the nolJle principles which are the foundation of genuine democracy and liberty. The time has come for all men to seek the things that unite them and not divide them; the time has come for all free nations to demand a stop to the shadow-boxing in the United Nations and more real action in support of the noble aims of its charter; the time has come to deal justly with all, not just some, crimes against humanity no matter by whom they were perpetrated: the time is here to supplement words for peace with concrete actions for a genuine and lasting peace. But how can we possibly expect a just peace and a lasting settlement, as long as the great democratic principle of self-determination is denied the Sudeten Germans and the Slovaks and other nations, and as long as the right of expellees and forcibly departed ethnic groups to freely return to their ancestral homelands is not recognized and respected? Indeed, as long as some earthly power is seriously dedicated to the enslavement of mankind? We in the Slovak League of America still regard the brutal expulsion of the Germans from their centuries-old 57 SLOVAKIA homeland as immoral and criminal. The expulsion of any people from their rightful homeland cannot be justified by or reconciled with the expressed political beliefs of any civilized, genuinely democratic country. And certainly not with the political beliefs of the United States of America. In the land of my parents - the land inhabited by the Slovak people since time immemorial - the Slovaks have lived with the Germans in peace and friendship for many long years. Here is a shining example of the cohabitation of a nation with a minority. Indeed, a cohabitation much like that of many ethnic groups of America. There is nothing better I could wish for the whole of Europe, for the entire world. God bless you and all of Germany! God bless America and the rest of the free world! And may God hasten the day of liberation of my hapless Slovak people! LONG-RANGE m1i:ssile ramps are bei,n,g constructed by the Red Czechs of Prague i,n, Slova'kia. 'Dhey are locla'ted near the town, Olf Spi.s• ska Nova Vres a·nd are the first Communist intercon:tinental missile siltes located outside the bordrers of the Soviet Union. Medilum-range siites harvre been operationia1 i,n, Czecho-Slovakiia at bases near Uzhorod, Kosice, RufomlbeTok, Frydek (all in Slovaki-a) and Moravska Ostrava siruce Jruly 1959. The Czech Reds together with the Kremlin preferred to sel~ct Slovakia foc most of these sites, since they know tha't they will.I be the prdmary targets in the event of a nuclear war. The Slovaks are expendaible, accOTdi,n-g to the Czech Red bosses. lJ(l lJ(l lJ(l helart" as it is teruned by Prague R-eds, were draJWn up lin the USSR. It wiU be the largest foundry in alll. Europe and one of the ten largest works of its kind in the world. It will cost an esti• mated 10.5 binions Crow,ns. S·o viet experts are in charge Olf construction and operation. lJ(l )l{l )l{l IN C2lECiHO-S·L OVAKIA pension- ers were recalled to work in October and women were recruited to make up for ma,n,poiwer lost in the -emergency bulild-up of the armed forces, a'Ccord'ing to offiloilal Prague sources. Forty per cent of the adult women in Czecho-Sllovakiia already held jobs in the paradise of the Red Czechs. )l{l )l{l )l{l "CRUCIFIXE•S must go" - ac- ONIE OF THE MOST urgent as· cordling to tlhe Czech Reds under ,si:gnimenrt:s of the new Five-Year Plan (1001-'1965) Olf the Czech Oommunist Party's Oen'.tTal Committee is the completion ·o f the huge Ironwoiics ini K!osice, Slovakia. Blueprinrt:s for 1Jhis "second steel Anton,ini Novotny. NotMng has changed ffilllCh sin'Ce the birth of Czecho-Slovaklia. Novotny is contin udng the policy of Masaryk and Benes: in 1918, c,rucif.ixes were hauled in wagons to manure pill.es!  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 Self-Determination for All Description An account of the resource Address of P. A. Hrobak in Cologne, Germany, on the occasion of Sudeten German Day, May 20, 1961 Slovakia, Vol. 11, No. 2 (34), September-December 1961 pp. 52-57 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hrobak, Philip Anthony, 1904-1964 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource September-December 1961 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/cfb74545363a15c4834be07ad31595d9.pdf da2c423b0a22dae27b6546be1de3d645 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 59 SELF-DETERMINATION FOR SLOVAKIA Hon. Edward J. Bonin I am very happy to substitute this evening in the place of Ambassador Lodge who was originally scheduled to give the principal address before this great Conference of the Slovak League of America. I consider it an honor and privilege that the members of the Slovak League of America saw fit to bring your Convention to the capital city of the United States which is oftentimes considered as the present capital of the world. As a Member of Congress from the 11th Congressional District of Pennsylvania, I welcome you to this great city and I sincerely hope that your deliberations for a free and independent Slovakia may soon materialize. I have often said before, and I shall continue to say, that from the beginning of recorded time the force that has propelled civilization onward has been man's desire for freedom and, when that desire fails, the wheels of progress cease their turning; but when it is most active, civilization makes the most advancement. It seems apparent that the desire for freedom has virtually come to a standstill among certain elements and nationalities throughout the free world; however, the Conference of the Slovak League of America clearly demonstrates to the people o.f the world that the burning desire o.f the Slovak people for freedom, liberty and justice has not been extinguished and will never be extinguished so long as we have individuals who are ready, willing and able to fight for a cause which is right. During the last century, the life of the Slovak people has been difficult Many of you recall how the Magyars tried to engulf them in their internationalistic concept of the Hungarian state and, more recently, your Slovak brothers, the Czechs, sought to make the Slovak people disappear. Now the present Communist regime in Prague would like to dissolve Slovakia under the banners of the Kremlin. The achievement is the complete disintegration of the natural will and consciousness of the Slovak people. If this �60 SLOVAKIA socialistic concept is permitted to continue it will deprive the Slovak people of its individuality and national interest and pride. The cause for which you plead today, jUSlt as other countries now behind the Iron Curtain yearn for freedom, justice and independence after experiencing oppression, pain and suffering under foreign government, is the conviction that the Slovak people will still preserve their traditional ways of life in spite of the ruthless dictators who seek to destroy them. As a member of the Select Committee of the House often known as the Baltic Committee, I have heard eyewitness accounts of the pain and the suffering, the torture and the murder of innocent human beings. We have heard from witnesses who went through these trying ordeals - · we have been told of the persecution of the church, the clergy, and the people who refused to give up the Godgiven right of worship as they see fit. The Slovak people in Europe and in America will never relinquish their right to worship as they see fit regardless of how long the oppressors may keep them enslaved. In my work as a Congressman, I have spoken on many and many an occasion of the aspirations of the Slovak people for their right of self-determination which was so clearly and specifically set forth in the Atlantic Charter. I have spoken against the secret treaties entered into at Yalta and Teheran. The evil results of these secret agreements is causing us trouble and agony today. I commend the Slovak people for their valiant fight and I shall continue to fight along with you to eliminate the Communist threat here and abroad. There is a duty and an obligation on our part to see that Slovakia resumes its rightful place among the free nations of the world With constant prayer, and fervent appeal to Almighty God, I am certain that the des-ires of the Slovak people will eventually be accomplished. • • • � SLOVAKIA 59 SELF-DETERMINATION FOR SLOVAKIA Hon. Edward J. Bonin I am very happy to substitute this evening in the place of Ambassador Lodge who was originally scheduled to give the principal address before this great Conference of the Slovak League of America. I consider it an honor and privilege that the members of the Slovak League of America saw fit to bring your Convention to the capital city of the United States which is oftentimes considered as the present capital of the world. As a Member of Congress from the 11th Congressional District of Pennsylvania, I welcome you to this great city and I sincerely hope that your deliberations for a free and independent Slovakia may soon materialize. I have often said before, and I shall continue to say, that from the beginning of recorded time the force that has propelled civilization onward has been man's desire for freedom and, when that desire fails, the wheels of progress cease their turning; but when it is most active, civilization makes the most advancement. It seems apparent that the desire for freedom has virtually come to a standstill among certain elements and nationalities throughout the free world; however, the Conference of the Slovak League of America clearly demonstrates to the people o.f the world that the burning desire o.f the Slovak people for freedom, liberty and justice has not been extinguished and will never be extinguished so long as we have individuals who are ready, willing and able to fight for a cause which is right. During the last century, the life of the Slovak people has been difficult Many of you recall how the Magyars tried to engulf them in their internationalistic concept of the Hungarian state and, more recently, your Slovak brothers, the Czechs, sought to make the Slovak people disappear. Now the present Communist regime in Prague would like to dissolve Slovakia under the banners of the Kremlin. The achievement is the complete disintegration of the natural will and consciousness of the Slovak people. If this �60 SLOVAKIA socialistic concept is permitted to continue it will deprive the Slovak people of its individuality and national interest and pride. The cause for which you plead today, jUSlt as other countries now behind the Iron Curtain yearn for freedom, justice and independence after experiencing oppression, pain and suffering under foreign government, is the conviction that the Slovak people will still preserve their traditional ways of life in spite of the ruthless dictators who seek to destroy them. As a member of the Select Committee of the House often known as the Baltic Committee, I have heard eyewitness accounts of the pain and the suffering, the torture and the murder of innocent human beings. We have heard from witnesses who went through these trying ordeals - · we have been told of the persecution of the church, the clergy, and the people who refused to give up the Godgiven right of worship as they see fit. The Slovak people in Europe and in America will never relinquish their right to worship as they see fit regardless of how long the oppressors may keep them enslaved. In my work as a Congressman, I have spoken on many and many an occasion of the aspirations of the Slovak people for their right of self-determination which was so clearly and specifically set forth in the Atlantic Charter. I have spoken against the secret treaties entered into at Yalta and Teheran. The evil results of these secret agreements is causing us trouble and agony today. I commend the Slovak people for their valiant fight and I shall continue to fight along with you to eliminate the Communist threat here and abroad. There is a duty and an obligation on our part to see that Slovakia resumes its rightful place among the free nations of the world With constant prayer, and fervent appeal to Almighty God, I am certain that the des-ires of the Slovak people will eventually be accomplished. • • • � 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 1954, Vol. 4 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 1 (No. 10), March 1954.</li> <li>Issue 2 (No. 11), June 1954.</li> <li>Issue 3-4 (No. 12-13), Sept.-Dec. 1954.</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 1954 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 SELF-DETERMINATION FOR SLOVAKIA Hon. Edward J. Bonin I am very happy to substitute this evening in the place of Ambassador Lodge who was originally scheduled to give the principal address before this great Conference of the Slovak League of America. I consider it an honor and privilege that the members of the Slovak League of America saw fit to bring your Convention to the capital city of the United States which is oftentimes considered as the present capital of the world. As a Member of Congress from the 11th Congressional District of Pennsylvania, I welcome you to this great city and I sincerely hope that your deliberations for a free and independent Slovakia may soon materialize. I have often said before, and I shall continue to say, that from the beginning of recorded time the force that has propelled civilization onward has been man's desire for freedom and, when that desire fails, the wheels of progress cease their turning; but when it is most active, civilization makes the most advancement. It seems apparent that the desire for freedom has virtually come to a standstill among certain elements and nationalities throughout the free world; however, the Conference of the Slovak League of America clearly demonstrates to the people o.f the world that the burning desire o.f the Slovak people for freedom, liberty and justice has not been extinguished and will never be extinguished so long as we have individuals who are ready, willing and able to fight for a cause which is right. During the last century, the life of the Slovak people has been difficult Many of you recall how the Magyars tried to engulf them in their internationalistic concept of the Hungarian state and, more recently, your Slovak brothers, the Czechs, sought to make the Slovak people disappear. Now the present Communist regime in Prague would like to dissolve Slovakia under the banners of the Kremlin. The achievement is the complete disintegration of the natural will and consciousness of the Slovak people. If this 60 SLOVAKIA socialistic concept is permitted to continue it will deprive the Slovak people of its individuality and national interest and pride. The cause for which you plead today, jUSlt as other countries now behind the Iron Curtain yearn for freedom, justice and independence after experiencing oppression, pain and suffering under foreign government, is the conviction that the Slovak people will still preserve their traditional ways of life in spite of the ruthless dictators who seek to destroy them. As a member of the Select Committee of the House often known as the Baltic Committee, I have heard eyewitness accounts of the pain and the suffering, the torture and the murder of innocent human beings. We have heard from witnesses who went through these trying ordeals - · we have been told of the persecution of the church, the clergy, and the people who refused to give up the Godgiven right of worship as they see fit. The Slovak people in Europe and in America will never relinquish their right to worship as they see fit regardless of how long the oppressors may keep them enslaved. In my work as a Congressman, I have spoken on many and many an occasion of the aspirations of the Slovak people for their right of self-determination which was so clearly and specifically set forth in the Atlantic Charter. I have spoken against the secret treaties entered into at Yalta and Teheran. The evil results of these secret agreements is causing us trouble and agony today. I commend the Slovak people for their valiant fight and I shall continue to fight along with you to eliminate the Communist threat here and abroad. There is a duty and an obligation on our part to see that Slovakia resumes its rightful place among the free nations of the world With constant prayer, and fervent appeal to Almighty God, I am certain that the des-ires of the Slovak people will eventually be accomplished. • • •  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 Self-Determination for Slovakia Description An account of the resource Hon. Edward J. Bonin Slovakia, Vol. 4, No. 3-4 (12-13), Sept.-Dec. 1954 pp. 59-60 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bonin, Edward John, 1904-1990 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Sept.-Dec. 1954 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/4420b4453e192d09d2d212a901402912.pdf afcd80dcea279c3e678c67cd55f6063e PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 121 Separate Paths: Czech and Slovak Foreign Policies Since 1993 James W. Peterson Introduction Foll owing the 1993 break-up of Czechos lovaki a into the Czech Re public and Slovak ia, the two states needed to attend to chall enging fo re ign po li cy iss ues. Wh ile there were important d iffe rences in the situations of the two states, the broad chall enges th at awaited them were s imil ar. In ge nera l, th eir res ponses to those chall enges put the two co untri es on se parate path s th roug ho ut much of the 1990s. It may be th at the iss ues th at led to the brea k-up o f C zechos lo vakia proved too much to overco me in the earl y years after the split. However, by th e earl y twenty-fi rst ce ntury, the ir separate path s moved closer together and stra ightened out in such a way th at they become parallel. The initi al di ffe rences in the new geopo litica l positi ons of the two states were pro nounced. Whil e th e o ld Czechos lovak state had often served as a long, bridge- like link betwee n East and West, the two new co untri es leaned in di ffe rent direction s. Slovak leaders initi all y and instincti ve ly thought about ties to eastern countri es, as well as to th e Yisegrad organizati o n, in whi ch its future pros pec ts were linked to those o f the Czec h Re public, Po land, and Hun gary. By contra st, the Czec h Re public leadership looked westward s to th e o utstretched, embrac ing arms of we ll -es tabli shed European stru ctures . Th e S lova k path was more uncertain and waverin g th an was th e Czech, for Co ld War organi zati onal structures in the east had broken down. �122 SLOVAKIA In light of their contrasting geopolitical orientations, the two states responded differently to common challenges. First, they confronted common political challenges in different ways. While many of these political pressures were primarily domestic , they all had an impact on future foreign policy choices and potentialities. For examp le, both states sought to establish functioning political party systems that would be capab le of proposing consistent foreign policies. Both were under scrutiny from the outside wor ld on the issue of treatment of important minority groups within the country. Further, in each country cultivation of non-governmental organizations that cou ld extend the roots of foreign policy debates further into the civil society was an important goa l. Different strategies on democratization led the two nations on different political paths regarding foreign policy questions. A second common challenge for the Czechs and Slovaks emerged from the economic sector. Newly elected leaders immediately wrestled with the que stion of converting centrally-planned economies into the principles of the free market. Again , this issue was not exclusively domestic . Success in competing for outside loans was contingent on progress made in privatization of enterprises, in release from fixed price controls, and in the estab li shment of principles of competitiveness . By the middl e of the 1990s, prospects for admission to the European Union (EU) were good. Leadership in the Czech Republic initially put a higher priority both on rapid conversion to capita li sm and on links to the EU than did the Slovaks. Thirdly, location of a dependable national security structure was a common problem in the two nations. The Warsaw Pact, a structure that had ostensibly ass ured the protection of the Czechoslovak state did not long survive the end of the Cold War. Give n Slovakia 's more eastern location , there was a long debate on the question of whe ther it was more desirabl e to preserve what was left of ties to its eastern neighbors or to res pond to overtures from the West. For the Czech Republic it was more obvious that participation in western institution s would be th e next step. The West European Union (WEU), �SLOVAKIA 123 North Atl anti c Treaty Orga ni zati on (NATO), and the EU's Common Fo re ig n a nd Sec urit y Po li cy (C FSP) we re co nte nd e rs fo r th a t linkage. It sho uld be no surpri se that the fo re ig n po li c ies of S lovaki a and the Czec h Re publi c di verged in the earl y years afte r separation but the n reco nnec ted. The ir commo n ex peri e nce in the Czec hos lovak state th ro ug h e ig ht decades bo re th e sa me contras tin g fea tures. C ultural simil ariti es drew the m together, but at times bitter po litica l and eco no mi c ex pe ri e nces pu shed the m apart. Once freed fro m the larger state. th ey made quite di ffe re nt cho ices fo r a number of years. However, reg io na l and s itu a ti o na l fo rces eventu a ll y pu shed th e ir path s in the world together aga in . Political Factors and Foreign Policy of the Two Nation-States The Czech Republic C reati o n of an effec ti ve, po li cy-ori e nted po litica l syste m was a chall enge in the earl y 1990 s. In the C zec h Republic there was initi a lly considera bl e co ntinuity in po liti ca l leadership afte r Janu ary 1993 . Vac lav Have l re ma in ed as Pres id e nt of the small e r state, whil e Vac lav Kl a us co ntinu ed o n as Prim e Mini ster. The do min ant po litica l party of Kl aus was still the C ivic Democratic Party (ODS), an organi zati o n th at had bee n bo rn o ut of the C ivic Forum so ac ti ve durin g the eve nts of 1989. In genera l, the Kl aus governm ent ( 1993-97 ) e nd o rsed a ll the steps co nn ec ted w ith th e re turn to E uro pe. Th e brea k-up of th e Czechos lovak state put th e Ukra ine and Ru ss ia furthe r away geographi ca ll y fro m the C zec h Republic . Thu s, the Czechs as earl y as 1994 jo ined the Partn ership fo r Peace (P4 P) and stressed c loser link s to Po land . 105 A n a na lys is of po liti ca l party pos iti o ns durin g e lec ti o ns in the 1990 s is very revea lin g in te rm s o f the iss ues and de bates that 0 ' ' See Thomas S. Szayna. ··The Czech Republic: A Small Contributor or a ' Free Rider·'l_-· in Andrew A . M ichta. ed .. A merica·s New A llies: Poland. Hungary. and the Czech Republic in NA TO (Sea tt le: Un i versity of Washingto n Press. 1999). pp. 11 2- 148 . �124 SLOVAKIA circulated throughout the Czech Republic. Political party leaders debated the merits of the move to the West but finally endorsed it. The 1998 elections are a useful example . The Czech Social Democratic Party (CSSD) ended up technically in power, with Milos Zeman as Prime Minister, but the party needed to establish a "Gentlemen ' s Agreement" with the ODS in order to function as a government. For the CSSD there was less emphasis in the e lection campaign on hardheaded defen se of national interests and more of a focus on livin g standards and the rights of citizens within the country . This priority on domestic issues led the CSSD to endorse the idea of a referendum prior to entry into either the EU or NATO. There a lso was a humanitarian component to its view of Czech relations with the outside world. Such a focus led the CSSD to upgrade the importance of North-South relations and the related role of the UN. It concluded that Czechs should have a say whenever human ri ghts were jeopardized in any part of the world . While it endorsed EU membership, it thought of it in terms of stimulating the Czech economy. While it favored NATO entry , it expressed grave concerns about the future location of nuclear weapon s on Czech territory. During the I 998 election the ODS continued to give a " realpolitik" cast to its statements on foreign policy. National interests rather than humanitarian concerns were its top priority. NATO membership cou ld bring increased security for the nation as well as trade and technological benefits. The latter would promote development of the free market, a priority for Klaus since the early 1990s. National economic interests were of paramount importance, whi le crusades connected with globalization and human rights were to be carefu ll y examined. Increased Czech exports through membership in international organizations were the desired outcome. Thus, the party said less than did the CSSD about broader, western-based international organizations that could pull the Czech nation beyond the orbit of its national interests. 106 106 See Jakub Durr, Vo/by '98 (Brno: Pavel Saradin , 2000), pp. 84-97. �SLOVAKIA 125 Attention to th e views of the main political parties enriches understa ndin gs of the Czech point of view on the major foreign and security policy question s of the day. Czech voters in the 2002 elections confirmed the steady march toward s inclu sion in western institution s. Rejection of the ODS was based in part on the negative reaction to the "euroskeptic" views of Klau s on the matter of integration into the EU . Public support for EU membership was confirmed in the results of the June 2003 Referendum. EU support for Czech membership had been offered at the end of 2002. One of the continuing political challenges for the Czech Republic during the 1990s was the iss ue of minority rights, a matter that affected the country's relation ship with the outside world. The criteria for entering both NATO and the EU required a record of fairness toward key groups within the population . One major conflict was the relationship between Czechs and the Roma. A number of well-publicized incidents have raised questions about Czech attitudes and policies. For example, the erection of a wall by Czechs in Ustf nad Labem in 1999 became a foreign policy incident as well as a temporary setback to pursuit of EU membership. It was clear that the wall was intended to prevent Czechs from having to view the Rom a population as well as their Iife-sty le. Attention to such iss ues was necessary in li ght of integration into western institutions. Development of a robust political culture on foreign policy questions remained another challenge to the new state. One s ignificant new factor was the emerge nce of a visible public opinion on foreign policy questions. In genera l, the public was supportive of the new linkages with western institutions. However, there were some differences that were sign ifi ca nt. Public opinion polls over time demonstrated a stabl e level of support for EU entry . However, before 1999 support for entry into NATO was less impressive. 107 Events of 1999 made some difference. In that year the Czech Republic actually en- ' 07 See Caro l Skalnik Leff, The Czech and Slovak Republics: Nation Versus State (Bou lder. Colorado: Westview Press, 1997), p 263. �SLOVAKIA 126 te red NATO , a nd th e Kosovo bo mbin g ca mpa ig n imm edi a te ly occurred . Suc h proximity to th e wars in the Ba lkan s made Czec hs somewhat more like ly to think pos iti ve ly abo ut NATO entry. Th ere were a lso uniqu e e ffo rts to build suppo rt within the po litical culture for certain fore ig n poli cy instituti o ns. One abiding problem was the negative set of Czec h attitudes abo ut the ro le of the military. C zec h resentme nt of the military is unde rstand abl e in li g ht o f the long years of the Sov ie t military prese nce afte r 1968 . Al so , after 1989 th e So vie t military left a catastro phe in many Czec h co mmu niti es. The barracks a nd o the r fac iliti es were in te rribl e co nditi o n, and individu a l Sovi et units had ta ke n anythin g of va lue fro m those locati o ns. One effort to build mo re pos iti ve Czec h attitudes abo ut the military too k pl ace in So uth Bo he mi a. A c iti ze n group ca ll ed S AS was fo rmed in 1997. The a im of the group was to de mon strate th at the Czec h military was a contributin g in strume nt in a de mocra ti c state rather than mere ly an in strume nt o f power. The SAS established link s to sc hoo ls and uni versities with the obj ec tive of c ultiv atin g a mo re pos iti ve attitude abo ut the C zech military. It set up co nfere nces and a lso co nsulted spec ia li sts from o the r nati o ns. In fac t, o ne res ult o f thi s acti vity was the creation of spec ial ti es betwee n the c ity o f Ces ky Kruml o v in the Czec h Republi c and Mi a mi Beac h in the State of Fl o rida, USA . A public e xcha nge of ideas abo ut the rol e of th e military could gene rate more in fo rmed C zech perspec ti ves about the va lue of a strong defense capability to cope w ith new threats. 108 Mo re positive attitudes about th e military wo uld fac ilitate integ rati o n into western o rgani zati o ns such as NATO. Slovakia The creati o n of po liti ca l stability was a greater c ha lle nge for Sl ovaki a than it was fo r the Czec h Republi c . In the C zec h case continuity of leadership from the 1989-93 period to th e post-1989 pe riod ' 08 J. Yondro us. .. Regionaln f dimenze ceskeho atl anti smu.'· M inisterst vo zahranicnfch vecf(2002). h ttp: //wwW .lllZ V.C/. March 2002 . �SLOVAKIA 127 contributed to stability. In the Slovak case continuity of leadership undermined rather than supported stability. Vladimfr Meciar had been the chosen Slovak leader in the two years immediately after the 1989 revolution. His new party, Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS), did very well in the 1992 elections, and this enabled him again to become Prime Minister once Slovakia became an independent state in 1993 . He was reluctant to reform in any comprehensive way the centrally planned economy, and thus privatization was very slow. In addition, his government included " many of the old regime ' s cadres, resources, and xenophobic ideologies intact. " 109 Meciar fell from power in the spring of 1994, and a caretaker government under Jozef Moravcfk managed public affairs until the fall elections. Again, the voters returned a coalition government headed by Meciar and the HZDS to power, and this government lasted through the next elections in 1998. In this period Meciar basically put the brakes both on democratization and on the movement of the economic system towards free market principles. The political experiences of the first half decade of independence had major consequences for foreign policy, as Slovakia made very slow progress on the criteria that both NATO and the EU presented to it. During the I 998-2002 period , a coalition led by the Social Democratic and Christian Union (SDKU) took the leading role in government, after the public rebuffed Meciar for a third time. Mikulas Dzurinda as Prime Minister gradually moved Slovakia back onto the path towards western institutions. He emerged again as Prime Minister after the fall 2002 elections , and so the steady movement toward NATO and the EU remained unchanged. Meciar and the HZDS were still prominent and in fact received in 2002 both the largest share of the popular vote ( 19.5 %) and the highest number of seats in the I 50 seat legislature (36). His rhetoric on foreign policy was more muted in this campaign , but numerous warnings emanated from NATO and ,m Rudolf L. Tokes. " From Visegrad to Krakow: Cooperation, Competition , and Coexi stence in Central Europe," Problems of Communism 40( 1991 ), pp. 100-114. �SLOVAKIA 128 the EU leade rship a bo ut the imp licati o ns of a new governme nt in whic h the HZ DS pl ayed a ny rol e at a ll. In late Septe mber work began o n a coa liti o n th at would in c lude Dzu rinda's S DK U, the C hristi a n De mocrati c Uni o n (KDH), A lli a nce fo r ew C itize ns (A 0), and the Hungari an Coa liti o n (SMK). In earl y October thi s fo ur-party coa litio n fo rged an ag reeme nt abo ut executi ve pos iti o ns, and the new governme nt was in pl ace. A ll of these arra nge me nts were a imed to keep Sl ova ki a o n a stead y trac k in es tabli shin g its new, wes te rn o rgani zatio na l connectio ns in fore ig n poli cy. 11 0 Whil e the Czechs had been press ured by the o utside world o n the matte r of the Ro ma, Slovaks were c riti c ized fo r the ir treatment of the Hun garian mi no rity. Aga in , the Mec iar periods were suspec t in th is regard . Otto Ulc1 11 ex pl a in s thi s situ ati o n by notin g th at afte r 1968 Slova ks were not pro min e nt in the di ss ide nt moveme nt th at e mphasized hum a n ri ghts. Part of the pro bl e m was a lso the lack of ex perie nce of S lova ks in the Czechoslovak dipl o mati c corps. The leaders may have not understood full y the way in whi ch Slova ki a's domesti c record o n mino rity re lati o ns, the e nviro nme nt , a nd autho ritari ani sm in ge ne ra l influe nced fo re ign percepti o ns as we ll as fo re ig n po li cy objecti ve . 11 2 In another respect, the Slovak governme nt d urin g th at peri od was quite ce ntra li st o n the matter o f th e ri g hts of reg io ns within the country. The re is so me iro ny in thi s, fo r th e HZDS had been very ant i-federa li st (a nti -ce ntra list) after its e merge nce in April 199 1. 11 3 In that ea rli er time, the ta rget had bee n the a ll eged centrali st reg ime in Prag ue, s ince the Czec hos lovak state was still intact. Ev ide nce of Mec iar 's centra li st po li c ies li es primaril y in hi s po licy towards the 110 RFE/RL ewsline. Part II. September 24. 2002; October 8, 2002. Archived at http://\\\\w.11°erl.org September. October. 2002. 111 Otto Ulc. " The Bumpy Road ofCzechoslovaki a·s Velvet Revolution ," Problems of Communism 41 ( 1992). pp. 19-3 3 111 See Adrian Hyde Price. The International Politics of East Central Europe (New York: M anchester Uni versity Press, 1996), p. 28. 11 3 Ulc,"The Bumpy Road of Czechoslovakia ' s Ve l vet Revoluti on ." p. 29. �SLOVAKIA 129 eastern part of Slovakia. In the mid- I 990s that region became interested in participating in a large Carpathian Euroregion. Other players in the Euroregion wo uld include Romania , Hungary , Poland , and Ukraine. However, the Slovak Ministry of the Interior was quite critical of that orientation. In 1995 that Ministry abo li shed the Slovak Carpathian Regional Association that had co nsisted of a number of regional and local governments in eastern Slovakia. As a result, in 1996 the Slovak representatives in the Euroregion resigned and Slovakia cancel led its participation. Meciar took these actions because of a double suspicion. First, he was suspic ious that the eastern Slovak metropolis of Kosice would lead eastern Slovakia to develop its own independent foreign policy . Second, he feared that Hungary would use the Euroregion to exp loit the anger of the Slovak Hungarian minority . 114 Such att itudes and policies of the top leadership would not mesh well with the EU and its priority on the rights of regions within countries. However, after the 1998 elections the Slovak leadership reflected more sensitivity toward the political culture. For exam ple, Slovaks were aware after 1998 of the need to incorporate domestic non-governmenta l gro ups (NGO 's) into the increasingly public discussion of foreign policy . Thi s was particularly the case in the efforts to ga in admiss ion to NATO. Younger persons were a special target of efforts at political soc ialization . Teachers in middle schools organized essay contests about the sig nific ance of NATO . Organized debates about NATO themes took pl ace in both middle and upper schools. Further, the government set up twe lve information centers that were aimed at youn ger persons. According to one observer, regional projects abo ut NATO by 2002 had reached 120,000 students. Similar discuss ions were aimed at women's groups . For example, profess ional women in Bratislava as we ll as the Union of Women of S lovakia engaged in discussions on the mea nin g and significance of NATO . The mass "" See A lexander Duleba, 'The Slovak-Ukraini an-Russian Security Tri angle." in M argarita M. Balmaceda, ed ., On the Edge: Ukrainian-Central European-Russian Security Triangle (Budapest: Central European Univers ity, 2000), pp. I 06- I 09. �SLOVAKIA 130 medi a also pl ayed a ro le in thi s process. T wo major national telev ision projects were aimed at promoting di sc uss ion of NATO the mes. Furthe r, additi o na l in fo rm ati on proj ec ts we re bea med at the populati on through thi rty loca l te lev ision stati ons. The re was even an effort to pull ex pe rts and speciali sts into the di scuss ion. 115 The hope was th at these gro up s wo uld communicate pos iti ve attitudes abo ut NATO to the ir peers a nd e ve n in the ir publicat ions. S imil arl y, after the Nice EU Summit at the e nd of 2000 , Slo vaki a establi shed the Nation al Conve nti on. Its mi ssion e ntail ed stimul ati on of a nati o nal di scuss ion on the E U and Slovak nati o nal inte rests. The di scuss ion was to be in c lu s ive in which po liti ca l party me mbe rs, acade mi cs, c hurc hes , interest gro ups, non- governme nta l orga ni zati o ns, trade union s, muni cipalities, and reg ions all pl ayed a ro le. 11 6 Comparison Both co untries confronted major po litica l chall e nges th at affected fore ign po licy prospects. In both cases there was outside scrutin y and suspi c io n througho ut the first decade abo ut the way in whi c h their governme nts treated key minority gro ups. C riteri a fo r admi ssion to wes te rn orga ni zati ons required prog ress in thi s area. Both countri es a lso ex pe ri e nced maj or c ha nges in governme nt. In the Czech case such cha nges d id not affect very much the steady process of integration w ith the West. Slovak governme ntal changes had more of an impact. In addition , the continuin g presence of Vl adimfr Meciar and the HZDS had the net effect of postponin g Slovaki a's integrati on with western institution s until the late 1990s. Finally , cultivation of positive attitudes within the po liti ca l c ulture became a priority once the leadership made the dec ision to look in a westward direction . In th e Czec h case thi s spotli ght on po liti ca l culture was a 115 • Organ izacie a instituc ie, ktorym bola udelena Strieborn a plaketa M inisterstva zahranicnych vecf Slovenskej republ iky di\a 20. juna 2002," M inisterst vo zah ranicnych vecf(2002). http://www.mzv .sk Oc tober 2002. 116 " Narodny ko nvent o Evropskej buducnosti Slovenska," Ministerst vo zahranicnych vecf (2002). http://www.mzv.sk October 2002. �SLOVAKIA 131 constant theme throughout the decade, but in the Slovak case it was only characteristic of the second half of the decade. Economic Factors and Foreign Policy of the Two Nation-States The Czech Republic In the years following th e 1989 revo lution , the Klau s government made eco nomi c restructurin g in Czechoslovakia a major priority. Privati zation and the use of vouchers placed formerly state-controlled industries in private hand s. Job sec urity yie lded to the greater uncertainty connected with the free market. It became more like ly that industries would ri se and fa ll on the ir own merits, while artifi cial control of prices was no longer the norm. 11 7 Thus, major economic changes had deve loped their own momentum at the time the Czechs separated from Slovakia, and they bore the potenti al to have a major impact on foreign policy. For exampl e, ga inin g admission to the EU became a top priority as a result of the new geographic and eco nomi c developments. Very soon Brusse ls presented to the eastern countries its Iist of thirty-one chapters in the "acqui s communautaire" process. Czech leaders began to meet regularl y with EU bureaucrats in order to demonstrate progress toward s meeting the criteria of eac h of the chapters. Usually twice a year the EU represe ntatives came to the Czech Republic to inspect progress made and to iss ue judgments about the relative rank of the nation on the li st of EU prospects from that region. By the end of the 1990s, the Czech Republic ranked near the top of the prospec ti ve li st of new members, and membership appeared like ly by 2004. In fac t, in October of 2002 the EU Commission announced that the Czech Republic would be one of the ten nation s admitted in 2004. 11 8 Czech involvement in the EU 's PHARE and ERBD investment projects was of particular significance. Invo lve ment in the wider EU market would 117 See Bernard Wheaton and Zdenek Ka van , The Velvet Revolution: Czechoslo- vakia 1988- /99 1 (Boulder. Colorado: Westvi ew Press, 1992) , pp. 139-143. 118 Sueddeutsche Zeitung, October 9, 2002. Arch i ved at: http://sueddeutsche .de October 2002. �132 SLOVAKIA multipl y the steps taken by the Czech governme nt in co nvers ion to capitali sm and th ereby open up additional new in vestment opportunities in othe r nations. At the same time , eve ntua l EU membership woul d lead to add ition al western investments, and important ones had come about already in the 1990s. For example , in 1994 th e German automobil e company Volkswagen bought majo rity co ntrol of the o ld Czech mega-compan y Skoda . Whil e the agree ment did guarantee the Germans majority control , it also provided the Czechs with a veto over future policy dec ision s. 11 9 Similarly, Air France took over the Prague Airport Ruzyne and made it into a modern facility. Early in the twenty-first century the A merica n company Motorola began construction of a fac tory in Moravia in the area of the Beskydy Mountains. Much news accompanied the buy -out of severa l well known breweries, including Pil sner Urque ll , by South Africa n enterprises. Certainly , one by- product of this western indu stri a l and financial in vo lvement would be the rapid infusion of western tec hniques and know-how in manag ing an economy on capitali st princi pl es. A ll of thi s would acce lerate the type of domestic economic restructuring that would more qui ck ly meet EU criteria. The outreach of the changing Czech economy was not confined exclusively to its European nei ghborhood. For instance, in the mid l 990s the Czech Re publi c became a member of UNESCO. In th at capac ity it took a particular interest in the plight of the ravaged nations that had e merged from the old Yugoslavia. This ac ti vity led to membership as well in the Organi zat ion for Economic Cooperati on and Developme nt (OECD ). In fact , the Czechs were the first from the Central E uropean region to ga in membership in th at organi zation. Linkages between the Czech Republic and the Internati onal Monetary Fund (IMF) e nh anced their reputation for reliabi lity. In A ugus t 1994, the natio n was the first post-communist state to pay off its 11 9 Leff. The Czech and Slo vak Republics: Nation Vers us State. p. 263. �SLOVAKIA 133 initial IMF loan . 120 Again, involvement with the larger universe of western capitalist economies outside the immediate geographic region paid dividends in terms of domestic economic change. In sum, the revolution of 1989, combined with the loss of Slovakia in 1993, generated a rapid rate of economic change in the Czech Republic. Conversion to capitalist economic principles was inevitable after the 1989 events, but the process received a number of important stimuli. Interest in joining NATO and the drive for EU membership mandated that the nation meet specific criteria in terms of capitalist development. Investments by western firms outside the nation led to collaborative efforts in which Czech managers could more fully see the capitalist system in action. Involvement in the economic projects of a number of global organizations, primarily located in the West, expanded Czech horizon s in a positive way. All of thi s offered a powerful economic antidote to the much more restricted COMECON framework that was characteristic of the Cold War. Slovakia For a number of reasons , Slovakia looked east for economic links rather than west after the 1993 split. This had also been true after the 1989 revolution. Slovak leaders noted that their country was the only Yisegrad member that bordered all of the other three. Such a perception encouraged them to think about a potential Slovak role as the ideal country to be a bridge between East and West. The collapse of COMECON led the Slovaks to hope for a replacement in the form of special ties with Russia and Ukraine. The look eastward made Slovakia "more sensitive to developments in the CIS." 12 1 At the same time, EU import quotas were having a negative impact on certain Slovak industries such as a steel mill in Kosice, and that created some suspicion about the West. 122 120 Leff, The Czech and Slovak Republics: Nation Versus State, p. 258. 12 1 Price, The International Politics of East Central Europe, p. 170. 122 Leff, The Czech and Slovak Republics: Nation Versus State, p. 261. �134 SLOVAKIA One concrete manifestation of thi s economic orie ntatio n to the East was cultivation of a spec ial link to Ru ss ia. A key motive for this outreach was the pli g ht of the Slovak arms industry . At the time of the 1989 revolution , o ne hundred e leven of Czec hoslo va ki a ' s weapon s manufacturing pl a nts were in the Slovak region . As early as 1990, weapo ns sa les from those pl ants had declined from 1988 leve ls from eight billio n dollars to one billion . This situ ation prompted Meciar to trave l to Moscow in 1991 in order to get defe nse co ntracts to make up some of thi s loss. 123 In fact , the sub sequent recess io n became part of the reason that Slovak leaders sought separation from the Czechs. Further, the Slovak military hoped that Ru ss ia might give Slovakia li ce nses to se ll military ha rdw are to third world countries. 12~ Eventu a ll y, Pres ident Bo ri s Yeltsin of Ru ss ia visited Slovaki a in Aug ust 1993, and one res ult was the sig nin g of a bilatera l state treaty. In add iti o n, the two states s ig ned a fi ve-yea r military cooperation agree me nt. The latter would po te nti a ll y assist Slovakia economically, for it would he lp rev ive its arm s industry . One fea ture of the agree me nt was the provis io n that Ru ss ia would suppl y spare parts for th e Slovak milita ry. 125 Other Slovak goa ls in c lud ed development of a Slovak role in tran sporting Ru ss ian natural gas to Western Europe. In part, Mec iar hoped that the flirtation with Ru ss ia mi g ht increase Slovakia ' s econo mi c importance to th e West a nd attract in vestme nts from that direction as well. 126 Cultivation of ties to Ukrai ne a lso became part of thi s new economi c strategy. Early afte r th e revolution Meciar soug ht to build a new railway from Brati slava to Ukraine by utili zing the for mer Soviet ra il network. 127 By the middl e 1990s Slovak leaders began to think in broader terms. Perh aps Ukra ine could act as well as the gate- 12 .1 See Andrew A. Michta. East Central Europe after the Warsaw Pact: Security Dilemmas in the 1990s (New York: Greenwood Press. 1992 ). p. 107. 12 "' Duleba, ·'The Slovak-Ukrainian-Ru ssian Security Tri angle: · p. 20. 125 Price, The International Politics o f East Central Europe. p. 170. 126 Duleba, ''The Slovak-Ukrainian-Ru ssian Security Triangle." pp. 85-8 6. 127 Price. The International Politics of East Central Europe. p. 170. �SLOVAKIA 135 way to the Ru ss ian market. 128 For many Slovaks, Ukraine was in a sense still Ru ss ia, and thu s economic policies toward s the two we re intertw ined. In spite of the eastward look in economic policy, western organi zation s were not totall y ignored. For example, in June 1993 Sl ovaki a was accepted into the Council of Europe. Then in June 1995 , th e M ec iar government submitted a membership appli cati on to the EU . Reliance on in ves tments from western countries rein forced thi s economic policy dimension. K ey economic in vestors in the 1990s included, in rank order , Germ any, A ustri a, and th e Czech Repu bli c. 129 Despite Slovaki a's approach to the East, the W est was in many ways more helpful. Seri ous di sc uss ions w ith the EU rea ll y began in 1997 w ith th e Lu xembourg Summit. A t th at meeting the EU placed Slovaki a in a second ti er of si x nati ons, and so it looked as if Sl ovaki a wo uld have to wa it longer then its Czech co unterpart, w ho ended up in the first ti er of si x. Contacts w ith the EU acce lerated after the defea t of the M ec iar government in 1998. A multilateral screening process by the EU took pl ace between April 1998 and February 1999, and thi s gave way to more signifi ca nt bil ateral screenin g procedu res between M arch of 1999 and Febru ary of 2000. 130 In the 2000-2002 period Slovaki a worked its way th rough most of the thirty-one chapters of th e EU 's aqui s co mmunautaire. For exa mpl e, di sc uss ions about Chapter Four ce ntered on future poss ibilities that fore igners could control Sl ovak land and corresponding poss ibilities fo r Slovak s to purchase land w ithin th e EU. Fo ll ow in g the 1998 elec ti ons th e chances of mee tin g the goa ls of Ch apter Si x we re enhanced, as Slovaki a moved more firml y in the direc ti on of erec tin g a market economy. Chapter Seven on agri cultu re was a criti ca l one for Slovak ia as it was for most of the other nati ons in the region. Sl ovak s 12 " 129 1.'<, Du leba. ··The Slovak-Ukrainian-Russian Security Triangle." p. 97 . Leff. The Czech and Slovak Republics: Nation Versus State. p. 262. '·Fazy proces u rozs irova ni a EU ," M inisterstvo za hra11ic11yc h vecf (2002) . hllp ://www. 1111. v.,k Oc tober 2002. �SLOVAKIA 136 soug ht promises of an ad mini stra ti ve structure that wou ld e nsure protect ion of the ir agric ultural sys tem . The politica l tran s iti on from the Mec iar governm e nt to th at of Dzurinda made sa ti sfac tion of Chapte r Thirteen more poss ibl e. Th at c hapter in vo lved worker 's ri g hts, ge nde r equ a lity, racia l justi ce, a nd other vita l categori es. Sl ovak ia rece ived spec ia l in stru c tion s within th e framework of Chapter Fifteen. Th e EU requ es ted th a t Slo va ki a acce lera te pri vati za ti o n of ba nk s as we ll as na tural reso urce mo nopoli es. Further, it was ex pected th at Slovakia wo uld build up small and medium s ized firm s w hil e e nco urag in g add iti o na l fo re ig n in vestme nt. 13 1 Comparison The Czec h Republic and Slo vaki a did move on separate paths in terms of the economi c dime nsion of fo re ign policy for a large part of the first decade after separation . In fac t, so me of their sharpe r differences e merged in the fo ur years after the 1989 revo luti on prior to the 1993 breakup. In the post- 1993 atmosphere the Czechs quickl y latched on to western organi zati ons in order to map out their future. S lovaki a, with its differe nt geographi c position and greater nostalgia for the lost economic links to the form er Soviet Union , c ultivated the Ukra ine and Russ ia as part of a ge nera l orientation to the east. Both di sappointme nt with the East and th e ex pe rien ce of th e 1998 elections brought the Slovak path much c loser to that of the Czechs . One sy mbo l of thi s shift was the progress made by both states in th e 1998-2002 pe riod towa rd me mbership in the EU . By September of 2002 the Czech Re public had c losed twe nty-fi ve of the thirty most s ignifi cant c hapters th at led to EU me mbership. Surprising ly, Slovaki a had closed twe nty-seven. Slo vakia 's progress had bee n very rapid, for the Czechs had ac tu all y closed eightee n of the chapters before Slovakia had . An important resu lt was th at Sl ova kia moved 131 " Ka ndid atske krajiny a ic h ak tu alny stav negoc iac if," Ministe,:~tvo w hranicnj ch vecf (2002). http ://www.111zv.~k Jul y 30. 2002. �SLOVAKIA 137 from the second ti er of six pote nti al EU members to the first ti er of ten between 1997 and the autumn of 2002. T he re port of the EU Commiss ion on October 9, 2002, bas ica ll y treated both countri es as if they were at simil ar leve ls of pre paredness for EU entry in earl y 2004. 132 Both co untries ge nera ll y rece ived pos iti ve reports and were firml y in the group o f ten nati ons to be admitted at the sa me time in 2004. National Security Factors and the Foreign Policy of the Two States The Czech Republic Separati on fro m S lovak ia led to an immed iate series of ste ps aimed at underpinnin g the natio nal sec urity of the new, smaller Czech state. T hroughout th e first decade after the separati on, the sec urity spotli ght shi fted from an emph as is on the Wes tern European Unio n (W EU), to the ca mpaign fo r NATO me mbership , and later to cons iderat ion of th e ro le of th e Co mmon Fore ign and Sec urity Po li cy (CFS P) of th e EU. 133 ln additi o n, Czec hs bega n to in vo lve themse lves more full y in international organi zati ons such as the UN, OSCE , and Y isegrad . T hu s th e nati o na l sec urity age nd a was crowded. Czech disc uss ions abo ut defense po licy in the earl y 1990s centered in part on the W EU , an organi zati on that had e merged in 1948 with the Brusse ls Treaty. On the o ne hand , EU pl anners at the begi nning of the 1990s envisioned the WEU in a ce ntra l ro le in ass istin g Europe to take responsibility fo r its ow n sec urity. On the other hand , others hoped that the WEU could he lp create mo re conse nsus with NATO as well as support for NATO mi ss ions. 134 rn RFE/RL News line. Part II. October 10. 2002. Archived at: h1tp ://www.rferl.org October 2002. rn See Dav id S. Mason , Revolution and Transition in East Central Europe. Second Edi tion (Bou lder, Colorado : Westview Press, 1996), pp. 95-98. " 4 K arel Pezl, " Ceska repub li ka a zapadoevropske unie: bezpecnostnf aspek ty, " Mezinarodnf Politika 18( 1994). pp. 25-26. �138 SLOVAKIA By the late 1990s discu ss ions within the Czech Re public about admission to NATO overshadowed conversations about the fading WEU. Admission to NATO in 1999 brought with it a whole set of new obligations. There was a need to prepare defense legislation that would move the Czech defense structure toward the level of NATO standard s. New military pe rso nnel requirements mandated that the Czech defense sector prepare courses for a ll ranks about the changing role of the military. Training in the use of radar was also upgraded. Further, the Czech Republic would need to build a crisis command center that would facilitate the rapid sharing of information between NATO and the Czech Republic. It would also be necessary for the Czechs to build a sys tem of command and control that paralleled the organizations in other NATO countries. 135 Immediately after expansion to include three new members in 1999, NATO had an opportunity to utilize these new national resources during the Kosovo bombing campaign . One lesson of that campaign was increased awareness of th e asymmetry of capabilities within the alliance. 136 America provided eighty per cent of the bombs dropped on Kosovo in the spring of 1999 as well as ninety per cent of the weapons. U. S. airplanes were the only ones that could operate in all weather. Lowered European defen se budgets in the 1990s resulted in a situation in which all European NATO members contributed only two-thirds of the fundin g that the United States did to defen se. The Czech Republic responded to this imbalance by developing a blueprint for change in 2001. That plan called for a rapid upgrade in mane uverability of units, logistical strength, placement of weaponry and pe rsonnel , ability to resist over a lon g period, and information command and control. Further, the Ministry of Defense drew up a li st of four principles that would guide Czech participation rn Antonin Sverak . ··vnej sf a vnitfnf aspekty zac lenovanf resortu obrany CR do NATO," Mezimfrodnf Vztahy 2( 1999). pp. 13-3 1. 136 See Otto Pick, ·· NATO, evropska obrana a poucenf K osova." CR po vstupu do NATO. Uvahy a problemy (Praha: Ceska Atlanticka Komise UMY. 2000), pp. 2532. �SLOVAKIA In 139 NATO. Th ey inc luded co ntinu ed in vo lvement of the two North American powers in the defe nse of Europe, reliance on NATO as the main guarantor of European security , subordination of the CFSP of the EU within the framework of NATO , a nd guara nteed access to NATO capabi lities for all EU defense and sec urity mi ss ion s. 137 Recog nition of the important Czech role in NATO was evident in the dec ision to hold the conference of Nove mber 2002 in Prague. At that meeting seve n additional nati ons joined the military alliance. Finally, durin g th e war in Iraq in 2003, th e Czechs sent an anti-biolog ical , chemical , and nuclear weapon s unit as well as a fi eld hospital. By the early 1990s, the EU began to outline plans for its own defe nse structure, one that would be independent of the North Atlantic nation s th at had for so lon g domin ated NATO. These plans centered on the creation in 1990 of th e Common Forei gn and Security (CFS P) of the EU . In 1993 the Treaty of Europe called for the addition to the CFSP of pe rm ane nt officials from the EU Council Secretariat as well as of fiftee n diplomats from each Fore ign Ministry. 138 In early 2001 the Czech Foreign Mini ster made a persuasive case for the natural harmony between the broad-rang ing objectives of the CFSP and the specific, national inte rests of the Czec h Republic. 139 For him the current spirit of cooperation in Europe was a needed antidote to the suffer in g of the Czechoslovak people during the twe nti e th century. Throu gh the CFSP, the Czech Re public would ga in both assistance in its multi-pronged process of development and also the opportunity to co ntribute to regional probl e m so lvin g. He did not e nvision participation in European and Atlantic structures as a threat to Czech national inte rests. In particul ar, the Dece mber 2000 Nic e Summit ge nerated orga ni zati o na l c han ges in EU institution s 117 Jaromfr Novotny, "' DCI (Defense Capabiliti es Initiative) a Cesk,\ Republika." Mini sterstvo zahranicnfch vecf (2002). http://www.1111v.u March 2002 . 1" See Charlotte Bretherton and John Vogler. The European Un ion as a Global Actor (L ondon: Routledge. 1999). pp. 169- 196. iw -''Jan K avan. ·'Ceska zahrani cnf politika na prahu 2 1. stoletf."' Mez inarodnf Politikil 25(200 I ). pp. 4-5. �140 SLOVAKIA that would continue to break down the artificial barriers that divided Europe during the Cold War. Growin g European military stren gth would s imultaneou sly contribute to an increase in Czech capabi lities. 140 Slovakia In spite of the fact that so much of the defense industry had been located in the Slovak areas during the Co ld War and into the immediate post-1989 revolution period, the leadership ex peri ence of Slovaks on defen se matters had been re lative ly slim . For instance, in I 99 1 Slovak so ldiers constituted 34.7 % of the federa l Czechoslovak army. However, the representation of Slovak manage rs within the Ministry of Defense over several years ranged from on ly 5 to 23 %. 141 In the early years after separation , Slovaks were primarily focused on reestabli shing or maintaining ties with the East. Previously mentioned political ties to Ru ss ia, Ukraine, and Yi segrad see med to offer them a non-western prescription for protecting national sec urity. The Slovaks rea ll y only went through the motion s of taking part in so me western sec urity structures. For example, like th e Czech Republic , Slovakia became an Assoc iate Partner in the WEU and reg ul arl y attended its meetings. Although Associate Members he ld no voting power within the organization , they did have the ri ght to plan and execute military operations. 142 Contac ts between Slovakia and NATO were minimal and bas ically centered on only a few reciprocal visits by key personnel during the three years before Meciar fel l from grace. The most impor- 140 Pavel Teli cka, " Aktualni stav jednani o pristoupeni CR k EU ," M ezimirodnf Politika 25(200 I ). 14 1 Michta, East Central Europe after the Warsaw Pact: Security Dilemmas in the 1990s, p. I 10. 142 See Philip H. Gordon, ·The Western European Union and NATO 's ' Europeanisation ," in Philip H. Gordon, ed., NATO 's Transformation : The Changing Shape of the Atlantic Alliance (L ondon : Row man & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. , I 997), p. 26 1. �SLOVAKIA 141 tant visit by a top NATO figure to Slovakia was the 1996 trip of Secretary-General Javier Solana . The most important Slovak trip was that by President Kovac to Brussels in 1996 to meet with top NATO personnel. After the 1998 elections and the establishment of a new government under Mikulas Dzurinda, the pace of contacts picked up. In early 2002, Slovakia hosted visits by the unified NATO European commander General Dieter Stockman ; by General Joseph Ralston, the commander of NATO forces in Europe; and by Deputy NATO Minister Nicholas Burns. In turn, Slovak leaders who made their way to NATO Headquarters included incoming Prime Minister Dzurinda in 1998 and President Schuster in 1999 and again in 2002. 143 Another key component of the post- I 998 , systematic Slovak move toward s NATO involved the Membership Action Plan (MAP) Process. In early 1999 Slovakia presented a five-point plan that included a strategy for political/economic issues, defense/military question s, resources/capabilities, security challenges, and legal matters. In April of 1999, NATO accepted that MAP and the Slovak government followed suit in June of the same year. The National Program for the process of NATO entry was finalized in April of 2000. 144 Finalization of the MAP process led to many meetings over the next few years. Additional activity after 1998 centered on galvanizing public support for entry into the military alliance. Slovakia held a grants competition to enable NGO' s to raise public awareness of the significance of NATO entry. Support for entry came officially from a total of seventy-five Roma organizations. One result of all thi s activity was a rel atively high level of public support for joining the organization . Between the fall of 200 I and the spring of 2002 , support reflected in public opinion poll s rose from 52.2 % to 60.7 %, although it 143 " M edznfky spoluprace SR a NATO," Ministerstvo zahranicnych vec f (2002). http ://www.rnzv.sk October 2002. 144 " Chrono logicky prehl'ad PREN AME," Ministerstvo zahranicnych vecf(2002). http ://www.mzv.,k October 2002. �142 SLOVAKIA declined a bit a few month s later. 145 All of this attention to visits, organizational matters, and public opinion enabled Slovakia to make up for its lack of attention an d interest in NATO during the midI 990s. In addition , during the latter part of the 1990s, Slovakia took part in severa l important peacekeeping missions under NATO leadership. This involvement demonstrated that the nation would possess the level of commitment required of new NATO members. After completion of the Dayton Accord on Bosnia in 1995, Slovakia se nt some military personnel and equipment as part of SFOR to the area of operations. At the end of 1997, it sent three Army engineers and five army specialists in the field of civil-military cooperation. In the fall of 2002 Slovakia made its first Air Force contribution to a NATO mis sion. The capabilities it sent included a helicopte r unit with two helicopte rs and twenty-one assoc iated personnel. Slovakia promised to keep that contingent in Bosnia for the next six months. Involveme nt in KFOR after the Kosovo bombin g campaign in late 1999 was even more extensive. The initial commitment included forty Army engineers , a nd di spatch of an additional four persons at the command level one year later. A major upgrade occurred in early 2002 with the creation of a five hundred person Czech-Slovak rapid reaction battalion . The Slovak role in that force included twenty per cent of the overall membership, and the vast majority of those were doctors, conductors, mechanics, and logi stics specialists. The vital mi ss ions of that battalion centered on sec uring the Serb-Kosovo border, monitoring a range of activities, assuring stable conditions for the return of refugees, policing the civil serv ice, and protecting the Serb minority. 146 Thi s particular operation would provide man y lessons that would assist Slovakia in making important contributions as a full NATO member. Finally , in the sprin g of 2003 , Slovakia dispat145 " Chronologicky prehl'ad PREN AME," Ministerstvo zahranicnych veer (2002). http ://www.mzY.sk October 2002 . 146 " Ucast' SR v operaciach na podporu mieru pod vedenfm NATO," Ministerstvo zahranicnych vecf(2002). h11p ://www.111zv.sk October 2002. �SLOVAKIA 143 ched military personnel to the Pers ian Gulf durin g the co ntro versial war in Iraq. Comparisons Czech pursuit of national sec urity followed a unidirect io nal path during the first decade a fte r se parati o n from Slovakia. Its leade rs thou ght proacti ve ly in eac h part of the decade about a co ntributin g role in the maj or defe nse opti ons ava il ab le at the time. This mea nt that much of the di sc uss ion foc used on activity within the framework of W EU in the first years after the breakup . Once NATO ad mi ss ion became a real possibility , the Czec hs set the ir eyes on th at orga ni zation . F in all y, as EU membership approac hed early in the new century, more of th e di sc uss ion centered o n the CFSP, a progra m that offered a European sec urity cho ice th at was inde pe nde nt of Ameri can leade rship. In the Slovak case the emp hasis on re-stoking ti es with Ukraine and Ru ss ia at first prec luded seri ous discussion about western sec urity o rga ni zati o nal structures . Once the 1998 e lect ions offered the chance for a new policy, Slovak ia ' s outreach to the West in the defe nse area mainl y took the for m of a se ri ous effort to jo in NA TO. Achi eve me nt of that goa l at the e nd of 2002 e nab led Slovakia to adopt the multi -pron ged , western-oriented strategy utili zed by the Czechs fo r an e ntire decade. Conclusion The re is remark ab le cons iste ncy across the ra nge of va ri abl es that, for a time , divided the two nations. Those vari ables inc lude politi cs, economi cs, and nati o nal sec urity. It is clear th at the political va ri abl es were the driving force be hind the othe r two. Elec ti o n outcomes in the Czech Re public a nd Slovakia were quite different between 1992 and 1998. Those results acco unt primaril y for the very diffe rent foreign polic y path s a lon g which the two sets of fore ign policy elites traveled prior to 1998. Throu ghout the e ntire decade Czech po liti ca l leaders looked to the West fo r th eir future organi zati onal home. Politica l parti es debated the pace and nature of the march to the West but not its in ev i- �SLOVAKIA 144 tability. As a result Czech economic connections with the West were forged throughout the entire period , and the Czec hs ke pt their sights set on EU membership consistently after 1993. The des ire to enter western sec urity structures entailed consideration of the WEU at first, then anticipation as well as achievement of NATO membership, and finall y thorough attention to the CFSP of the EU. S lovak leaders were at first ambiva lent and at times negati ve about connections to the West. In the 1992-98 period they attempted to resusc itate the old eco nomic ties with Ukraine and Ru ss ia. At the same time , they maintained a di stance from the states that were pursuing NATO membership at the earliest poss ible moment. Early hopes that the Visegrad alliance cou ld provide a measure of security for Slovakia di sappeared in 1999 when the other three members of that alli ance joined NATO. The election of 1998 changed Slovakia's forei gn policy path in very defi nite ways. It engaged in much more serious di sc ussions with the EU about progress on the thirty-one chapters of the acquis communautaire. A MAP leadin g to NA TO membership was approved by both that organization and the Slovak government. Although the Slovaks wou ld end up joining NATO three and one half years after the Czechs, both nation s would likely enter the EU at the same time. By the fall of 2002, both countries were not walking exactly on the sa me path , but the ir paths were c learly in view of one another. In conclusion, it is important, while acknowledg in g these differences prior to I 998, not to overstate them. For example, Timothy Frye 147 examined political polarization within all of the post-communi st co untri es. Hi s stud y covered the 1989-98 period , and thu s it included the time frame in which these two countries were moving in differe nt direction s. The political polari zation rating for the Czech Republic was 4.4, and for Slovakia it was 4 .9. Despite the sli ghtly higher rate for Slovaki a, he c lassified both countries as non-pol ari - 14 7 Timothy Frye, " The Price of Polarizati on: Economic Performance in the Post- Communist World," World Politics 54(2002). pp. 308-337 . �SLOVAKIA 145 zed. The po lari zed co untri es inc luded Albania, Be laru s, Bul gari a, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Romani a, Ru ss ia, and Ukraine. Thi s is a signifi cant conclusion, for it he lps ex pl ain how two nati ons that seemed to be mov ing in such di ffe rent directi o ns after 1993 were able to adopt parall el paths by the end of the century. Perh aps the findin gs also revea l the wi sdom of those observers who chose to characteri ze the di vorce in 1993 as a "velvet" one. �� SLOVAKIA 121 Separate Paths: Czech and Slovak Foreign Policies Since 1993 James W. Peterson Introduction Foll owing the 1993 break-up of Czechos lovaki a into the Czech Re public and Slovak ia, the two states needed to attend to chall enging fo re ign po li cy iss ues. Wh ile there were important d iffe rences in the situations of the two states, the broad chall enges th at awaited them were s imil ar. In ge nera l, th eir res ponses to those chall enges put the two co untri es on se parate path s th roug ho ut much of the 1990s. It may be th at the iss ues th at led to the brea k-up o f C zechos lo vakia proved too much to overco me in the earl y years after the split. However, by th e earl y twenty-fi rst ce ntury, the ir separate path s moved closer together and stra ightened out in such a way th at they become parallel. The initi al di ffe rences in the new geopo litica l positi ons of the two states were pro nounced. Whil e th e o ld Czechos lovak state had often served as a long, bridge- like link betwee n East and West, the two new co untri es leaned in di ffe rent direction s. Slovak leaders initi all y and instincti ve ly thought about ties to eastern countri es, as well as to th e Yisegrad organizati o n, in whi ch its future pros pec ts were linked to those o f the Czec h Re public, Po land, and Hun gary. By contra st, the Czec h Re public leadership looked westward s to th e o utstretched, embrac ing arms of we ll -es tabli shed European stru ctures . Th e S lova k path was more uncertain and waverin g th an was th e Czech, for Co ld War organi zati onal structures in the east had broken down. �122 SLOVAKIA In light of their contrasting geopolitical orientations, the two states responded differently to common challenges. First, they confronted common political challenges in different ways. While many of these political pressures were primarily domestic , they all had an impact on future foreign policy choices and potentialities. For examp le, both states sought to establish functioning political party systems that would be capab le of proposing consistent foreign policies. Both were under scrutiny from the outside wor ld on the issue of treatment of important minority groups within the country. Further, in each country cultivation of non-governmental organizations that cou ld extend the roots of foreign policy debates further into the civil society was an important goa l. Different strategies on democratization led the two nations on different political paths regarding foreign policy questions. A second common challenge for the Czechs and Slovaks emerged from the economic sector. Newly elected leaders immediately wrestled with the que stion of converting centrally-planned economies into the principles of the free market. Again , this issue was not exclusively domestic . Success in competing for outside loans was contingent on progress made in privatization of enterprises, in release from fixed price controls, and in the estab li shment of principles of competitiveness . By the middl e of the 1990s, prospects for admission to the European Union (EU) were good. Leadership in the Czech Republic initially put a higher priority both on rapid conversion to capita li sm and on links to the EU than did the Slovaks. Thirdly, location of a dependable national security structure was a common problem in the two nations. The Warsaw Pact, a structure that had ostensibly ass ured the protection of the Czechoslovak state did not long survive the end of the Cold War. Give n Slovakia 's more eastern location , there was a long debate on the question of whe ther it was more desirabl e to preserve what was left of ties to its eastern neighbors or to res pond to overtures from the West. For the Czech Republic it was more obvious that participation in western institution s would be th e next step. The West European Union (WEU), �SLOVAKIA 123 North Atl anti c Treaty Orga ni zati on (NATO), and the EU's Common Fo re ig n a nd Sec urit y Po li cy (C FSP) we re co nte nd e rs fo r th a t linkage. It sho uld be no surpri se that the fo re ig n po li c ies of S lovaki a and the Czec h Re publi c di verged in the earl y years afte r separation but the n reco nnec ted. The ir commo n ex peri e nce in the Czec hos lovak state th ro ug h e ig ht decades bo re th e sa me contras tin g fea tures. C ultural simil ariti es drew the m together, but at times bitter po litica l and eco no mi c ex pe ri e nces pu shed the m apart. Once freed fro m the larger state. th ey made quite di ffe re nt cho ices fo r a number of years. However, reg io na l and s itu a ti o na l fo rces eventu a ll y pu shed th e ir path s in the world together aga in . Political Factors and Foreign Policy of the Two Nation-States The Czech Republic C reati o n of an effec ti ve, po li cy-ori e nted po litica l syste m was a chall enge in the earl y 1990 s. In the C zec h Republic there was initi a lly considera bl e co ntinuity in po liti ca l leadership afte r Janu ary 1993 . Vac lav Have l re ma in ed as Pres id e nt of the small e r state, whil e Vac lav Kl a us co ntinu ed o n as Prim e Mini ster. The do min ant po litica l party of Kl aus was still the C ivic Democratic Party (ODS), an organi zati o n th at had bee n bo rn o ut of the C ivic Forum so ac ti ve durin g the eve nts of 1989. In genera l, the Kl aus governm ent ( 1993-97 ) e nd o rsed a ll the steps co nn ec ted w ith th e re turn to E uro pe. Th e brea k-up of th e Czechos lovak state put th e Ukra ine and Ru ss ia furthe r away geographi ca ll y fro m the C zec h Republic . Thu s, the Czechs as earl y as 1994 jo ined the Partn ership fo r Peace (P4 P) and stressed c loser link s to Po land . 105 A n a na lys is of po liti ca l party pos iti o ns durin g e lec ti o ns in the 1990 s is very revea lin g in te rm s o f the iss ues and de bates that 0 ' ' See Thomas S. Szayna. ··The Czech Republic: A Small Contributor or a ' Free Rider·'l_-· in Andrew A . M ichta. ed .. A merica·s New A llies: Poland. Hungary. and the Czech Republic in NA TO (Sea tt le: Un i versity of Washingto n Press. 1999). pp. 11 2- 148 . �124 SLOVAKIA circulated throughout the Czech Republic. Political party leaders debated the merits of the move to the West but finally endorsed it. The 1998 elections are a useful example . The Czech Social Democratic Party (CSSD) ended up technically in power, with Milos Zeman as Prime Minister, but the party needed to establish a "Gentlemen ' s Agreement" with the ODS in order to function as a government. For the CSSD there was less emphasis in the e lection campaign on hardheaded defen se of national interests and more of a focus on livin g standards and the rights of citizens within the country . This priority on domestic issues led the CSSD to endorse the idea of a referendum prior to entry into either the EU or NATO. There a lso was a humanitarian component to its view of Czech relations with the outside world. Such a focus led the CSSD to upgrade the importance of North-South relations and the related role of the UN. It concluded that Czechs should have a say whenever human ri ghts were jeopardized in any part of the world . While it endorsed EU membership, it thought of it in terms of stimulating the Czech economy. While it favored NATO entry , it expressed grave concerns about the future location of nuclear weapon s on Czech territory. During the I 998 election the ODS continued to give a " realpolitik" cast to its statements on foreign policy. National interests rather than humanitarian concerns were its top priority. NATO membership cou ld bring increased security for the nation as well as trade and technological benefits. The latter would promote development of the free market, a priority for Klaus since the early 1990s. National economic interests were of paramount importance, whi le crusades connected with globalization and human rights were to be carefu ll y examined. Increased Czech exports through membership in international organizations were the desired outcome. Thus, the party said less than did the CSSD about broader, western-based international organizations that could pull the Czech nation beyond the orbit of its national interests. 106 106 See Jakub Durr, Vo/by '98 (Brno: Pavel Saradin , 2000), pp. 84-97. �SLOVAKIA 125 Attention to th e views of the main political parties enriches understa ndin gs of the Czech point of view on the major foreign and security policy question s of the day. Czech voters in the 2002 elections confirmed the steady march toward s inclu sion in western institution s. Rejection of the ODS was based in part on the negative reaction to the "euroskeptic" views of Klau s on the matter of integration into the EU . Public support for EU membership was confirmed in the results of the June 2003 Referendum. EU support for Czech membership had been offered at the end of 2002. One of the continuing political challenges for the Czech Republic during the 1990s was the iss ue of minority rights, a matter that affected the country's relation ship with the outside world. The criteria for entering both NATO and the EU required a record of fairness toward key groups within the population . One major conflict was the relationship between Czechs and the Roma. A number of well-publicized incidents have raised questions about Czech attitudes and policies. For example, the erection of a wall by Czechs in Ustf nad Labem in 1999 became a foreign policy incident as well as a temporary setback to pursuit of EU membership. It was clear that the wall was intended to prevent Czechs from having to view the Rom a population as well as their Iife-sty le. Attention to such iss ues was necessary in li ght of integration into western institutions. Development of a robust political culture on foreign policy questions remained another challenge to the new state. One s ignificant new factor was the emerge nce of a visible public opinion on foreign policy questions. In genera l, the public was supportive of the new linkages with western institutions. However, there were some differences that were sign ifi ca nt. Public opinion polls over time demonstrated a stabl e level of support for EU entry . However, before 1999 support for entry into NATO was less impressive. 107 Events of 1999 made some difference. In that year the Czech Republic actually en- ' 07 See Caro l Skalnik Leff, The Czech and Slovak Republics: Nation Versus State (Bou lder. Colorado: Westview Press, 1997), p 263. �SLOVAKIA 126 te red NATO , a nd th e Kosovo bo mbin g ca mpa ig n imm edi a te ly occurred . Suc h proximity to th e wars in the Ba lkan s made Czec hs somewhat more like ly to think pos iti ve ly abo ut NATO entry. Th ere were a lso uniqu e e ffo rts to build suppo rt within the po litical culture for certain fore ig n poli cy instituti o ns. One abiding problem was the negative set of Czec h attitudes abo ut the ro le of the military. C zec h resentme nt of the military is unde rstand abl e in li g ht o f the long years of the Sov ie t military prese nce afte r 1968 . Al so , after 1989 th e So vie t military left a catastro phe in many Czec h co mmu niti es. The barracks a nd o the r fac iliti es were in te rribl e co nditi o n, and individu a l Sovi et units had ta ke n anythin g of va lue fro m those locati o ns. One effort to build mo re pos iti ve Czec h attitudes abo ut the military too k pl ace in So uth Bo he mi a. A c iti ze n group ca ll ed S AS was fo rmed in 1997. The a im of the group was to de mon strate th at the Czec h military was a contributin g in strume nt in a de mocra ti c state rather than mere ly an in strume nt o f power. The SAS established link s to sc hoo ls and uni versities with the obj ec tive of c ultiv atin g a mo re pos iti ve attitude abo ut the C zech military. It set up co nfere nces and a lso co nsulted spec ia li sts from o the r nati o ns. In fac t, o ne res ult o f thi s acti vity was the creation of spec ial ti es betwee n the c ity o f Ces ky Kruml o v in the Czec h Republi c and Mi a mi Beac h in the State of Fl o rida, USA . A public e xcha nge of ideas abo ut the rol e of th e military could gene rate more in fo rmed C zech perspec ti ves about the va lue of a strong defense capability to cope w ith new threats. 108 Mo re positive attitudes about th e military wo uld fac ilitate integ rati o n into western o rgani zati o ns such as NATO. Slovakia The creati o n of po liti ca l stability was a greater c ha lle nge for Sl ovaki a than it was fo r the Czec h Republi c . In the C zec h case continuity of leadership from the 1989-93 period to th e post-1989 pe riod ' 08 J. Yondro us. .. Regionaln f dimenze ceskeho atl anti smu.'· M inisterst vo zahranicnfch vecf(2002). h ttp: //wwW .lllZ V.C/. March 2002 . �SLOVAKIA 127 contributed to stability. In the Slovak case continuity of leadership undermined rather than supported stability. Vladimfr Meciar had been the chosen Slovak leader in the two years immediately after the 1989 revolution. His new party, Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS), did very well in the 1992 elections, and this enabled him again to become Prime Minister once Slovakia became an independent state in 1993 . He was reluctant to reform in any comprehensive way the centrally planned economy, and thus privatization was very slow. In addition, his government included " many of the old regime ' s cadres, resources, and xenophobic ideologies intact. " 109 Meciar fell from power in the spring of 1994, and a caretaker government under Jozef Moravcfk managed public affairs until the fall elections. Again, the voters returned a coalition government headed by Meciar and the HZDS to power, and this government lasted through the next elections in 1998. In this period Meciar basically put the brakes both on democratization and on the movement of the economic system towards free market principles. The political experiences of the first half decade of independence had major consequences for foreign policy, as Slovakia made very slow progress on the criteria that both NATO and the EU presented to it. During the I 998-2002 period , a coalition led by the Social Democratic and Christian Union (SDKU) took the leading role in government, after the public rebuffed Meciar for a third time. Mikulas Dzurinda as Prime Minister gradually moved Slovakia back onto the path towards western institutions. He emerged again as Prime Minister after the fall 2002 elections , and so the steady movement toward NATO and the EU remained unchanged. Meciar and the HZDS were still prominent and in fact received in 2002 both the largest share of the popular vote ( 19.5 %) and the highest number of seats in the I 50 seat legislature (36). His rhetoric on foreign policy was more muted in this campaign , but numerous warnings emanated from NATO and ,m Rudolf L. Tokes. " From Visegrad to Krakow: Cooperation, Competition , and Coexi stence in Central Europe," Problems of Communism 40( 1991 ), pp. 100-114. �SLOVAKIA 128 the EU leade rship a bo ut the imp licati o ns of a new governme nt in whic h the HZ DS pl ayed a ny rol e at a ll. In late Septe mber work began o n a coa liti o n th at would in c lude Dzu rinda's S DK U, the C hristi a n De mocrati c Uni o n (KDH), A lli a nce fo r ew C itize ns (A 0), and the Hungari an Coa liti o n (SMK). In earl y October thi s fo ur-party coa litio n fo rged an ag reeme nt abo ut executi ve pos iti o ns, and the new governme nt was in pl ace. A ll of these arra nge me nts were a imed to keep Sl ova ki a o n a stead y trac k in es tabli shin g its new, wes te rn o rgani zatio na l connectio ns in fore ig n poli cy. 11 0 Whil e the Czechs had been press ured by the o utside world o n the matte r of the Ro ma, Slovaks were c riti c ized fo r the ir treatment of the Hun garian mi no rity. Aga in , the Mec iar periods were suspec t in th is regard . Otto Ulc1 11 ex pl a in s thi s situ ati o n by notin g th at afte r 1968 Slova ks were not pro min e nt in the di ss ide nt moveme nt th at e mphasized hum a n ri ghts. Part of the pro bl e m was a lso the lack of ex perie nce of S lova ks in the Czechoslovak dipl o mati c corps. The leaders may have not understood full y the way in whi ch Slova ki a's domesti c record o n mino rity re lati o ns, the e nviro nme nt , a nd autho ritari ani sm in ge ne ra l influe nced fo re ign percepti o ns as we ll as fo re ig n po li cy objecti ve . 11 2 In another respect, the Slovak governme nt d urin g th at peri od was quite ce ntra li st o n the matter o f th e ri g hts of reg io ns within the country. The re is so me iro ny in thi s, fo r th e HZDS had been very ant i-federa li st (a nti -ce ntra list) after its e merge nce in April 199 1. 11 3 In that ea rli er time, the ta rget had bee n the a ll eged centrali st reg ime in Prag ue, s ince the Czec hos lovak state was still intact. Ev ide nce of Mec iar 's centra li st po li c ies li es primaril y in hi s po licy towards the 110 RFE/RL ewsline. Part II. September 24. 2002; October 8, 2002. Archived at http://\\\\w.11°erl.org September. October. 2002. 111 Otto Ulc. " The Bumpy Road ofCzechoslovaki a·s Velvet Revolution ," Problems of Communism 41 ( 1992). pp. 19-3 3 111 See Adrian Hyde Price. The International Politics of East Central Europe (New York: M anchester Uni versity Press, 1996), p. 28. 11 3 Ulc,"The Bumpy Road of Czechoslovakia ' s Ve l vet Revoluti on ." p. 29. �SLOVAKIA 129 eastern part of Slovakia. In the mid- I 990s that region became interested in participating in a large Carpathian Euroregion. Other players in the Euroregion wo uld include Romania , Hungary , Poland , and Ukraine. However, the Slovak Ministry of the Interior was quite critical of that orientation. In 1995 that Ministry abo li shed the Slovak Carpathian Regional Association that had co nsisted of a number of regional and local governments in eastern Slovakia. As a result, in 1996 the Slovak representatives in the Euroregion resigned and Slovakia cancel led its participation. Meciar took these actions because of a double suspicion. First, he was suspic ious that the eastern Slovak metropolis of Kosice would lead eastern Slovakia to develop its own independent foreign policy . Second, he feared that Hungary would use the Euroregion to exp loit the anger of the Slovak Hungarian minority . 114 Such att itudes and policies of the top leadership would not mesh well with the EU and its priority on the rights of regions within countries. However, after the 1998 elections the Slovak leadership reflected more sensitivity toward the political culture. For exam ple, Slovaks were aware after 1998 of the need to incorporate domestic non-governmenta l gro ups (NGO 's) into the increasingly public discussion of foreign policy . Thi s was particularly the case in the efforts to ga in admiss ion to NATO. Younger persons were a special target of efforts at political soc ialization . Teachers in middle schools organized essay contests about the sig nific ance of NATO . Organized debates about NATO themes took pl ace in both middle and upper schools. Further, the government set up twe lve information centers that were aimed at youn ger persons. According to one observer, regional projects abo ut NATO by 2002 had reached 120,000 students. Similar discuss ions were aimed at women's groups . For example, profess ional women in Bratislava as we ll as the Union of Women of S lovakia engaged in discussions on the mea nin g and significance of NATO . The mass "" See A lexander Duleba, 'The Slovak-Ukraini an-Russian Security Tri angle." in M argarita M. Balmaceda, ed ., On the Edge: Ukrainian-Central European-Russian Security Triangle (Budapest: Central European Univers ity, 2000), pp. I 06- I 09. �SLOVAKIA 130 medi a also pl ayed a ro le in thi s process. T wo major national telev ision projects were aimed at promoting di sc uss ion of NATO the mes. Furthe r, additi o na l in fo rm ati on proj ec ts we re bea med at the populati on through thi rty loca l te lev ision stati ons. The re was even an effort to pull ex pe rts and speciali sts into the di scuss ion. 115 The hope was th at these gro up s wo uld communicate pos iti ve attitudes abo ut NATO to the ir peers a nd e ve n in the ir publicat ions. S imil arl y, after the Nice EU Summit at the e nd of 2000 , Slo vaki a establi shed the Nation al Conve nti on. Its mi ssion e ntail ed stimul ati on of a nati o nal di scuss ion on the E U and Slovak nati o nal inte rests. The di scuss ion was to be in c lu s ive in which po liti ca l party me mbe rs, acade mi cs, c hurc hes , interest gro ups, non- governme nta l orga ni zati o ns, trade union s, muni cipalities, and reg ions all pl ayed a ro le. 11 6 Comparison Both co untries confronted major po litica l chall e nges th at affected fore ign po licy prospects. In both cases there was outside scrutin y and suspi c io n througho ut the first decade abo ut the way in whi c h their governme nts treated key minority gro ups. C riteri a fo r admi ssion to wes te rn orga ni zati ons required prog ress in thi s area. Both countri es a lso ex pe ri e nced maj or c ha nges in governme nt. In the Czech case such cha nges d id not affect very much the steady process of integration w ith the West. Slovak governme ntal changes had more of an impact. In addition , the continuin g presence of Vl adimfr Meciar and the HZDS had the net effect of postponin g Slovaki a's integrati on with western institution s until the late 1990s. Finally , cultivation of positive attitudes within the po liti ca l c ulture became a priority once the leadership made the dec ision to look in a westward direction . In th e Czec h case thi s spotli ght on po liti ca l culture was a 115 • Organ izacie a instituc ie, ktorym bola udelena Strieborn a plaketa M inisterstva zahranicnych vecf Slovenskej republ iky di\a 20. juna 2002," M inisterst vo zah ranicnych vecf(2002). http://www.mzv .sk Oc tober 2002. 116 " Narodny ko nvent o Evropskej buducnosti Slovenska," Ministerst vo zahranicnych vecf (2002). http://www.mzv.sk October 2002. �SLOVAKIA 131 constant theme throughout the decade, but in the Slovak case it was only characteristic of the second half of the decade. Economic Factors and Foreign Policy of the Two Nation-States The Czech Republic In the years following th e 1989 revo lution , the Klau s government made eco nomi c restructurin g in Czechoslovakia a major priority. Privati zation and the use of vouchers placed formerly state-controlled industries in private hand s. Job sec urity yie lded to the greater uncertainty connected with the free market. It became more like ly that industries would ri se and fa ll on the ir own merits, while artifi cial control of prices was no longer the norm. 11 7 Thus, major economic changes had deve loped their own momentum at the time the Czechs separated from Slovakia, and they bore the potenti al to have a major impact on foreign policy. For exampl e, ga inin g admission to the EU became a top priority as a result of the new geographic and eco nomi c developments. Very soon Brusse ls presented to the eastern countries its Iist of thirty-one chapters in the "acqui s communautaire" process. Czech leaders began to meet regularl y with EU bureaucrats in order to demonstrate progress toward s meeting the criteria of eac h of the chapters. Usually twice a year the EU represe ntatives came to the Czech Republic to inspect progress made and to iss ue judgments about the relative rank of the nation on the li st of EU prospects from that region. By the end of the 1990s, the Czech Republic ranked near the top of the prospec ti ve li st of new members, and membership appeared like ly by 2004. In fac t, in October of 2002 the EU Commission announced that the Czech Republic would be one of the ten nation s admitted in 2004. 11 8 Czech involvement in the EU 's PHARE and ERBD investment projects was of particular significance. Invo lve ment in the wider EU market would 117 See Bernard Wheaton and Zdenek Ka van , The Velvet Revolution: Czechoslo- vakia 1988- /99 1 (Boulder. Colorado: Westvi ew Press, 1992) , pp. 139-143. 118 Sueddeutsche Zeitung, October 9, 2002. Arch i ved at: http://sueddeutsche .de October 2002. �132 SLOVAKIA multipl y the steps taken by the Czech governme nt in co nvers ion to capitali sm and th ereby open up additional new in vestment opportunities in othe r nations. At the same time , eve ntua l EU membership woul d lead to add ition al western investments, and important ones had come about already in the 1990s. For example , in 1994 th e German automobil e company Volkswagen bought majo rity co ntrol of the o ld Czech mega-compan y Skoda . Whil e the agree ment did guarantee the Germans majority control , it also provided the Czechs with a veto over future policy dec ision s. 11 9 Similarly, Air France took over the Prague Airport Ruzyne and made it into a modern facility. Early in the twenty-first century the A merica n company Motorola began construction of a fac tory in Moravia in the area of the Beskydy Mountains. Much news accompanied the buy -out of severa l well known breweries, including Pil sner Urque ll , by South Africa n enterprises. Certainly , one by- product of this western indu stri a l and financial in vo lvement would be the rapid infusion of western tec hniques and know-how in manag ing an economy on capitali st princi pl es. A ll of thi s would acce lerate the type of domestic economic restructuring that would more qui ck ly meet EU criteria. The outreach of the changing Czech economy was not confined exclusively to its European nei ghborhood. For instance, in the mid l 990s the Czech Re publi c became a member of UNESCO. In th at capac ity it took a particular interest in the plight of the ravaged nations that had e merged from the old Yugoslavia. This ac ti vity led to membership as well in the Organi zat ion for Economic Cooperati on and Developme nt (OECD ). In fact , the Czechs were the first from the Central E uropean region to ga in membership in th at organi zation. Linkages between the Czech Republic and the Internati onal Monetary Fund (IMF) e nh anced their reputation for reliabi lity. In A ugus t 1994, the natio n was the first post-communist state to pay off its 11 9 Leff. The Czech and Slo vak Republics: Nation Vers us State. p. 263. �SLOVAKIA 133 initial IMF loan . 120 Again, involvement with the larger universe of western capitalist economies outside the immediate geographic region paid dividends in terms of domestic economic change. In sum, the revolution of 1989, combined with the loss of Slovakia in 1993, generated a rapid rate of economic change in the Czech Republic. Conversion to capitalist economic principles was inevitable after the 1989 events, but the process received a number of important stimuli. Interest in joining NATO and the drive for EU membership mandated that the nation meet specific criteria in terms of capitalist development. Investments by western firms outside the nation led to collaborative efforts in which Czech managers could more fully see the capitalist system in action. Involvement in the economic projects of a number of global organizations, primarily located in the West, expanded Czech horizon s in a positive way. All of thi s offered a powerful economic antidote to the much more restricted COMECON framework that was characteristic of the Cold War. Slovakia For a number of reasons , Slovakia looked east for economic links rather than west after the 1993 split. This had also been true after the 1989 revolution. Slovak leaders noted that their country was the only Yisegrad member that bordered all of the other three. Such a perception encouraged them to think about a potential Slovak role as the ideal country to be a bridge between East and West. The collapse of COMECON led the Slovaks to hope for a replacement in the form of special ties with Russia and Ukraine. The look eastward made Slovakia "more sensitive to developments in the CIS." 12 1 At the same time, EU import quotas were having a negative impact on certain Slovak industries such as a steel mill in Kosice, and that created some suspicion about the West. 122 120 Leff, The Czech and Slovak Republics: Nation Versus State, p. 258. 12 1 Price, The International Politics of East Central Europe, p. 170. 122 Leff, The Czech and Slovak Republics: Nation Versus State, p. 261. �134 SLOVAKIA One concrete manifestation of thi s economic orie ntatio n to the East was cultivation of a spec ial link to Ru ss ia. A key motive for this outreach was the pli g ht of the Slovak arms industry . At the time of the 1989 revolution , o ne hundred e leven of Czec hoslo va ki a ' s weapon s manufacturing pl a nts were in the Slovak region . As early as 1990, weapo ns sa les from those pl ants had declined from 1988 leve ls from eight billio n dollars to one billion . This situ ation prompted Meciar to trave l to Moscow in 1991 in order to get defe nse co ntracts to make up some of thi s loss. 123 In fact , the sub sequent recess io n became part of the reason that Slovak leaders sought separation from the Czechs. Further, the Slovak military hoped that Ru ss ia might give Slovakia li ce nses to se ll military ha rdw are to third world countries. 12~ Eventu a ll y, Pres ident Bo ri s Yeltsin of Ru ss ia visited Slovaki a in Aug ust 1993, and one res ult was the sig nin g of a bilatera l state treaty. In add iti o n, the two states s ig ned a fi ve-yea r military cooperation agree me nt. The latter would po te nti a ll y assist Slovakia economically, for it would he lp rev ive its arm s industry . One fea ture of the agree me nt was the provis io n that Ru ss ia would suppl y spare parts for th e Slovak milita ry. 125 Other Slovak goa ls in c lud ed development of a Slovak role in tran sporting Ru ss ian natural gas to Western Europe. In part, Mec iar hoped that the flirtation with Ru ss ia mi g ht increase Slovakia ' s econo mi c importance to th e West a nd attract in vestme nts from that direction as well. 126 Cultivation of ties to Ukrai ne a lso became part of thi s new economi c strategy. Early afte r th e revolution Meciar soug ht to build a new railway from Brati slava to Ukraine by utili zing the for mer Soviet ra il network. 127 By the middl e 1990s Slovak leaders began to think in broader terms. Perh aps Ukra ine could act as well as the gate- 12 .1 See Andrew A. Michta. East Central Europe after the Warsaw Pact: Security Dilemmas in the 1990s (New York: Greenwood Press. 1992 ). p. 107. 12 "' Duleba, ·'The Slovak-Ukrainian-Ru ssian Security Tri angle: · p. 20. 125 Price, The International Politics o f East Central Europe. p. 170. 126 Duleba, ''The Slovak-Ukrainian-Ru ssian Security Triangle." pp. 85-8 6. 127 Price. The International Politics of East Central Europe. p. 170. �SLOVAKIA 135 way to the Ru ss ian market. 128 For many Slovaks, Ukraine was in a sense still Ru ss ia, and thu s economic policies toward s the two we re intertw ined. In spite of the eastward look in economic policy, western organi zation s were not totall y ignored. For example, in June 1993 Sl ovaki a was accepted into the Council of Europe. Then in June 1995 , th e M ec iar government submitted a membership appli cati on to the EU . Reliance on in ves tments from western countries rein forced thi s economic policy dimension. K ey economic in vestors in the 1990s included, in rank order , Germ any, A ustri a, and th e Czech Repu bli c. 129 Despite Slovaki a's approach to the East, the W est was in many ways more helpful. Seri ous di sc uss ions w ith the EU rea ll y began in 1997 w ith th e Lu xembourg Summit. A t th at meeting the EU placed Slovaki a in a second ti er of si x nati ons, and so it looked as if Sl ovaki a wo uld have to wa it longer then its Czech co unterpart, w ho ended up in the first ti er of si x. Contacts w ith the EU acce lerated after the defea t of the M ec iar government in 1998. A multilateral screening process by the EU took pl ace between April 1998 and February 1999, and thi s gave way to more signifi ca nt bil ateral screenin g procedu res between M arch of 1999 and Febru ary of 2000. 130 In the 2000-2002 period Slovaki a worked its way th rough most of the thirty-one chapters of th e EU 's aqui s co mmunautaire. For exa mpl e, di sc uss ions about Chapter Four ce ntered on future poss ibilities that fore igners could control Sl ovak land and corresponding poss ibilities fo r Slovak s to purchase land w ithin th e EU. Fo ll ow in g the 1998 elec ti ons th e chances of mee tin g the goa ls of Ch apter Si x we re enhanced, as Slovaki a moved more firml y in the direc ti on of erec tin g a market economy. Chapter Seven on agri cultu re was a criti ca l one for Slovak ia as it was for most of the other nati ons in the region. Sl ovak s 12 " 129 1.'<, Du leba. ··The Slovak-Ukrainian-Russian Security Triangle." p. 97 . Leff. The Czech and Slovak Republics: Nation Versus State. p. 262. '·Fazy proces u rozs irova ni a EU ," M inisterstvo za hra11ic11yc h vecf (2002) . hllp ://www. 1111. v.,k Oc tober 2002. �SLOVAKIA 136 soug ht promises of an ad mini stra ti ve structure that wou ld e nsure protect ion of the ir agric ultural sys tem . The politica l tran s iti on from the Mec iar governm e nt to th at of Dzurinda made sa ti sfac tion of Chapte r Thirteen more poss ibl e. Th at c hapter in vo lved worker 's ri g hts, ge nde r equ a lity, racia l justi ce, a nd other vita l categori es. Sl ovak ia rece ived spec ia l in stru c tion s within th e framework of Chapter Fifteen. Th e EU requ es ted th a t Slo va ki a acce lera te pri vati za ti o n of ba nk s as we ll as na tural reso urce mo nopoli es. Further, it was ex pected th at Slovakia wo uld build up small and medium s ized firm s w hil e e nco urag in g add iti o na l fo re ig n in vestme nt. 13 1 Comparison The Czec h Republic and Slo vaki a did move on separate paths in terms of the economi c dime nsion of fo re ign policy for a large part of the first decade after separation . In fac t, so me of their sharpe r differences e merged in the fo ur years after the 1989 revo luti on prior to the 1993 breakup. In the post- 1993 atmosphere the Czechs quickl y latched on to western organi zati ons in order to map out their future. S lovaki a, with its differe nt geographi c position and greater nostalgia for the lost economic links to the form er Soviet Union , c ultivated the Ukra ine and Russ ia as part of a ge nera l orientation to the east. Both di sappointme nt with the East and th e ex pe rien ce of th e 1998 elections brought the Slovak path much c loser to that of the Czechs . One sy mbo l of thi s shift was the progress made by both states in th e 1998-2002 pe riod towa rd me mbership in the EU . By September of 2002 the Czech Re public had c losed twe nty-fi ve of the thirty most s ignifi cant c hapters th at led to EU me mbership. Surprising ly, Slovaki a had closed twe nty-seven. Slo vakia 's progress had bee n very rapid, for the Czechs had ac tu all y closed eightee n of the chapters before Slovakia had . An important resu lt was th at Sl ova kia moved 131 " Ka ndid atske krajiny a ic h ak tu alny stav negoc iac if," Ministe,:~tvo w hranicnj ch vecf (2002). http ://www.111zv.~k Jul y 30. 2002. �SLOVAKIA 137 from the second ti er of six pote nti al EU members to the first ti er of ten between 1997 and the autumn of 2002. T he re port of the EU Commiss ion on October 9, 2002, bas ica ll y treated both countri es as if they were at simil ar leve ls of pre paredness for EU entry in earl y 2004. 132 Both co untries ge nera ll y rece ived pos iti ve reports and were firml y in the group o f ten nati ons to be admitted at the sa me time in 2004. National Security Factors and the Foreign Policy of the Two States The Czech Republic Separati on fro m S lovak ia led to an immed iate series of ste ps aimed at underpinnin g the natio nal sec urity of the new, smaller Czech state. T hroughout th e first decade after the separati on, the sec urity spotli ght shi fted from an emph as is on the Wes tern European Unio n (W EU), to the ca mpaign fo r NATO me mbership , and later to cons iderat ion of th e ro le of th e Co mmon Fore ign and Sec urity Po li cy (CFS P) of th e EU. 133 ln additi o n, Czec hs bega n to in vo lve themse lves more full y in international organi zati ons such as the UN, OSCE , and Y isegrad . T hu s th e nati o na l sec urity age nd a was crowded. Czech disc uss ions abo ut defense po licy in the earl y 1990s centered in part on the W EU , an organi zati on that had e merged in 1948 with the Brusse ls Treaty. On the o ne hand , EU pl anners at the begi nning of the 1990s envisioned the WEU in a ce ntra l ro le in ass istin g Europe to take responsibility fo r its ow n sec urity. On the other hand , others hoped that the WEU could he lp create mo re conse nsus with NATO as well as support for NATO mi ss ions. 134 rn RFE/RL News line. Part II. October 10. 2002. Archived at: h1tp ://www.rferl.org October 2002. rn See Dav id S. Mason , Revolution and Transition in East Central Europe. Second Edi tion (Bou lder, Colorado : Westview Press, 1996), pp. 95-98. " 4 K arel Pezl, " Ceska repub li ka a zapadoevropske unie: bezpecnostnf aspek ty, " Mezinarodnf Politika 18( 1994). pp. 25-26. �138 SLOVAKIA By the late 1990s discu ss ions within the Czech Re public about admission to NATO overshadowed conversations about the fading WEU. Admission to NATO in 1999 brought with it a whole set of new obligations. There was a need to prepare defense legislation that would move the Czech defense structure toward the level of NATO standard s. New military pe rso nnel requirements mandated that the Czech defense sector prepare courses for a ll ranks about the changing role of the military. Training in the use of radar was also upgraded. Further, the Czech Republic would need to build a crisis command center that would facilitate the rapid sharing of information between NATO and the Czech Republic. It would also be necessary for the Czechs to build a sys tem of command and control that paralleled the organizations in other NATO countries. 135 Immediately after expansion to include three new members in 1999, NATO had an opportunity to utilize these new national resources during the Kosovo bombing campaign . One lesson of that campaign was increased awareness of th e asymmetry of capabilities within the alliance. 136 America provided eighty per cent of the bombs dropped on Kosovo in the spring of 1999 as well as ninety per cent of the weapons. U. S. airplanes were the only ones that could operate in all weather. Lowered European defen se budgets in the 1990s resulted in a situation in which all European NATO members contributed only two-thirds of the fundin g that the United States did to defen se. The Czech Republic responded to this imbalance by developing a blueprint for change in 2001. That plan called for a rapid upgrade in mane uverability of units, logistical strength, placement of weaponry and pe rsonnel , ability to resist over a lon g period, and information command and control. Further, the Ministry of Defense drew up a li st of four principles that would guide Czech participation rn Antonin Sverak . ··vnej sf a vnitfnf aspekty zac lenovanf resortu obrany CR do NATO," Mezimfrodnf Vztahy 2( 1999). pp. 13-3 1. 136 See Otto Pick, ·· NATO, evropska obrana a poucenf K osova." CR po vstupu do NATO. Uvahy a problemy (Praha: Ceska Atlanticka Komise UMY. 2000), pp. 2532. �SLOVAKIA In 139 NATO. Th ey inc luded co ntinu ed in vo lvement of the two North American powers in the defe nse of Europe, reliance on NATO as the main guarantor of European security , subordination of the CFSP of the EU within the framework of NATO , a nd guara nteed access to NATO capabi lities for all EU defense and sec urity mi ss ion s. 137 Recog nition of the important Czech role in NATO was evident in the dec ision to hold the conference of Nove mber 2002 in Prague. At that meeting seve n additional nati ons joined the military alliance. Finally, durin g th e war in Iraq in 2003, th e Czechs sent an anti-biolog ical , chemical , and nuclear weapon s unit as well as a fi eld hospital. By the early 1990s, the EU began to outline plans for its own defe nse structure, one that would be independent of the North Atlantic nation s th at had for so lon g domin ated NATO. These plans centered on the creation in 1990 of th e Common Forei gn and Security (CFS P) of the EU . In 1993 the Treaty of Europe called for the addition to the CFSP of pe rm ane nt officials from the EU Council Secretariat as well as of fiftee n diplomats from each Fore ign Ministry. 138 In early 2001 the Czech Foreign Mini ster made a persuasive case for the natural harmony between the broad-rang ing objectives of the CFSP and the specific, national inte rests of the Czec h Republic. 139 For him the current spirit of cooperation in Europe was a needed antidote to the suffer in g of the Czechoslovak people during the twe nti e th century. Throu gh the CFSP, the Czech Re public would ga in both assistance in its multi-pronged process of development and also the opportunity to co ntribute to regional probl e m so lvin g. He did not e nvision participation in European and Atlantic structures as a threat to Czech national inte rests. In particul ar, the Dece mber 2000 Nic e Summit ge nerated orga ni zati o na l c han ges in EU institution s 117 Jaromfr Novotny, "' DCI (Defense Capabiliti es Initiative) a Cesk,\ Republika." Mini sterstvo zahranicnfch vecf (2002). http://www.1111v.u March 2002 . 1" See Charlotte Bretherton and John Vogler. The European Un ion as a Global Actor (L ondon: Routledge. 1999). pp. 169- 196. iw -''Jan K avan. ·'Ceska zahrani cnf politika na prahu 2 1. stoletf."' Mez inarodnf Politikil 25(200 I ). pp. 4-5. �140 SLOVAKIA that would continue to break down the artificial barriers that divided Europe during the Cold War. Growin g European military stren gth would s imultaneou sly contribute to an increase in Czech capabi lities. 140 Slovakia In spite of the fact that so much of the defense industry had been located in the Slovak areas during the Co ld War and into the immediate post-1989 revolution period, the leadership ex peri ence of Slovaks on defen se matters had been re lative ly slim . For instance, in I 99 1 Slovak so ldiers constituted 34.7 % of the federa l Czechoslovak army. However, the representation of Slovak manage rs within the Ministry of Defense over several years ranged from on ly 5 to 23 %. 141 In the early years after separation , Slovaks were primarily focused on reestabli shing or maintaining ties with the East. Previously mentioned political ties to Ru ss ia, Ukraine, and Yi segrad see med to offer them a non-western prescription for protecting national sec urity. The Slovaks rea ll y only went through the motion s of taking part in so me western sec urity structures. For example, like th e Czech Republic , Slovakia became an Assoc iate Partner in the WEU and reg ul arl y attended its meetings. Although Associate Members he ld no voting power within the organization , they did have the ri ght to plan and execute military operations. 142 Contac ts between Slovakia and NATO were minimal and bas ically centered on only a few reciprocal visits by key personnel during the three years before Meciar fel l from grace. The most impor- 140 Pavel Teli cka, " Aktualni stav jednani o pristoupeni CR k EU ," M ezimirodnf Politika 25(200 I ). 14 1 Michta, East Central Europe after the Warsaw Pact: Security Dilemmas in the 1990s, p. I 10. 142 See Philip H. Gordon, ·The Western European Union and NATO 's ' Europeanisation ," in Philip H. Gordon, ed., NATO 's Transformation : The Changing Shape of the Atlantic Alliance (L ondon : Row man & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. , I 997), p. 26 1. �SLOVAKIA 141 tant visit by a top NATO figure to Slovakia was the 1996 trip of Secretary-General Javier Solana . The most important Slovak trip was that by President Kovac to Brussels in 1996 to meet with top NATO personnel. After the 1998 elections and the establishment of a new government under Mikulas Dzurinda, the pace of contacts picked up. In early 2002, Slovakia hosted visits by the unified NATO European commander General Dieter Stockman ; by General Joseph Ralston, the commander of NATO forces in Europe; and by Deputy NATO Minister Nicholas Burns. In turn, Slovak leaders who made their way to NATO Headquarters included incoming Prime Minister Dzurinda in 1998 and President Schuster in 1999 and again in 2002. 143 Another key component of the post- I 998 , systematic Slovak move toward s NATO involved the Membership Action Plan (MAP) Process. In early 1999 Slovakia presented a five-point plan that included a strategy for political/economic issues, defense/military question s, resources/capabilities, security challenges, and legal matters. In April of 1999, NATO accepted that MAP and the Slovak government followed suit in June of the same year. The National Program for the process of NATO entry was finalized in April of 2000. 144 Finalization of the MAP process led to many meetings over the next few years. Additional activity after 1998 centered on galvanizing public support for entry into the military alliance. Slovakia held a grants competition to enable NGO' s to raise public awareness of the significance of NATO entry. Support for entry came officially from a total of seventy-five Roma organizations. One result of all thi s activity was a rel atively high level of public support for joining the organization . Between the fall of 200 I and the spring of 2002 , support reflected in public opinion poll s rose from 52.2 % to 60.7 %, although it 143 " M edznfky spoluprace SR a NATO," Ministerstvo zahranicnych vec f (2002). http ://www.rnzv.sk October 2002. 144 " Chrono logicky prehl'ad PREN AME," Ministerstvo zahranicnych vecf(2002). http ://www.mzv.,k October 2002. �142 SLOVAKIA declined a bit a few month s later. 145 All of this attention to visits, organizational matters, and public opinion enabled Slovakia to make up for its lack of attention an d interest in NATO during the midI 990s. In addition , during the latter part of the 1990s, Slovakia took part in severa l important peacekeeping missions under NATO leadership. This involvement demonstrated that the nation would possess the level of commitment required of new NATO members. After completion of the Dayton Accord on Bosnia in 1995, Slovakia se nt some military personnel and equipment as part of SFOR to the area of operations. At the end of 1997, it sent three Army engineers and five army specialists in the field of civil-military cooperation. In the fall of 2002 Slovakia made its first Air Force contribution to a NATO mis sion. The capabilities it sent included a helicopte r unit with two helicopte rs and twenty-one assoc iated personnel. Slovakia promised to keep that contingent in Bosnia for the next six months. Involveme nt in KFOR after the Kosovo bombin g campaign in late 1999 was even more extensive. The initial commitment included forty Army engineers , a nd di spatch of an additional four persons at the command level one year later. A major upgrade occurred in early 2002 with the creation of a five hundred person Czech-Slovak rapid reaction battalion . The Slovak role in that force included twenty per cent of the overall membership, and the vast majority of those were doctors, conductors, mechanics, and logi stics specialists. The vital mi ss ions of that battalion centered on sec uring the Serb-Kosovo border, monitoring a range of activities, assuring stable conditions for the return of refugees, policing the civil serv ice, and protecting the Serb minority. 146 Thi s particular operation would provide man y lessons that would assist Slovakia in making important contributions as a full NATO member. Finally , in the sprin g of 2003 , Slovakia dispat145 " Chronologicky prehl'ad PREN AME," Ministerstvo zahranicnych veer (2002). http ://www.mzY.sk October 2002 . 146 " Ucast' SR v operaciach na podporu mieru pod vedenfm NATO," Ministerstvo zahranicnych vecf(2002). h11p ://www.111zv.sk October 2002. �SLOVAKIA 143 ched military personnel to the Pers ian Gulf durin g the co ntro versial war in Iraq. Comparisons Czech pursuit of national sec urity followed a unidirect io nal path during the first decade a fte r se parati o n from Slovakia. Its leade rs thou ght proacti ve ly in eac h part of the decade about a co ntributin g role in the maj or defe nse opti ons ava il ab le at the time. This mea nt that much of the di sc uss ion foc used on activity within the framework of W EU in the first years after the breakup . Once NATO ad mi ss ion became a real possibility , the Czec hs set the ir eyes on th at orga ni zation . F in all y, as EU membership approac hed early in the new century, more of th e di sc uss ion centered o n the CFSP, a progra m that offered a European sec urity cho ice th at was inde pe nde nt of Ameri can leade rship. In the Slovak case the emp hasis on re-stoking ti es with Ukraine and Ru ss ia at first prec luded seri ous discussion about western sec urity o rga ni zati o nal structures . Once the 1998 e lect ions offered the chance for a new policy, Slovak ia ' s outreach to the West in the defe nse area mainl y took the for m of a se ri ous effort to jo in NA TO. Achi eve me nt of that goa l at the e nd of 2002 e nab led Slovakia to adopt the multi -pron ged , western-oriented strategy utili zed by the Czechs fo r an e ntire decade. Conclusion The re is remark ab le cons iste ncy across the ra nge of va ri abl es that, for a time , divided the two nations. Those vari ables inc lude politi cs, economi cs, and nati o nal sec urity. It is clear th at the political va ri abl es were the driving force be hind the othe r two. Elec ti o n outcomes in the Czech Re public a nd Slovakia were quite different between 1992 and 1998. Those results acco unt primaril y for the very diffe rent foreign polic y path s a lon g which the two sets of fore ign policy elites traveled prior to 1998. Throu ghout the e ntire decade Czech po liti ca l leaders looked to the West fo r th eir future organi zati onal home. Politica l parti es debated the pace and nature of the march to the West but not its in ev i- �SLOVAKIA 144 tability. As a result Czech economic connections with the West were forged throughout the entire period , and the Czec hs ke pt their sights set on EU membership consistently after 1993. The des ire to enter western sec urity structures entailed consideration of the WEU at first, then anticipation as well as achievement of NATO membership, and finall y thorough attention to the CFSP of the EU. S lovak leaders were at first ambiva lent and at times negati ve about connections to the West. In the 1992-98 period they attempted to resusc itate the old eco nomic ties with Ukraine and Ru ss ia. At the same time , they maintained a di stance from the states that were pursuing NATO membership at the earliest poss ible moment. Early hopes that the Visegrad alliance cou ld provide a measure of security for Slovakia di sappeared in 1999 when the other three members of that alli ance joined NATO. The election of 1998 changed Slovakia's forei gn policy path in very defi nite ways. It engaged in much more serious di sc ussions with the EU about progress on the thirty-one chapters of the acquis communautaire. A MAP leadin g to NA TO membership was approved by both that organization and the Slovak government. Although the Slovaks wou ld end up joining NATO three and one half years after the Czechs, both nation s would likely enter the EU at the same time. By the fall of 2002, both countries were not walking exactly on the sa me path , but the ir paths were c learly in view of one another. In conclusion, it is important, while acknowledg in g these differences prior to I 998, not to overstate them. For example, Timothy Frye 147 examined political polarization within all of the post-communi st co untri es. Hi s stud y covered the 1989-98 period , and thu s it included the time frame in which these two countries were moving in differe nt direction s. The political polari zation rating for the Czech Republic was 4.4, and for Slovakia it was 4 .9. Despite the sli ghtly higher rate for Slovaki a, he c lassified both countries as non-pol ari - 14 7 Timothy Frye, " The Price of Polarizati on: Economic Performance in the Post- Communist World," World Politics 54(2002). pp. 308-337 . �SLOVAKIA 145 zed. The po lari zed co untri es inc luded Albania, Be laru s, Bul gari a, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Romani a, Ru ss ia, and Ukraine. Thi s is a signifi cant conclusion, for it he lps ex pl ain how two nati ons that seemed to be mov ing in such di ffe rent directi o ns after 1993 were able to adopt parall el paths by the end of the century. Perh aps the findin gs also revea l the wi sdom of those observers who chose to characteri ze the di vorce in 1993 as a "velvet" one. �� 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 2005, Vol. 38 Description An account of the resource Vol. 38 (No. 70-71), 2005. 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 2005 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 Separate Paths: Czech and Slovak Foreign Policies Since 1993 James W. Peterson Introduction Foll owing the 1993 break-up of Czechos lovaki a into the Czech Re public and Slovak ia, the two states needed to attend to chall enging fo re ign po li cy iss ues. Wh ile there were important d iffe rences in the situations of the two states, the broad chall enges th at awaited them were s imil ar. In ge nera l, th eir res ponses to those chall enges put the two co untri es on se parate path s th roug ho ut much of the 1990s. It may be th at the iss ues th at led to the brea k-up o f C zechos lo vakia proved too much to overco me in the earl y years after the split. However, by th e earl y twenty-fi rst ce ntury, the ir separate path s moved closer together and stra ightened out in such a way th at they become parallel. The initi al di ffe rences in the new geopo litica l positi ons of the two states were pro nounced. Whil e th e o ld Czechos lovak state had often served as a long, bridge- like link betwee n East and West, the two new co untri es leaned in di ffe rent direction s. Slovak leaders initi all y and instincti ve ly thought about ties to eastern countri es, as well as to th e Yisegrad organizati o n, in whi ch its future pros pec ts were linked to those o f the Czec h Re public, Po land, and Hun gary. By contra st, the Czec h Re public leadership looked westward s to th e o utstretched, embrac ing arms of we ll -es tabli shed European stru ctures . Th e S lova k path was more uncertain and waverin g th an was th e Czech, for Co ld War organi zati onal structures in the east had broken down. 122 SLOVAKIA In light of their contrasting geopolitical orientations, the two states responded differently to common challenges. First, they confronted common political challenges in different ways. While many of these political pressures were primarily domestic , they all had an impact on future foreign policy choices and potentialities. For examp le, both states sought to establish functioning political party systems that would be capab le of proposing consistent foreign policies. Both were under scrutiny from the outside wor ld on the issue of treatment of important minority groups within the country. Further, in each country cultivation of non-governmental organizations that cou ld extend the roots of foreign policy debates further into the civil society was an important goa l. Different strategies on democratization led the two nations on different political paths regarding foreign policy questions. A second common challenge for the Czechs and Slovaks emerged from the economic sector. Newly elected leaders immediately wrestled with the que stion of converting centrally-planned economies into the principles of the free market. Again , this issue was not exclusively domestic . Success in competing for outside loans was contingent on progress made in privatization of enterprises, in release from fixed price controls, and in the estab li shment of principles of competitiveness . By the middl e of the 1990s, prospects for admission to the European Union (EU) were good. Leadership in the Czech Republic initially put a higher priority both on rapid conversion to capita li sm and on links to the EU than did the Slovaks. Thirdly, location of a dependable national security structure was a common problem in the two nations. The Warsaw Pact, a structure that had ostensibly ass ured the protection of the Czechoslovak state did not long survive the end of the Cold War. Give n Slovakia 's more eastern location , there was a long debate on the question of whe ther it was more desirabl e to preserve what was left of ties to its eastern neighbors or to res pond to overtures from the West. For the Czech Republic it was more obvious that participation in western institution s would be th e next step. The West European Union (WEU), SLOVAKIA 123 North Atl anti c Treaty Orga ni zati on (NATO), and the EU's Common Fo re ig n a nd Sec urit y Po li cy (C FSP) we re co nte nd e rs fo r th a t linkage. It sho uld be no surpri se that the fo re ig n po li c ies of S lovaki a and the Czec h Re publi c di verged in the earl y years afte r separation but the n reco nnec ted. The ir commo n ex peri e nce in the Czec hos lovak state th ro ug h e ig ht decades bo re th e sa me contras tin g fea tures. C ultural simil ariti es drew the m together, but at times bitter po litica l and eco no mi c ex pe ri e nces pu shed the m apart. Once freed fro m the larger state. th ey made quite di ffe re nt cho ices fo r a number of years. However, reg io na l and s itu a ti o na l fo rces eventu a ll y pu shed th e ir path s in the world together aga in . Political Factors and Foreign Policy of the Two Nation-States The Czech Republic C reati o n of an effec ti ve, po li cy-ori e nted po litica l syste m was a chall enge in the earl y 1990 s. In the C zec h Republic there was initi a lly considera bl e co ntinuity in po liti ca l leadership afte r Janu ary 1993 . Vac lav Have l re ma in ed as Pres id e nt of the small e r state, whil e Vac lav Kl a us co ntinu ed o n as Prim e Mini ster. The do min ant po litica l party of Kl aus was still the C ivic Democratic Party (ODS), an organi zati o n th at had bee n bo rn o ut of the C ivic Forum so ac ti ve durin g the eve nts of 1989. In genera l, the Kl aus governm ent ( 1993-97 ) e nd o rsed a ll the steps co nn ec ted w ith th e re turn to E uro pe. Th e brea k-up of th e Czechos lovak state put th e Ukra ine and Ru ss ia furthe r away geographi ca ll y fro m the C zec h Republic . Thu s, the Czechs as earl y as 1994 jo ined the Partn ership fo r Peace (P4 P) and stressed c loser link s to Po land . 105 A n a na lys is of po liti ca l party pos iti o ns durin g e lec ti o ns in the 1990 s is very revea lin g in te rm s o f the iss ues and de bates that 0 ' ' See Thomas S. Szayna. ··The Czech Republic: A Small Contributor or a ' Free Rider·'l_-· in Andrew A . M ichta. ed .. A merica·s New A llies: Poland. Hungary. and the Czech Republic in NA TO (Sea tt le: Un i versity of Washingto n Press. 1999). pp. 11 2- 148 . 124 SLOVAKIA circulated throughout the Czech Republic. Political party leaders debated the merits of the move to the West but finally endorsed it. The 1998 elections are a useful example . The Czech Social Democratic Party (CSSD) ended up technically in power, with Milos Zeman as Prime Minister, but the party needed to establish a "Gentlemen ' s Agreement" with the ODS in order to function as a government. For the CSSD there was less emphasis in the e lection campaign on hardheaded defen se of national interests and more of a focus on livin g standards and the rights of citizens within the country . This priority on domestic issues led the CSSD to endorse the idea of a referendum prior to entry into either the EU or NATO. There a lso was a humanitarian component to its view of Czech relations with the outside world. Such a focus led the CSSD to upgrade the importance of North-South relations and the related role of the UN. It concluded that Czechs should have a say whenever human ri ghts were jeopardized in any part of the world . While it endorsed EU membership, it thought of it in terms of stimulating the Czech economy. While it favored NATO entry , it expressed grave concerns about the future location of nuclear weapon s on Czech territory. During the I 998 election the ODS continued to give a " realpolitik" cast to its statements on foreign policy. National interests rather than humanitarian concerns were its top priority. NATO membership cou ld bring increased security for the nation as well as trade and technological benefits. The latter would promote development of the free market, a priority for Klaus since the early 1990s. National economic interests were of paramount importance, whi le crusades connected with globalization and human rights were to be carefu ll y examined. Increased Czech exports through membership in international organizations were the desired outcome. Thus, the party said less than did the CSSD about broader, western-based international organizations that could pull the Czech nation beyond the orbit of its national interests. 106 106 See Jakub Durr, Vo/by '98 (Brno: Pavel Saradin , 2000), pp. 84-97. SLOVAKIA 125 Attention to th e views of the main political parties enriches understa ndin gs of the Czech point of view on the major foreign and security policy question s of the day. Czech voters in the 2002 elections confirmed the steady march toward s inclu sion in western institution s. Rejection of the ODS was based in part on the negative reaction to the "euroskeptic" views of Klau s on the matter of integration into the EU . Public support for EU membership was confirmed in the results of the June 2003 Referendum. EU support for Czech membership had been offered at the end of 2002. One of the continuing political challenges for the Czech Republic during the 1990s was the iss ue of minority rights, a matter that affected the country's relation ship with the outside world. The criteria for entering both NATO and the EU required a record of fairness toward key groups within the population . One major conflict was the relationship between Czechs and the Roma. A number of well-publicized incidents have raised questions about Czech attitudes and policies. For example, the erection of a wall by Czechs in Ustf nad Labem in 1999 became a foreign policy incident as well as a temporary setback to pursuit of EU membership. It was clear that the wall was intended to prevent Czechs from having to view the Rom a population as well as their Iife-sty le. Attention to such iss ues was necessary in li ght of integration into western institutions. Development of a robust political culture on foreign policy questions remained another challenge to the new state. One s ignificant new factor was the emerge nce of a visible public opinion on foreign policy questions. In genera l, the public was supportive of the new linkages with western institutions. However, there were some differences that were sign ifi ca nt. Public opinion polls over time demonstrated a stabl e level of support for EU entry . However, before 1999 support for entry into NATO was less impressive. 107 Events of 1999 made some difference. In that year the Czech Republic actually en- ' 07 See Caro l Skalnik Leff, The Czech and Slovak Republics: Nation Versus State (Bou lder. Colorado: Westview Press, 1997), p 263. SLOVAKIA 126 te red NATO , a nd th e Kosovo bo mbin g ca mpa ig n imm edi a te ly occurred . Suc h proximity to th e wars in the Ba lkan s made Czec hs somewhat more like ly to think pos iti ve ly abo ut NATO entry. Th ere were a lso uniqu e e ffo rts to build suppo rt within the po litical culture for certain fore ig n poli cy instituti o ns. One abiding problem was the negative set of Czec h attitudes abo ut the ro le of the military. C zec h resentme nt of the military is unde rstand abl e in li g ht o f the long years of the Sov ie t military prese nce afte r 1968 . Al so , after 1989 th e So vie t military left a catastro phe in many Czec h co mmu niti es. The barracks a nd o the r fac iliti es were in te rribl e co nditi o n, and individu a l Sovi et units had ta ke n anythin g of va lue fro m those locati o ns. One effort to build mo re pos iti ve Czec h attitudes abo ut the military too k pl ace in So uth Bo he mi a. A c iti ze n group ca ll ed S AS was fo rmed in 1997. The a im of the group was to de mon strate th at the Czec h military was a contributin g in strume nt in a de mocra ti c state rather than mere ly an in strume nt o f power. The SAS established link s to sc hoo ls and uni versities with the obj ec tive of c ultiv atin g a mo re pos iti ve attitude abo ut the C zech military. It set up co nfere nces and a lso co nsulted spec ia li sts from o the r nati o ns. In fac t, o ne res ult o f thi s acti vity was the creation of spec ial ti es betwee n the c ity o f Ces ky Kruml o v in the Czec h Republi c and Mi a mi Beac h in the State of Fl o rida, USA . A public e xcha nge of ideas abo ut the rol e of th e military could gene rate more in fo rmed C zech perspec ti ves about the va lue of a strong defense capability to cope w ith new threats. 108 Mo re positive attitudes about th e military wo uld fac ilitate integ rati o n into western o rgani zati o ns such as NATO. Slovakia The creati o n of po liti ca l stability was a greater c ha lle nge for Sl ovaki a than it was fo r the Czec h Republi c . In the C zec h case continuity of leadership from the 1989-93 period to th e post-1989 pe riod ' 08 J. Yondro us. .. Regionaln f dimenze ceskeho atl anti smu.'· M inisterst vo zahranicnfch vecf(2002). h ttp: //wwW .lllZ V.C/. March 2002 . SLOVAKIA 127 contributed to stability. In the Slovak case continuity of leadership undermined rather than supported stability. Vladimfr Meciar had been the chosen Slovak leader in the two years immediately after the 1989 revolution. His new party, Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS), did very well in the 1992 elections, and this enabled him again to become Prime Minister once Slovakia became an independent state in 1993 . He was reluctant to reform in any comprehensive way the centrally planned economy, and thus privatization was very slow. In addition, his government included " many of the old regime ' s cadres, resources, and xenophobic ideologies intact. " 109 Meciar fell from power in the spring of 1994, and a caretaker government under Jozef Moravcfk managed public affairs until the fall elections. Again, the voters returned a coalition government headed by Meciar and the HZDS to power, and this government lasted through the next elections in 1998. In this period Meciar basically put the brakes both on democratization and on the movement of the economic system towards free market principles. The political experiences of the first half decade of independence had major consequences for foreign policy, as Slovakia made very slow progress on the criteria that both NATO and the EU presented to it. During the I 998-2002 period , a coalition led by the Social Democratic and Christian Union (SDKU) took the leading role in government, after the public rebuffed Meciar for a third time. Mikulas Dzurinda as Prime Minister gradually moved Slovakia back onto the path towards western institutions. He emerged again as Prime Minister after the fall 2002 elections , and so the steady movement toward NATO and the EU remained unchanged. Meciar and the HZDS were still prominent and in fact received in 2002 both the largest share of the popular vote ( 19.5 %) and the highest number of seats in the I 50 seat legislature (36). His rhetoric on foreign policy was more muted in this campaign , but numerous warnings emanated from NATO and ,m Rudolf L. Tokes. " From Visegrad to Krakow: Cooperation, Competition , and Coexi stence in Central Europe," Problems of Communism 40( 1991 ), pp. 100-114. SLOVAKIA 128 the EU leade rship a bo ut the imp licati o ns of a new governme nt in whic h the HZ DS pl ayed a ny rol e at a ll. In late Septe mber work began o n a coa liti o n th at would in c lude Dzu rinda's S DK U, the C hristi a n De mocrati c Uni o n (KDH), A lli a nce fo r ew C itize ns (A 0), and the Hungari an Coa liti o n (SMK). In earl y October thi s fo ur-party coa litio n fo rged an ag reeme nt abo ut executi ve pos iti o ns, and the new governme nt was in pl ace. A ll of these arra nge me nts were a imed to keep Sl ova ki a o n a stead y trac k in es tabli shin g its new, wes te rn o rgani zatio na l connectio ns in fore ig n poli cy. 11 0 Whil e the Czechs had been press ured by the o utside world o n the matte r of the Ro ma, Slovaks were c riti c ized fo r the ir treatment of the Hun garian mi no rity. Aga in , the Mec iar periods were suspec t in th is regard . Otto Ulc1 11 ex pl a in s thi s situ ati o n by notin g th at afte r 1968 Slova ks were not pro min e nt in the di ss ide nt moveme nt th at e mphasized hum a n ri ghts. Part of the pro bl e m was a lso the lack of ex perie nce of S lova ks in the Czechoslovak dipl o mati c corps. The leaders may have not understood full y the way in whi ch Slova ki a's domesti c record o n mino rity re lati o ns, the e nviro nme nt , a nd autho ritari ani sm in ge ne ra l influe nced fo re ign percepti o ns as we ll as fo re ig n po li cy objecti ve . 11 2 In another respect, the Slovak governme nt d urin g th at peri od was quite ce ntra li st o n the matter o f th e ri g hts of reg io ns within the country. The re is so me iro ny in thi s, fo r th e HZDS had been very ant i-federa li st (a nti -ce ntra list) after its e merge nce in April 199 1. 11 3 In that ea rli er time, the ta rget had bee n the a ll eged centrali st reg ime in Prag ue, s ince the Czec hos lovak state was still intact. Ev ide nce of Mec iar 's centra li st po li c ies li es primaril y in hi s po licy towards the 110 RFE/RL ewsline. Part II. September 24. 2002; October 8, 2002. Archived at http://\\\\w.11°erl.org September. October. 2002. 111 Otto Ulc. " The Bumpy Road ofCzechoslovaki a·s Velvet Revolution ," Problems of Communism 41 ( 1992). pp. 19-3 3 111 See Adrian Hyde Price. The International Politics of East Central Europe (New York: M anchester Uni versity Press, 1996), p. 28. 11 3 Ulc,"The Bumpy Road of Czechoslovakia ' s Ve l vet Revoluti on ." p. 29. SLOVAKIA 129 eastern part of Slovakia. In the mid- I 990s that region became interested in participating in a large Carpathian Euroregion. Other players in the Euroregion wo uld include Romania , Hungary , Poland , and Ukraine. However, the Slovak Ministry of the Interior was quite critical of that orientation. In 1995 that Ministry abo li shed the Slovak Carpathian Regional Association that had co nsisted of a number of regional and local governments in eastern Slovakia. As a result, in 1996 the Slovak representatives in the Euroregion resigned and Slovakia cancel led its participation. Meciar took these actions because of a double suspicion. First, he was suspic ious that the eastern Slovak metropolis of Kosice would lead eastern Slovakia to develop its own independent foreign policy . Second, he feared that Hungary would use the Euroregion to exp loit the anger of the Slovak Hungarian minority . 114 Such att itudes and policies of the top leadership would not mesh well with the EU and its priority on the rights of regions within countries. However, after the 1998 elections the Slovak leadership reflected more sensitivity toward the political culture. For exam ple, Slovaks were aware after 1998 of the need to incorporate domestic non-governmenta l gro ups (NGO 's) into the increasingly public discussion of foreign policy . Thi s was particularly the case in the efforts to ga in admiss ion to NATO. Younger persons were a special target of efforts at political soc ialization . Teachers in middle schools organized essay contests about the sig nific ance of NATO . Organized debates about NATO themes took pl ace in both middle and upper schools. Further, the government set up twe lve information centers that were aimed at youn ger persons. According to one observer, regional projects abo ut NATO by 2002 had reached 120,000 students. Similar discuss ions were aimed at women's groups . For example, profess ional women in Bratislava as we ll as the Union of Women of S lovakia engaged in discussions on the mea nin g and significance of NATO . The mass "" See A lexander Duleba, 'The Slovak-Ukraini an-Russian Security Tri angle." in M argarita M. Balmaceda, ed ., On the Edge: Ukrainian-Central European-Russian Security Triangle (Budapest: Central European Univers ity, 2000), pp. I 06- I 09. SLOVAKIA 130 medi a also pl ayed a ro le in thi s process. T wo major national telev ision projects were aimed at promoting di sc uss ion of NATO the mes. Furthe r, additi o na l in fo rm ati on proj ec ts we re bea med at the populati on through thi rty loca l te lev ision stati ons. The re was even an effort to pull ex pe rts and speciali sts into the di scuss ion. 115 The hope was th at these gro up s wo uld communicate pos iti ve attitudes abo ut NATO to the ir peers a nd e ve n in the ir publicat ions. S imil arl y, after the Nice EU Summit at the e nd of 2000 , Slo vaki a establi shed the Nation al Conve nti on. Its mi ssion e ntail ed stimul ati on of a nati o nal di scuss ion on the E U and Slovak nati o nal inte rests. The di scuss ion was to be in c lu s ive in which po liti ca l party me mbe rs, acade mi cs, c hurc hes , interest gro ups, non- governme nta l orga ni zati o ns, trade union s, muni cipalities, and reg ions all pl ayed a ro le. 11 6 Comparison Both co untries confronted major po litica l chall e nges th at affected fore ign po licy prospects. In both cases there was outside scrutin y and suspi c io n througho ut the first decade abo ut the way in whi c h their governme nts treated key minority gro ups. C riteri a fo r admi ssion to wes te rn orga ni zati ons required prog ress in thi s area. Both countri es a lso ex pe ri e nced maj or c ha nges in governme nt. In the Czech case such cha nges d id not affect very much the steady process of integration w ith the West. Slovak governme ntal changes had more of an impact. In addition , the continuin g presence of Vl adimfr Meciar and the HZDS had the net effect of postponin g Slovaki a's integrati on with western institution s until the late 1990s. Finally , cultivation of positive attitudes within the po liti ca l c ulture became a priority once the leadership made the dec ision to look in a westward direction . In th e Czec h case thi s spotli ght on po liti ca l culture was a 115 • Organ izacie a instituc ie, ktorym bola udelena Strieborn a plaketa M inisterstva zahranicnych vecf Slovenskej republ iky di\a 20. juna 2002," M inisterst vo zah ranicnych vecf(2002). http://www.mzv .sk Oc tober 2002. 116 " Narodny ko nvent o Evropskej buducnosti Slovenska," Ministerst vo zahranicnych vecf (2002). http://www.mzv.sk October 2002. SLOVAKIA 131 constant theme throughout the decade, but in the Slovak case it was only characteristic of the second half of the decade. Economic Factors and Foreign Policy of the Two Nation-States The Czech Republic In the years following th e 1989 revo lution , the Klau s government made eco nomi c restructurin g in Czechoslovakia a major priority. Privati zation and the use of vouchers placed formerly state-controlled industries in private hand s. Job sec urity yie lded to the greater uncertainty connected with the free market. It became more like ly that industries would ri se and fa ll on the ir own merits, while artifi cial control of prices was no longer the norm. 11 7 Thus, major economic changes had deve loped their own momentum at the time the Czechs separated from Slovakia, and they bore the potenti al to have a major impact on foreign policy. For exampl e, ga inin g admission to the EU became a top priority as a result of the new geographic and eco nomi c developments. Very soon Brusse ls presented to the eastern countries its Iist of thirty-one chapters in the "acqui s communautaire" process. Czech leaders began to meet regularl y with EU bureaucrats in order to demonstrate progress toward s meeting the criteria of eac h of the chapters. Usually twice a year the EU represe ntatives came to the Czech Republic to inspect progress made and to iss ue judgments about the relative rank of the nation on the li st of EU prospects from that region. By the end of the 1990s, the Czech Republic ranked near the top of the prospec ti ve li st of new members, and membership appeared like ly by 2004. In fac t, in October of 2002 the EU Commission announced that the Czech Republic would be one of the ten nation s admitted in 2004. 11 8 Czech involvement in the EU 's PHARE and ERBD investment projects was of particular significance. Invo lve ment in the wider EU market would 117 See Bernard Wheaton and Zdenek Ka van , The Velvet Revolution: Czechoslo- vakia 1988- /99 1 (Boulder. Colorado: Westvi ew Press, 1992) , pp. 139-143. 118 Sueddeutsche Zeitung, October 9, 2002. Arch i ved at: http://sueddeutsche .de October 2002. 132 SLOVAKIA multipl y the steps taken by the Czech governme nt in co nvers ion to capitali sm and th ereby open up additional new in vestment opportunities in othe r nations. At the same time , eve ntua l EU membership woul d lead to add ition al western investments, and important ones had come about already in the 1990s. For example , in 1994 th e German automobil e company Volkswagen bought majo rity co ntrol of the o ld Czech mega-compan y Skoda . Whil e the agree ment did guarantee the Germans majority control , it also provided the Czechs with a veto over future policy dec ision s. 11 9 Similarly, Air France took over the Prague Airport Ruzyne and made it into a modern facility. Early in the twenty-first century the A merica n company Motorola began construction of a fac tory in Moravia in the area of the Beskydy Mountains. Much news accompanied the buy -out of severa l well known breweries, including Pil sner Urque ll , by South Africa n enterprises. Certainly , one by- product of this western indu stri a l and financial in vo lvement would be the rapid infusion of western tec hniques and know-how in manag ing an economy on capitali st princi pl es. A ll of thi s would acce lerate the type of domestic economic restructuring that would more qui ck ly meet EU criteria. The outreach of the changing Czech economy was not confined exclusively to its European nei ghborhood. For instance, in the mid l 990s the Czech Re publi c became a member of UNESCO. In th at capac ity it took a particular interest in the plight of the ravaged nations that had e merged from the old Yugoslavia. This ac ti vity led to membership as well in the Organi zat ion for Economic Cooperati on and Developme nt (OECD ). In fact , the Czechs were the first from the Central E uropean region to ga in membership in th at organi zation. Linkages between the Czech Republic and the Internati onal Monetary Fund (IMF) e nh anced their reputation for reliabi lity. In A ugus t 1994, the natio n was the first post-communist state to pay off its 11 9 Leff. The Czech and Slo vak Republics: Nation Vers us State. p. 263. SLOVAKIA 133 initial IMF loan . 120 Again, involvement with the larger universe of western capitalist economies outside the immediate geographic region paid dividends in terms of domestic economic change. In sum, the revolution of 1989, combined with the loss of Slovakia in 1993, generated a rapid rate of economic change in the Czech Republic. Conversion to capitalist economic principles was inevitable after the 1989 events, but the process received a number of important stimuli. Interest in joining NATO and the drive for EU membership mandated that the nation meet specific criteria in terms of capitalist development. Investments by western firms outside the nation led to collaborative efforts in which Czech managers could more fully see the capitalist system in action. Involvement in the economic projects of a number of global organizations, primarily located in the West, expanded Czech horizon s in a positive way. All of thi s offered a powerful economic antidote to the much more restricted COMECON framework that was characteristic of the Cold War. Slovakia For a number of reasons , Slovakia looked east for economic links rather than west after the 1993 split. This had also been true after the 1989 revolution. Slovak leaders noted that their country was the only Yisegrad member that bordered all of the other three. Such a perception encouraged them to think about a potential Slovak role as the ideal country to be a bridge between East and West. The collapse of COMECON led the Slovaks to hope for a replacement in the form of special ties with Russia and Ukraine. The look eastward made Slovakia "more sensitive to developments in the CIS." 12 1 At the same time, EU import quotas were having a negative impact on certain Slovak industries such as a steel mill in Kosice, and that created some suspicion about the West. 122 120 Leff, The Czech and Slovak Republics: Nation Versus State, p. 258. 12 1 Price, The International Politics of East Central Europe, p. 170. 122 Leff, The Czech and Slovak Republics: Nation Versus State, p. 261. 134 SLOVAKIA One concrete manifestation of thi s economic orie ntatio n to the East was cultivation of a spec ial link to Ru ss ia. A key motive for this outreach was the pli g ht of the Slovak arms industry . At the time of the 1989 revolution , o ne hundred e leven of Czec hoslo va ki a ' s weapon s manufacturing pl a nts were in the Slovak region . As early as 1990, weapo ns sa les from those pl ants had declined from 1988 leve ls from eight billio n dollars to one billion . This situ ation prompted Meciar to trave l to Moscow in 1991 in order to get defe nse co ntracts to make up some of thi s loss. 123 In fact , the sub sequent recess io n became part of the reason that Slovak leaders sought separation from the Czechs. Further, the Slovak military hoped that Ru ss ia might give Slovakia li ce nses to se ll military ha rdw are to third world countries. 12~ Eventu a ll y, Pres ident Bo ri s Yeltsin of Ru ss ia visited Slovaki a in Aug ust 1993, and one res ult was the sig nin g of a bilatera l state treaty. In add iti o n, the two states s ig ned a fi ve-yea r military cooperation agree me nt. The latter would po te nti a ll y assist Slovakia economically, for it would he lp rev ive its arm s industry . One fea ture of the agree me nt was the provis io n that Ru ss ia would suppl y spare parts for th e Slovak milita ry. 125 Other Slovak goa ls in c lud ed development of a Slovak role in tran sporting Ru ss ian natural gas to Western Europe. In part, Mec iar hoped that the flirtation with Ru ss ia mi g ht increase Slovakia ' s econo mi c importance to th e West a nd attract in vestme nts from that direction as well. 126 Cultivation of ties to Ukrai ne a lso became part of thi s new economi c strategy. Early afte r th e revolution Meciar soug ht to build a new railway from Brati slava to Ukraine by utili zing the for mer Soviet ra il network. 127 By the middl e 1990s Slovak leaders began to think in broader terms. Perh aps Ukra ine could act as well as the gate- 12 .1 See Andrew A. Michta. East Central Europe after the Warsaw Pact: Security Dilemmas in the 1990s (New York: Greenwood Press. 1992 ). p. 107. 12 "' Duleba, ·'The Slovak-Ukrainian-Ru ssian Security Tri angle: · p. 20. 125 Price, The International Politics o f East Central Europe. p. 170. 126 Duleba, ''The Slovak-Ukrainian-Ru ssian Security Triangle." pp. 85-8 6. 127 Price. The International Politics of East Central Europe. p. 170. SLOVAKIA 135 way to the Ru ss ian market. 128 For many Slovaks, Ukraine was in a sense still Ru ss ia, and thu s economic policies toward s the two we re intertw ined. In spite of the eastward look in economic policy, western organi zation s were not totall y ignored. For example, in June 1993 Sl ovaki a was accepted into the Council of Europe. Then in June 1995 , th e M ec iar government submitted a membership appli cati on to the EU . Reliance on in ves tments from western countries rein forced thi s economic policy dimension. K ey economic in vestors in the 1990s included, in rank order , Germ any, A ustri a, and th e Czech Repu bli c. 129 Despite Slovaki a's approach to the East, the W est was in many ways more helpful. Seri ous di sc uss ions w ith the EU rea ll y began in 1997 w ith th e Lu xembourg Summit. A t th at meeting the EU placed Slovaki a in a second ti er of si x nati ons, and so it looked as if Sl ovaki a wo uld have to wa it longer then its Czech co unterpart, w ho ended up in the first ti er of si x. Contacts w ith the EU acce lerated after the defea t of the M ec iar government in 1998. A multilateral screening process by the EU took pl ace between April 1998 and February 1999, and thi s gave way to more signifi ca nt bil ateral screenin g procedu res between M arch of 1999 and Febru ary of 2000. 130 In the 2000-2002 period Slovaki a worked its way th rough most of the thirty-one chapters of th e EU 's aqui s co mmunautaire. For exa mpl e, di sc uss ions about Chapter Four ce ntered on future poss ibilities that fore igners could control Sl ovak land and corresponding poss ibilities fo r Slovak s to purchase land w ithin th e EU. Fo ll ow in g the 1998 elec ti ons th e chances of mee tin g the goa ls of Ch apter Si x we re enhanced, as Slovaki a moved more firml y in the direc ti on of erec tin g a market economy. Chapter Seven on agri cultu re was a criti ca l one for Slovak ia as it was for most of the other nati ons in the region. Sl ovak s 12 " 129 1.'<, Du leba. ··The Slovak-Ukrainian-Russian Security Triangle." p. 97 . Leff. The Czech and Slovak Republics: Nation Versus State. p. 262. '·Fazy proces u rozs irova ni a EU ," M inisterstvo za hra11ic11yc h vecf (2002) . hllp ://www. 1111. v.,k Oc tober 2002. SLOVAKIA 136 soug ht promises of an ad mini stra ti ve structure that wou ld e nsure protect ion of the ir agric ultural sys tem . The politica l tran s iti on from the Mec iar governm e nt to th at of Dzurinda made sa ti sfac tion of Chapte r Thirteen more poss ibl e. Th at c hapter in vo lved worker 's ri g hts, ge nde r equ a lity, racia l justi ce, a nd other vita l categori es. Sl ovak ia rece ived spec ia l in stru c tion s within th e framework of Chapter Fifteen. Th e EU requ es ted th a t Slo va ki a acce lera te pri vati za ti o n of ba nk s as we ll as na tural reso urce mo nopoli es. Further, it was ex pected th at Slovakia wo uld build up small and medium s ized firm s w hil e e nco urag in g add iti o na l fo re ig n in vestme nt. 13 1 Comparison The Czec h Republic and Slo vaki a did move on separate paths in terms of the economi c dime nsion of fo re ign policy for a large part of the first decade after separation . In fac t, so me of their sharpe r differences e merged in the fo ur years after the 1989 revo luti on prior to the 1993 breakup. In the post- 1993 atmosphere the Czechs quickl y latched on to western organi zati ons in order to map out their future. S lovaki a, with its differe nt geographi c position and greater nostalgia for the lost economic links to the form er Soviet Union , c ultivated the Ukra ine and Russ ia as part of a ge nera l orientation to the east. Both di sappointme nt with the East and th e ex pe rien ce of th e 1998 elections brought the Slovak path much c loser to that of the Czechs . One sy mbo l of thi s shift was the progress made by both states in th e 1998-2002 pe riod towa rd me mbership in the EU . By September of 2002 the Czech Re public had c losed twe nty-fi ve of the thirty most s ignifi cant c hapters th at led to EU me mbership. Surprising ly, Slovaki a had closed twe nty-seven. Slo vakia 's progress had bee n very rapid, for the Czechs had ac tu all y closed eightee n of the chapters before Slovakia had . An important resu lt was th at Sl ova kia moved 131 " Ka ndid atske krajiny a ic h ak tu alny stav negoc iac if," Ministe,:~tvo w hranicnj ch vecf (2002). http ://www.111zv.~k Jul y 30. 2002. SLOVAKIA 137 from the second ti er of six pote nti al EU members to the first ti er of ten between 1997 and the autumn of 2002. T he re port of the EU Commiss ion on October 9, 2002, bas ica ll y treated both countri es as if they were at simil ar leve ls of pre paredness for EU entry in earl y 2004. 132 Both co untries ge nera ll y rece ived pos iti ve reports and were firml y in the group o f ten nati ons to be admitted at the sa me time in 2004. National Security Factors and the Foreign Policy of the Two States The Czech Republic Separati on fro m S lovak ia led to an immed iate series of ste ps aimed at underpinnin g the natio nal sec urity of the new, smaller Czech state. T hroughout th e first decade after the separati on, the sec urity spotli ght shi fted from an emph as is on the Wes tern European Unio n (W EU), to the ca mpaign fo r NATO me mbership , and later to cons iderat ion of th e ro le of th e Co mmon Fore ign and Sec urity Po li cy (CFS P) of th e EU. 133 ln additi o n, Czec hs bega n to in vo lve themse lves more full y in international organi zati ons such as the UN, OSCE , and Y isegrad . T hu s th e nati o na l sec urity age nd a was crowded. Czech disc uss ions abo ut defense po licy in the earl y 1990s centered in part on the W EU , an organi zati on that had e merged in 1948 with the Brusse ls Treaty. On the o ne hand , EU pl anners at the begi nning of the 1990s envisioned the WEU in a ce ntra l ro le in ass istin g Europe to take responsibility fo r its ow n sec urity. On the other hand , others hoped that the WEU could he lp create mo re conse nsus with NATO as well as support for NATO mi ss ions. 134 rn RFE/RL News line. Part II. October 10. 2002. Archived at: h1tp ://www.rferl.org October 2002. rn See Dav id S. Mason , Revolution and Transition in East Central Europe. Second Edi tion (Bou lder, Colorado : Westview Press, 1996), pp. 95-98. " 4 K arel Pezl, " Ceska repub li ka a zapadoevropske unie: bezpecnostnf aspek ty, " Mezinarodnf Politika 18( 1994). pp. 25-26. 138 SLOVAKIA By the late 1990s discu ss ions within the Czech Re public about admission to NATO overshadowed conversations about the fading WEU. Admission to NATO in 1999 brought with it a whole set of new obligations. There was a need to prepare defense legislation that would move the Czech defense structure toward the level of NATO standard s. New military pe rso nnel requirements mandated that the Czech defense sector prepare courses for a ll ranks about the changing role of the military. Training in the use of radar was also upgraded. Further, the Czech Republic would need to build a crisis command center that would facilitate the rapid sharing of information between NATO and the Czech Republic. It would also be necessary for the Czechs to build a sys tem of command and control that paralleled the organizations in other NATO countries. 135 Immediately after expansion to include three new members in 1999, NATO had an opportunity to utilize these new national resources during the Kosovo bombing campaign . One lesson of that campaign was increased awareness of th e asymmetry of capabilities within the alliance. 136 America provided eighty per cent of the bombs dropped on Kosovo in the spring of 1999 as well as ninety per cent of the weapons. U. S. airplanes were the only ones that could operate in all weather. Lowered European defen se budgets in the 1990s resulted in a situation in which all European NATO members contributed only two-thirds of the fundin g that the United States did to defen se. The Czech Republic responded to this imbalance by developing a blueprint for change in 2001. That plan called for a rapid upgrade in mane uverability of units, logistical strength, placement of weaponry and pe rsonnel , ability to resist over a lon g period, and information command and control. Further, the Ministry of Defense drew up a li st of four principles that would guide Czech participation rn Antonin Sverak . ··vnej sf a vnitfnf aspekty zac lenovanf resortu obrany CR do NATO," Mezimfrodnf Vztahy 2( 1999). pp. 13-3 1. 136 See Otto Pick, ·· NATO, evropska obrana a poucenf K osova." CR po vstupu do NATO. Uvahy a problemy (Praha: Ceska Atlanticka Komise UMY. 2000), pp. 2532. SLOVAKIA In 139 NATO. Th ey inc luded co ntinu ed in vo lvement of the two North American powers in the defe nse of Europe, reliance on NATO as the main guarantor of European security , subordination of the CFSP of the EU within the framework of NATO , a nd guara nteed access to NATO capabi lities for all EU defense and sec urity mi ss ion s. 137 Recog nition of the important Czech role in NATO was evident in the dec ision to hold the conference of Nove mber 2002 in Prague. At that meeting seve n additional nati ons joined the military alliance. Finally, durin g th e war in Iraq in 2003, th e Czechs sent an anti-biolog ical , chemical , and nuclear weapon s unit as well as a fi eld hospital. By the early 1990s, the EU began to outline plans for its own defe nse structure, one that would be independent of the North Atlantic nation s th at had for so lon g domin ated NATO. These plans centered on the creation in 1990 of th e Common Forei gn and Security (CFS P) of the EU . In 1993 the Treaty of Europe called for the addition to the CFSP of pe rm ane nt officials from the EU Council Secretariat as well as of fiftee n diplomats from each Fore ign Ministry. 138 In early 2001 the Czech Foreign Mini ster made a persuasive case for the natural harmony between the broad-rang ing objectives of the CFSP and the specific, national inte rests of the Czec h Republic. 139 For him the current spirit of cooperation in Europe was a needed antidote to the suffer in g of the Czechoslovak people during the twe nti e th century. Throu gh the CFSP, the Czech Re public would ga in both assistance in its multi-pronged process of development and also the opportunity to co ntribute to regional probl e m so lvin g. He did not e nvision participation in European and Atlantic structures as a threat to Czech national inte rests. In particul ar, the Dece mber 2000 Nic e Summit ge nerated orga ni zati o na l c han ges in EU institution s 117 Jaromfr Novotny, "' DCI (Defense Capabiliti es Initiative) a Cesk,\ Republika." Mini sterstvo zahranicnfch vecf (2002). http://www.1111v.u March 2002 . 1" See Charlotte Bretherton and John Vogler. The European Un ion as a Global Actor (L ondon: Routledge. 1999). pp. 169- 196. iw -''Jan K avan. ·'Ceska zahrani cnf politika na prahu 2 1. stoletf."' Mez inarodnf Politikil 25(200 I ). pp. 4-5. 140 SLOVAKIA that would continue to break down the artificial barriers that divided Europe during the Cold War. Growin g European military stren gth would s imultaneou sly contribute to an increase in Czech capabi lities. 140 Slovakia In spite of the fact that so much of the defense industry had been located in the Slovak areas during the Co ld War and into the immediate post-1989 revolution period, the leadership ex peri ence of Slovaks on defen se matters had been re lative ly slim . For instance, in I 99 1 Slovak so ldiers constituted 34.7 % of the federa l Czechoslovak army. However, the representation of Slovak manage rs within the Ministry of Defense over several years ranged from on ly 5 to 23 %. 141 In the early years after separation , Slovaks were primarily focused on reestabli shing or maintaining ties with the East. Previously mentioned political ties to Ru ss ia, Ukraine, and Yi segrad see med to offer them a non-western prescription for protecting national sec urity. The Slovaks rea ll y only went through the motion s of taking part in so me western sec urity structures. For example, like th e Czech Republic , Slovakia became an Assoc iate Partner in the WEU and reg ul arl y attended its meetings. Although Associate Members he ld no voting power within the organization , they did have the ri ght to plan and execute military operations. 142 Contac ts between Slovakia and NATO were minimal and bas ically centered on only a few reciprocal visits by key personnel during the three years before Meciar fel l from grace. The most impor- 140 Pavel Teli cka, " Aktualni stav jednani o pristoupeni CR k EU ," M ezimirodnf Politika 25(200 I ). 14 1 Michta, East Central Europe after the Warsaw Pact: Security Dilemmas in the 1990s, p. I 10. 142 See Philip H. Gordon, ·The Western European Union and NATO 's ' Europeanisation ," in Philip H. Gordon, ed., NATO 's Transformation : The Changing Shape of the Atlantic Alliance (L ondon : Row man & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. , I 997), p. 26 1. SLOVAKIA 141 tant visit by a top NATO figure to Slovakia was the 1996 trip of Secretary-General Javier Solana . The most important Slovak trip was that by President Kovac to Brussels in 1996 to meet with top NATO personnel. After the 1998 elections and the establishment of a new government under Mikulas Dzurinda, the pace of contacts picked up. In early 2002, Slovakia hosted visits by the unified NATO European commander General Dieter Stockman ; by General Joseph Ralston, the commander of NATO forces in Europe; and by Deputy NATO Minister Nicholas Burns. In turn, Slovak leaders who made their way to NATO Headquarters included incoming Prime Minister Dzurinda in 1998 and President Schuster in 1999 and again in 2002. 143 Another key component of the post- I 998 , systematic Slovak move toward s NATO involved the Membership Action Plan (MAP) Process. In early 1999 Slovakia presented a five-point plan that included a strategy for political/economic issues, defense/military question s, resources/capabilities, security challenges, and legal matters. In April of 1999, NATO accepted that MAP and the Slovak government followed suit in June of the same year. The National Program for the process of NATO entry was finalized in April of 2000. 144 Finalization of the MAP process led to many meetings over the next few years. Additional activity after 1998 centered on galvanizing public support for entry into the military alliance. Slovakia held a grants competition to enable NGO' s to raise public awareness of the significance of NATO entry. Support for entry came officially from a total of seventy-five Roma organizations. One result of all thi s activity was a rel atively high level of public support for joining the organization . Between the fall of 200 I and the spring of 2002 , support reflected in public opinion poll s rose from 52.2 % to 60.7 %, although it 143 " M edznfky spoluprace SR a NATO," Ministerstvo zahranicnych vec f (2002). http ://www.rnzv.sk October 2002. 144 " Chrono logicky prehl'ad PREN AME," Ministerstvo zahranicnych vecf(2002). http ://www.mzv.,k October 2002. 142 SLOVAKIA declined a bit a few month s later. 145 All of this attention to visits, organizational matters, and public opinion enabled Slovakia to make up for its lack of attention an d interest in NATO during the midI 990s. In addition , during the latter part of the 1990s, Slovakia took part in severa l important peacekeeping missions under NATO leadership. This involvement demonstrated that the nation would possess the level of commitment required of new NATO members. After completion of the Dayton Accord on Bosnia in 1995, Slovakia se nt some military personnel and equipment as part of SFOR to the area of operations. At the end of 1997, it sent three Army engineers and five army specialists in the field of civil-military cooperation. In the fall of 2002 Slovakia made its first Air Force contribution to a NATO mis sion. The capabilities it sent included a helicopte r unit with two helicopte rs and twenty-one assoc iated personnel. Slovakia promised to keep that contingent in Bosnia for the next six months. Involveme nt in KFOR after the Kosovo bombin g campaign in late 1999 was even more extensive. The initial commitment included forty Army engineers , a nd di spatch of an additional four persons at the command level one year later. A major upgrade occurred in early 2002 with the creation of a five hundred person Czech-Slovak rapid reaction battalion . The Slovak role in that force included twenty per cent of the overall membership, and the vast majority of those were doctors, conductors, mechanics, and logi stics specialists. The vital mi ss ions of that battalion centered on sec uring the Serb-Kosovo border, monitoring a range of activities, assuring stable conditions for the return of refugees, policing the civil serv ice, and protecting the Serb minority. 146 Thi s particular operation would provide man y lessons that would assist Slovakia in making important contributions as a full NATO member. Finally , in the sprin g of 2003 , Slovakia dispat145 " Chronologicky prehl'ad PREN AME," Ministerstvo zahranicnych veer (2002). http ://www.mzY.sk October 2002 . 146 " Ucast' SR v operaciach na podporu mieru pod vedenfm NATO," Ministerstvo zahranicnych vecf(2002). h11p ://www.111zv.sk October 2002. SLOVAKIA 143 ched military personnel to the Pers ian Gulf durin g the co ntro versial war in Iraq. Comparisons Czech pursuit of national sec urity followed a unidirect io nal path during the first decade a fte r se parati o n from Slovakia. Its leade rs thou ght proacti ve ly in eac h part of the decade about a co ntributin g role in the maj or defe nse opti ons ava il ab le at the time. This mea nt that much of the di sc uss ion foc used on activity within the framework of W EU in the first years after the breakup . Once NATO ad mi ss ion became a real possibility , the Czec hs set the ir eyes on th at orga ni zation . F in all y, as EU membership approac hed early in the new century, more of th e di sc uss ion centered o n the CFSP, a progra m that offered a European sec urity cho ice th at was inde pe nde nt of Ameri can leade rship. In the Slovak case the emp hasis on re-stoking ti es with Ukraine and Ru ss ia at first prec luded seri ous discussion about western sec urity o rga ni zati o nal structures . Once the 1998 e lect ions offered the chance for a new policy, Slovak ia ' s outreach to the West in the defe nse area mainl y took the for m of a se ri ous effort to jo in NA TO. Achi eve me nt of that goa l at the e nd of 2002 e nab led Slovakia to adopt the multi -pron ged , western-oriented strategy utili zed by the Czechs fo r an e ntire decade. Conclusion The re is remark ab le cons iste ncy across the ra nge of va ri abl es that, for a time , divided the two nations. Those vari ables inc lude politi cs, economi cs, and nati o nal sec urity. It is clear th at the political va ri abl es were the driving force be hind the othe r two. Elec ti o n outcomes in the Czech Re public a nd Slovakia were quite different between 1992 and 1998. Those results acco unt primaril y for the very diffe rent foreign polic y path s a lon g which the two sets of fore ign policy elites traveled prior to 1998. Throu ghout the e ntire decade Czech po liti ca l leaders looked to the West fo r th eir future organi zati onal home. Politica l parti es debated the pace and nature of the march to the West but not its in ev i- SLOVAKIA 144 tability. As a result Czech economic connections with the West were forged throughout the entire period , and the Czec hs ke pt their sights set on EU membership consistently after 1993. The des ire to enter western sec urity structures entailed consideration of the WEU at first, then anticipation as well as achievement of NATO membership, and finall y thorough attention to the CFSP of the EU. S lovak leaders were at first ambiva lent and at times negati ve about connections to the West. In the 1992-98 period they attempted to resusc itate the old eco nomic ties with Ukraine and Ru ss ia. At the same time , they maintained a di stance from the states that were pursuing NATO membership at the earliest poss ible moment. Early hopes that the Visegrad alliance cou ld provide a measure of security for Slovakia di sappeared in 1999 when the other three members of that alli ance joined NATO. The election of 1998 changed Slovakia's forei gn policy path in very defi nite ways. It engaged in much more serious di sc ussions with the EU about progress on the thirty-one chapters of the acquis communautaire. A MAP leadin g to NA TO membership was approved by both that organization and the Slovak government. Although the Slovaks wou ld end up joining NATO three and one half years after the Czechs, both nation s would likely enter the EU at the same time. By the fall of 2002, both countries were not walking exactly on the sa me path , but the ir paths were c learly in view of one another. In conclusion, it is important, while acknowledg in g these differences prior to I 998, not to overstate them. For example, Timothy Frye 147 examined political polarization within all of the post-communi st co untri es. Hi s stud y covered the 1989-98 period , and thu s it included the time frame in which these two countries were moving in differe nt direction s. The political polari zation rating for the Czech Republic was 4.4, and for Slovakia it was 4 .9. Despite the sli ghtly higher rate for Slovaki a, he c lassified both countries as non-pol ari - 14 7 Timothy Frye, " The Price of Polarizati on: Economic Performance in the Post- Communist World," World Politics 54(2002). pp. 308-337 . SLOVAKIA 145 zed. The po lari zed co untri es inc luded Albania, Be laru s, Bul gari a, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Romani a, Ru ss ia, and Ukraine. Thi s is a signifi cant conclusion, for it he lps ex pl ain how two nati ons that seemed to be mov ing in such di ffe rent directi o ns after 1993 were able to adopt parall el paths by the end of the century. Perh aps the findin gs also revea l the wi sdom of those observers who chose to characteri ze the di vorce in 1993 as a "velvet" one.  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 Separate Paths: Czech and Slovak Foreign Policies Since 1993 Description An account of the resource James W. Peterson Slovakia, Vol. 38 (No. 70-71), 2005 pp. 121-145 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Peterson, James W. (James Walter), 1945- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2005 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/b532f2a1e78204582b3aab2458820e9e.pdf d29ab35a9185a585aee78369094a60db PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA-2017 133 SIBERIA: A SLOVAK TALE (A story based upon the life of the author's grandfather, Jan Janosko) R. Vladimir Baumgarten Jozef Zeleny, most recently an employee of United States Steel, headquartered in Homestead, Pennsylvania, decided that he no longer wished to live . This puzzled people, after it was all over. By Slovak-American standards, Jozef Zeleny was by no means a failure. Granted his wife had died, but six out of ten of his children had survived and landed on their feet. They were all responsible and functional adults. Yet, Jozef Zeleny wanted to die. He contacted a relative in the town of Monongahela, located on a river of that name and the border of Virginia. He intended to march from there, up and across the ridge line, and disappear into a snowstorm. Hypothermia is a benevolent death. After a while, you no longer feel the cold. You begin to feel warm and sensuous . You want to lie down and sleep. You go to sleep. Then you die. Why did Jozef Zeleny want to die? To answer this question, we must look into his background . It involved a drama which originated a full generation earlier. *** Jozef Zeleny was born near Svidnik, in northeastern Slovakia. Seven generations of his ancestors had served in the military as Hungarian Hussars. Zeleny began his adult life in this hereditary occupation. He was admitted to the Ludovika Military Academy in Budapest and graduated with the rank of sub-lieutenant on the eve of the Great War. In August of 1914 he was dispatched to the Eastern Front. Here he became infected with the spirit of Slovak nationalism , which resented Hungarian domination. Many Czechs and Slovaks in the Austro-Hungarian Army either deserted or were captured by the Russian army. In this way Zeleny became a member of the Czechoslovak Legion. �134 SLOVAKIA-2017 The Czechoslovak Legion in Russia was a curious organization. Colonies of Czechs and Slovaks had existed in Russia since the 19 th century. After the outbreak of the war, Czechs and Slovaks in Russia were allowed to organize themselves into a military unit called the Druiina, which served as an auxiliary to the Russian Army. Originally, the Drui ina engaged in reconnaissance and infiltration of Slavic units in the Austro-Hungarian army. As it demonstrated its competence, the Druiina, grew, with more captured Slavic prisoners. In March of 1917 revolution erupted in Petrograd and on March 15 th Tsar Nicholas II abdicated and a Provisional Government replaced him. Most Czech and Slovak Legionnaires disliked Tsarist rule and initially welcomed the Russian Revolution. They had chafed under the restrictions imposed upon them by the Tsarist government and looked forward to more freedom of action. Zeleny participated in the Czechoslovak Legion's baptism of fire at the battle of Zborov on July 2, 1917. Zborov (Zboriv in Ukrainian), is a village in the Carpathian foothills of western Ukraine, then part of the Austrian province of Galicia. In its vicinity, two fortified Austrian positions, Galish and Kalish, guarded the approaches to the city of Lviv (Lemberg, Lvov). Two Finnish Regiments of the Russian Army were ordered to effect a pincers movement around Galish. The Legionnaires were supposed to move in after the Finns. However, the Czechs and Slovaks were impatient for action and moved ahead of the Finns. Their opponents were largely Czechs or Bosnian Serbs, who were poorly-motivated. While the Russian command hesitated in the southern sector, the Legionnaires, led by Captain Radola Gajda, stormed the hills overlooking the battlefield. This breakthrough resulted in the capture of 62 Austro-Hungarian officers, 3,150 soldiers, 20 pieces of arti llery and 40 machine guns. Russian General Selichev then declared, "Czech eagles led Russian chickens ." After this victory, the Russian Provisional Government recognized the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia as an independent army, answerable to the Czechoslovak National Council in Paris, led by T.G. Masaryk, Milan R. Stefanik and Edvard Benes. However, the Provisional Government was toppled by a military coup in Petrograd, led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin on November 7, 1917. Since the incoming Bolshevik government wanted peace with Germany in order to create a communist state in Russia, it inherited a large number �SLOVAKIA-2017 135 of Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war, many of whom were armed and roaming the countryside. The Czechoslovak Legionnaires were among them, and continued to support the Western Allies. On the other hand, many German and Hungarian prisoners of war had joined the newly-established Red Guards. They now controlled large areas of Siberia. On May 15, 1918, an incident occurred in Russia which had international ramifications. At the railway station in Chelyabinsk, in the Ural Mountains, a train carrying Czechoslovak Legionnaires drew alongside a train bearing repatriated Hungarian p.o.w. ' s headed in the opposite direction. The Bolsheviks had made peace with the Germans and Austro-Hungarians in December of 1917 and had agreed to repatriate each other's p.o.w.'s. As the trains passed each other, a shouting match ensued and one of the Hungarians hurled a lead pipe and fractured a Czech soldier's skull. The well-armed Legionnaires pulled the culprit off the train and hanged him on the spot. The local Soviet government demanded an inquiry and arrested three Czechoslovak officers who attended the inquiry. As soon as their comrades heard of this incident, they stormed the jail, freed their officers, and seized control of the town. In Moscow, Commissar of War Leon Trotsky, ordered that any armed Czechoslovak soldiers found along the Trans-Siberian Railway were to be shot on the spot. This was probably Trotsky ' s biggest mistake. Relieved of the necessity of negotiating with the Bolsheviks, the Legionnaires seized control of the Trans-Siberian railroad and blasted their way east all the way to Vladivostok on the Pacific. For eighteen months this army without a country controlled the world ' s largest land mass. *** And so, Lieutenant Zeleny found himself in Siberia. It was a huge land of contrasts and contradictions. Covered in snow and frost during the long winter, it became a field of flowers in the summer. The land was rich in natural resources. Much of the timber was cut and the minerals were mined by convict labor. Tens of thousands of Russian men and women , convicted of crimes ranging from murder to petty theft or even simple vagrancy, had been deported there. Siberia boasted a penal system operated at a profit. On the other hand, Siberia also contained many Russians who had moved there in �136 SLOVAKIA-2017 search of land and greater liberty. It was a land of unlimited opportunity for those who were able to withstand its rigors. Peasants in Siberia became accustomed to thinking and acting more independently than their kinsmen in European Russia. This would have fateful consequences for the White side during the Russian Civil War. Although there were theaters and other forms of amusement in Omsk, Irkutsk and Vladivostok, the chief form of recreation in Siberia was the consumption of vodka. Harbing, a city the Russians built in Manchuria, on a stretch of land they obtained as a concession from China, boasted a distillery that produced thirty million gallons of vodka per year. Other distilleries in Siberia soon equaled this production . As in many frontier cultures, Siberia was more inclined to dispense alcohol than education. In the late 1880's the American journalist George Kennan observe that in each settlement, there were thirty saloons for every school. Jozef Zeleny liked to drink. He acclimatized to the local culture. He managed to digest kumis (fermented mare ' s milk), and cultivated a genuine fondness for another fermented beverage made of juice derived from reindeer antlers. But, serious drinking involved vodka. For this reason he visited a certain tavern in Omsk in the summer of 1918. There he was attracted to a very striking, brown-eyed blonde. As a rule, women did not frequent taverns unless they were prostitutes. Something in her bearing suggested that she was not. Jozef left her alone. Three days later he encountered her in the local park. She was walking a dog on a leash. It was said to be a Jack Russel , although it had the face of a Pit Bull. Suddenly, two larger unleashed dogs appeared . They bore down upon the little guy. Jozef seized a fallen tree branch and rushed into the fray. The little guy was way ahead of him. Roaring like a lion, he plunged forward and hit one of the bigger dogs with his head, causing it to bowl over. Meanwhile, Jozef hit to other dog with his switch. Both bigger dogs ran off. Man and small dog stood triumphantly on the field of battle. The blonde woman laughed delightedly. "Bravo! " she exclaimmed. "You were both magnificent." Jozef looked at her with narrowed eyes. "I saw you in the tavern a few days ago. I see that you are some kind of lady. You have no business in a place like that. Why did you go there?" �SLOVAKIA-2017 137 "Because I was waiting for someone to tell me that, instead of trying to pick me up. I need a friend ... and some help." Jozef was stunned by her answer. This is how he met Ludmilla Suslova. She was a schoolteacher. Her father worked for the Directorate, which claimed to be the government of Siberia. The Directorate consisted of Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries and was opposed to the Bolsheviks in Moscow. The Directorate enjoyed the patronage of the Czechoslovak Legion. Ludmilla's husband had recently abandoned her. Their small house was in need of repair. She needed a good man around the house and Jozef qualified. She told him that he could move in rent-free if he maintained the house. He was amenable to such an arrangement because he currently occupied a tepluska, one of the railway boxcars attached to an armored train, along with other Legionnaires. A comer was set aside for games of cards or chess, but there was no privacy. Jozef and Ludmilla did not bond immediately. He was intimidated by her beauty. He initially bonded with her dog Yasha. He was useless as a watchdog since he barked only at other animals. This sad-eyed canine brought great joy to Jozef s life. Ultimately, nature took its course between Jozef and Ludmilla. One day, when working together in the house, their bodies pressed against each other. Mutually-suppressed desire spontaneously exploded. They did not even make it into the bedroom. Thereafter, they lived as man and wife. *** Both the Western Allies and Japan had long been seeking an excuse to intervene in Russia against the Bolsheviks. Now they had one. In the summer of 1918 they recognized the Czechoslovak Legionnaires as co-belligerents against Germany and Austria-Hungary and could justify landing troops in Siberia under the pretext of rendering aid to their allies. However, the paradigm shifted in the autumn months. The Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary disintegrated in October and on the 28 th the newly-created Czechoslovak Republic emerged. Now the Legionnaires lost interest in fighting the Bolsheviks and just wanted to go home. Furthermore, on November 15 1\ just after the armistice which ended the Great War, the Directory in Omsk was toppled by a �138 SLOVAKIA-2017 military coup. A certain Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak, who just two weeks earlier had been living in a cheap Tokyo hotel, claimed the title of Supreme Commander of all Russia. He was unequal to the task. Although personally honest and well-intentioned, Kolchak had little control over his subordinates, most of whom were thieves and bandits in the pay of the Japanese, and who committed various war crimes against the civilian population. About six months after Kolchak assumed power, just as the black flies and mosquitos in Siberia began to reassert themselves, Captain (yes, he had been promoted) Zeleny had a revealing experience. He passed through a barnyard in which wounded Russian soldiers lay in the hay. The insects attacked the pus oozing from their wounds. Distressed by what he saw, Zeleny approached an elegantlydressed White Russian officer, who was speaking in French to a lady on his arm. "These men are in bad shape!" Jozef exclaimed. "You should help them out!" "Please don ' t talk about things like that," the officer replied . "You' II upset the lady." When Jozef related the incident to Ludmilla, he declared "A regime built upon this kind of shit cannot survive." Ludmilla agreed. Yet, for a time, given the backing of the Western Allies and Japan, it looked as if Kolchak might win. On March 6, 1919, he launched a 700-mile offensive in the Urals that stretched from the forests of fir in the north to the steppes below Oren berg in the south. His armies reached Ufa, halfway between the Urals and the Volga. Here the Whites were met by the Army of Turkestan, as well as the I 51, 4 th and 8 th Red Armies, led by General Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze. Frunze was incapacitated by an artillery concussion while advancing on Ufa, but his subordinate, Vasily lvanovich Chapayev, in command of the 25 th Rifle Regiment, pressed ahead. Chapayev was already a legend among the Reds. As a partisan commander the previous year, he had tangled with the Czechoslovak Legionnaires in the Urals. He had since gone to Moscow for advanced military training. He then returned to the Urals front as a regular field commander. Chapayed was himself wounded in the storming of the city, but the Reds prevailed and captured Ufa on June 81\ Now the way was open for the Reds to cross the Urals. Kolchak's government, to say nothing of the Czechoslovak Legionnaires, prepared to evacuate Omsk. "Marry me," Jozef urged �SLOVAKIA-2017 139 Ludmilla. "As an officer's wife, you can return with me to our new country of Czechoslovakia. It will be a good place to live." Ludmilla shook her head sadly. "You Western Slavs can carry your country with you. It is different with us Russians. I can never be at home in another place, regardless of who rules it or how." And so, Jozef and Ludmilla parted ways. Omsk fell to the Red Army on November 14 th . Ludmilla was killed when a stray artillery shell hit her house. A Russian who fled the country later informed Jozef of her death. He never ceased to grieve for her. Happily, Yasha survived and found another home. While evacuating Siberia in 1919, the Czechs and Slovaks kept the best trains for themselves. An exasperated Kolchak cabled his erstwhile subordinate in eastern Siberia, the Kozak atman Grigorii Semyonov, urging him to halt the Czechoslovak trains at all cost. The Legionnaires intercepted the cable and then blocked Kolchak ' s trains at Irkutsk. The desperate Kolchak then abdicated as Supreme Commander of Russia and threw himself on the mercy of the Allies, who now included Czechoslovakia. The previous year the Legionnaires had captured Kazan on the Volga, where they found the tsarist gold reserves . They now negotiated with the Bolsheviks for free rite of passage in return for the gold reserves and the Bolsheviks eagerly accepted. As Kolchak's train, containing cocaine but not much else, reached Irkutsk on January 15, 1920, the Legionnaire guards abandoned him. The city council of Irkutsk then arrested Kolchak. The council consisted of Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries. However, Bolsheviks were also in town. Lenin wanted Kolchak brought to Moscow to stand trial. However, one of Kolchak's commanders tried to rescue him and, when the city council heard of this, it executed Kolchak by firing squad on February 7, 1920 and dumped his body into a hole in the ice on the river Angara. By the end of 1920 the last of the Czechoslovak Legionnaires withdrew by sea from Vladivostok. British and American ships transported them to either Vancouver in Canada or San Francisco in the USA . They then crossed both countries by rail and were shipped to Europe across the Atlantic. Most of them returned to the newlycreated Czechoslovakia. A few decided to remain in the USA. One of them was Jozef Zeleny. *** �140 SLOVAKIA-2017 Jozef had relatives in the Pittsburgh area. The found him employment in the local steel mill. Due to his education and service in the military, Jozko (his pet name) soon became a foreman . He also took an interest in the Slovak community and joined one of their fraternal-benefit societies . Slovak organizations in the Pittsburgh region had played a role in the creation of Czechoslovakia. In 1918 T.G. Masaryk, head of the Czecho-Slovak liberation movement, visited the Mecca of American Slovaks to seek a mandate for the union of the Czechs and Slovaks in a future Czecho-Slovakia because the Slovaks back home were not free to speak their minds. His visit attracted large crowds, including South Slavs. His negotiations with the Slovaks on May 29-31 were quite tempestuous, but led to the signing of the Pittsburgh Agreement, which promised the Slovaks their own Diet, administration, courts, schools and the use of their own language. In other words, home-rule. Unfortunately, when Masaryk returned to the new Czechoslovakia, he first forgot and later repudiated the Pittsburgh Agreement, which led to a breakdown of relations between the Czechs and the Slovaks in the first Czechoslovak Republic. The steel towns of the greater Pittsburgh area were also populated by Carpatho-Rusyns from Hungary. In eastern Slovakia the distinction between Slovak and Rusyn remains somewhat nebulous. Indeed, Jozko qualified as a "Rusnak" (the popular term for Rusyn). Following the lead of the Slovaks, many joined fraternal organizations, which not only provided benefits to workers but published newspapers as well. Through these institutions the Rusyns acquired political awareness . One of their organizations was the Greek Catholic Union headquartered in the Homestead-Munhall district. Another was the United Societies of America, based in McKeesport, which contained both Greek Catholi c and Orthodox members. On July 23 , 1918, they merged to form the American National Council of UhroRusyns. They resolved to join Czechoslovakia in exchange for territorial autonomy. As in the case of the Slovaks, the Prague government decided that they were not ready for autonomy. During the course of his participation in the politics of the fraternals, Jozko bonded with the president of his lodge. Th is individual, Ivan Kosko, some twenty years Zeleny's senior, was personally affable but was hopelessly corrupt. He had been dipping into the treas- �SLOVAKIA-2017 141 ury for some time. He knew he would get caught sooner or later if he did not put the money back. Yet Kosko had a certain bargaining collateral. It consisted of a fifteen year-old daughter who was living back in the Old Country in Kosice with an aunt. This dark haired, wind-swept lass was comely to behold. Kosko showed Jozef Zeleny a picture of her as enticement. He indicated that he wanted to have a responsible husband for her in America, but this required money. Kosko pulled it off. In this manner Jozef Zeleny acquired a mailorder bride. Although he would not admit it , he was marrying her to drown the memory of Ludmilla. And, even though he and Marija produced a considerable number of youngsters between them, things did not work. Jozef Zeleny never ceased to mourn for Ludmilla. There were significant differences between man and wife . As a native of the Svidnik area, Jozef was considered a Rusnak, and definitely Pan-Slav. Marija, a native of Kosice, was culturally if not politically Magyarone. She was deeply religious. Jozef was more spiritual than religious. He loved the Old Church Slavonic liturgy of the Greek Catholic Church. But he never went to confession. Marija asked him why. He explained it to her: "When I was back there in Ludovika, I had to work in the summers, to pay for my arrears and the upkeep of my horse during the school year. I was employed on the property of an affluent priest. One day, when I went to pitch hay in the barn, I heard giggling coming from the haystack. His Reverence was having a romp in the hay with one of the local girls. Alright, this man might represent God when he stands before the altar. But when he steps back from the altar, he is as capable of sin and error as anyone else. I' ll be damned if I answer before him or anyone else." Jozef followed political developments in the New Czechoslovak Republic with great interest. Although he had seen the White side for what it was worth during the course of the Russian Civil War, he had a certain admiration for General Milan Rastislav Stefanik, who was definitely anti-Bolshevik. Stefanik hailed from a village called Kosariska, in the Brezova district of western Slovakia. During the 1848 revolution against Hungarian rule, a famous battle was fought at Brezova. Slovak mountaineers, fighting on their own terms and on their own terrain, defeated the Hungarian military in the otherwise disastrous September campaign. �142 SLOVAKIA-2017 Such was Stefanik ' s heritage. As the son of a Lutheran minister, he was raised in a particularly patriotic regional environment. To assure his son's advancement without the latter succumbing to the pressures of magyarization, his father helped Milan obtain a scholarship in Prague. The old man was utterly appalled with the results. Milan became an agnostic among a circle of Slovak intellectuals in Prague who rallied under Czech philosophy professor T.G. Masaryk. He became the president of the Slovak student organization in Prague known as Detvan. The students in Detvan tended to major in the mundane sciences. Although Stefanik attended Masaryk' s philosophy classes, he majored in astronomy. Upon graduation, he borrowed some money, emigrated to France, and found employment in the Medoun observatory near Paris. In this capacity he engaged in roughly a dozen learned expeditions to other countries. He acquired French citizenship in 1912. He also learned how to fly. Stefanik thus became an officer in the air corps of the French Army when the Great War began. Given his membership on the Czechoslovak National Council, the French eventually accorded Stefanik the rank of brigadiergeneral. He became the driving force in the creation of the Czechoslovak Legion . In this capacity he clashed with Edvard Benes, who soon became foreign minister in the new Czechoslovak Republic. On the other hand, Stefanik advocated pressing an offensive against the Bolsheviks in Siberia, whereas Benes followed Masaryk' s lead in avoiding intervention in Russia's internal affairs. Then there was the issue of Slovak autonomy. Stefanik came from a school of Slovaks who were considered more pro-Czech than the Czechs themselves . Yet, during the Great War, he had occasion to visit the United States, where he solicited American Slovak support. After his interactions with the fraternal leaders, Stefanik considered that, with their advice and financial support, Slovakia could be worthy of autonomy. He resented his name being inscribed to a declaration of independence for Czechoslovakia which made no provision for Slovakia's status . Stefanik and Benes hated each other. Stefanik regarded Benes as "this first grade socialist, this paper revolutionary, this distorted diplomat." Benes responded by labeling Stefanik as "this astronomer who thinks he is a soldier, this peasant who thinks he is an aristocrat, this politician who thinks he is a genius. " �SLOVAKIA-2017 143 Insofar as Benes was entrenched in Prague while Stefanik was with the Legion in Siberia, the Czech foreign minister had the upper hand. Benes had the ministry of defense bifurcated. Stefanik, as Minister of War, retained command of Czechoslovakia's armed forces abroad (the Legion in Siberia), while a clone of Benes, Vaclav Klofac, became the Minister of National Defense .. Stefanik nonetheless prepared to return home. He made official visits to France and Italy. On the morning of May 5, 1919, he boarded a Caproni aircraft in the north Italian city of Udine. It was a three hour flight to Bratislava, Stefanik's intended destination. As he circled the runway of Vajnory, his plane suddenly fell to the ground from a height of 500 meters. Some witnesses charged that Stefanik' s plane had been shot down by a Czech artillery battery. The incident was officially described as an accident. Indeed, this might well have been the case. No evidence has ever been found that Benes had Stefanik murdered. This unfortunate incident came at a time when the Czechoslovak Republic was experiencing border clashes with Hungary, at this time under a Bolshevik government. The markings on the Caproni aircraft (red, white and green) were identical to the Hungarian national colors, albeit in horizontal order. Yet, years afterward, members of the artillery battery maintained that they were given their orders and that there was no mistake. They were expecting that plane. It stood to reason that there would be an appropriate state funeral. Its proceedings were recorded by Robert W. Seton-Watson, a distinguished British historian, who attended. Being Scottish, SetonWatson had a certain romantic attraction for a people who were highlanders with a heroic attitude towards life. He had championed the Slovak cause when they were under Hungarian rule. During the Great War, R. W. Seton-Watson served as adviser to the British government on Eastern European affairs. He became a personal friend of T. G. Masaryk. If Masaryk is said to be the founding father of Czechoslovakia, then Seton-Watson qualifies as the godfather. Seton-Watson description of Stefanik's funeral remains poignant to this day. Bratislava had only recently been occupied by the Czechs. Seton-Watson noted that Skols - Czech gymnastic society members recently assuming para-military roles - kept perfect order during the funeral procession, which extended a mile and a half: "Considering that the Czechs have been here exactly three months in �144 SLOVAKIA-2017 occupation of the town ... it was a ceremony which must have duly impressed the naturally lukewarm Magyar and German citizens, as suggesting that the newcomers had come to stay and are perfectly capable of taking charge." In regard to the aftermath of the ceremonies, Seton-Watson noted: "the coffin left for Brezova ... where the Slovak peasants - this seems to me so typical of their good taste and feeling - have on their accord hewn a rock grave for him on the highest point of the Little Carpathians, overlooking the whole western district." *** A former Legionnaire sent an account of Stefanik' s funeral to Jozef. Jozef mourned for Stefanik. He also subscribed to the theory that Stefanik had been murdered at the instigation of the foreign ministry . He began brooding deeply on the relationship between his life and the recent historical events. He began having nightmares. Throughout the odyssey across Siberia, Jozef had observed atrocities. These not only consisted of the usual burned villages and the numerous hanging of peasants. The Legionnaires became desensitized to the likes of that. But Jozef also had occasion to witness the grisly mutilation of innocent peasants by Kozaks and Mongols. These haunted his dreams. In any case, he could no longer sleep without vodka. And he still grieved for Ludmilla. There are people who, following the death of a spouse or loved one, marry, produce children, yet still grieve for the deceased a full decade later. Jozef Zeleny was such an individual. Eventually, he began taking out his angst on family members. Three specific incidents merit scrutiny. The first of these concerned his eldest daughter, Margarite, when she was twelve years old. He was drinking heavily that day when he could no longer hold his alcohol as he had previously. Margarite was playing hop scotch with other girls. Her father summoned her home with a single whistle. "Ah, gee whiz, I always gotta go," she complained to her friends. Jozef overheard the remark and did not like it. He belabored his daughter with his razor strap repeatedly and with vigor. The next day (when he was sober), he saw Margarite disrobe to step into the wash tub . Her noted the black and blue marks on her back and her rump. �SLOVAKIA-2017 145 "Who did this to you?" he gasped. "You did!" Marija threw it back m his face. "When she was playing hop scotch." Jozko paled and lowered his head. "I'll never beat her again," he vowed. Indeed, on this he kept his word. But he was still capable of emotional excess. On one occasion, when Marija was out of the house, he was minding the youngsters. One infant daughter, Leona, messed her diapers. Her father flew into a rage. His eldest son, Janko, was now a big, strapping young man. Aware of his father's capacity for violence, he intervened decisively. He picked up a railroad tie and cracked his father across the ribs, breaking two of them. Father and son never got close to each other again. Yet the most egregious emotional excess of Jozef Zeleny was yet to come. It concerned one of his daughters, named Helena, the beauty of the litter. Endowed with long dark hair and green eyes, Helena looked more Magyar than Slovak. One could tell she would do well one day. One day, at age seventeen, Helena came home from school, at a time when her mother was not home. There had been a layoff in the steel mill, which extended to the level of foreman . Consequently Jozef Zeleny simply lay around the house, drinking and whittling wood. And now, his daughter was home. "Where is your mother?" he demanded. "I don ' t know," she responded. "You are lying! " her father bellowed. And he threw his knife at her. Here it should be noted that Jozef Zeleny, having been trained by Gypsies, was an excellent knife thrower, whether he was drunk or sober. If he wanted to impale his daughter, he definitely would have done so. The knife whizzed past her head and pinned a lock of her hair against the wall behind her. In a state of shock, Helena's head hit the wall, and she fell to the floor unconscious. When she woke, she could not walk for the next two months. The attending doctor legally petitioned for her to be taken out of the house. She was moved into the house of her elder sister Margarite, now married. As Helena recovered, Margarite made her scrub floors and generally worked her like a dog. �146 SLOVAKIA-2017 Helena Zelenova nonetheless became the most successful of Jozko ' s offspring. She became a cocktail waitress. In this capacity she encountered a piano player in a night club. Reinhard Wolfmeister, of Germanic origin, was not your ordinary piano player. He qualified as a genuine pianist. He began playing piano at age four, had an affection for Chopin, and progressed to Paderewski. He attained such a mastery of Paderewski that he qualified for a scholarship in music at the Sorbonne, in Paris. His mother wanted him to be a doctor. After three years of pre-med at the University of Pittsburgh, Reinhard decided he did not want to be a doctor. This being the era of the Great Depression, he could look down the bluff from Mount Washington and see the tin shantytowns. He decided people didn ' t have enough money to afford doctors. So, instead, he took two courses at the Robert Morris Business College, gained employment in a freight shipping company, and was eventually dragged, kicking and screaming, upstairs to the vice- presidency. Yet insofar as he still loved music, he played piano in nightclubs in the evenings. He worked two jobs. He made money and invested it wisely. Eventually, the Wolfmeister family moved to Florida. Here Helena integrated herself into the local society so well that her Slovak sisters came to describe her as the "Queen of the Jews." *** Jozef Zeleny had enough intelligence left to realize he was losing it. Marija passed away after a brief illness, and he mourned for her. But he still grieved for Ludmilla to an even greater extent. Then there was Helena's forthcoming marriage. Having a heroic attitude towards life, Jozef Zeleny could not appreciate that which was unheroic. His upcoming son-in-law could have been a concert pianist in Paris, yet opted to become the manager of a trucking company in Pittsburgh instead. It made no sense. Jozko once again began to brood deeply. He had worked long enough in the steel industry to benefit from the gains that labor unions made for steelworkers under the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He had a nice pension and began looking for an exit. �SLOVAKIA-2017 147 Jozef had a cousin who lived in Monongahela. He asked if he could visit there for several weeks "for reasons of mental health." His cousin replied in the affirmative. Jozef had yet to reach his dreadful decision when he first went to Monongahela. Yet it is worth nothing that he had one previous experience with hypothermia. Several years back, he had been three miles from home on the coldest night of the winter. The temperature was fifteen degrees below zero and accompanied by thirty mile-an-hour winds. It was snowing horizontally throughout the Monongahela valley. The public transportation system was paralyzed. Jozko was jumping up and down in a futile attempt to warm himself. Since it was too cold to walk, he ran and ran and ran. At the end of the second mile, he wasn't cold anymore. He began feeling like Ulysses hearing the calling of the Sirens. He experienced an erection. And he wanted to lie down and go to sleep. Then he realized what was happening. He was beginning to freeze. Jozef Zeleny resisted the temptation to succumb. He pushed on the last mile to the tavern, where he rented a room upstairs. Ice hung from his normally upturned moustaches. After four shots of vodka, he thawed out... except for his feet. Even though he had worn two pairs of socks, frostbite had gotten into his feet. It felt like he was walking on concrete blocks for the next sixteen hours. Aside from that, it had been a euphoric experience. And so, in Monongahela, Jozko frowned thoughtfully as the wind hit hard and it was obvious that a snowstorm was on the way. "I'm going for a walk," he announced. "JEE-zus Ker-RIST! " his cousin exclaimed. "It's colder than a well digger's ass out there! Have you lost your f'ck"n mind?" I have my reasons," Jozef replied cryptically. He commenced walking across the ridge in a westerly direction. The snowstorm blew into his face. In spite of the severity of the weather, he perceived the terrain as being beautiful. It reminded him of Siberia. As the delirium which accompanies hypothermia took hold, Jozef saw an image before him. It was Ludmilla. He staggered forward. *** �148 SLOVAKIA-2017 Most people who knew her agreed that Celeste Romanczykowa was a rough piece of work. Her house - little more than a cottage stood atop the ridge to which Jozef was ascending. Celeste was the product of a union between a Polish coal miner and a West Virginia hillbilly. So it stood to reason that she could be fractious at times. Auburn, brown eyed, and generously endowed in the breasts and the rump, she was comely to behold to men who are not obsessed with skinny women. Celeste was a widow. Her coal miner husband had died of black lung three years earlier. She was noted for a good heart, and loved dogs. But she did not suffer tyranny gracefully, and consequently ignored the overtures of her husband 's cronies among the coal miners. She lived alone and was lonely. As the snowstorm moved in, she went out on the hillside to gather wood. She saw the strange figure staggering up the hill. "Who are you?" she asked, pulling him by the sleeve. He muttered a few words in Slovak. Being half-Polish, she more or less understood. If she did not know who he was, she understood what he was. She dragged him into the house. Once he reached the couch, he collapsed unconscious. Through a neighbor, Celeste summoned the local doctor. After administering Jozef some medicine, he declared: "If you had discovered him an hour later, it would have been too late. But now I think he'll make it. Just keep him warm. Celeste gazed down at the man on the coach. She noticed the upturned moustaches. Her paternal side of the family had come from the Dukla Pass, between Poland and Slovakia. She perceived that he had at some point in his life been a cavalryman. Later, when his eyes opened, she became hypnotized by their ice blue, steel glaze. Jozko stirred. "Ludmilla, ... " he murmured. "You hush now," she said softly. "I' m going to take care of you." He opened his eyes. And smiled. � SLOVAKIA-2017 133 SIBERIA: A SLOVAK TALE (A story based upon the life of the author's grandfather, Jan Janosko) R. Vladimir Baumgarten Jozef Zeleny, most recently an employee of United States Steel, headquartered in Homestead, Pennsylvania, decided that he no longer wished to live . This puzzled people, after it was all over. By Slovak-American standards, Jozef Zeleny was by no means a failure. Granted his wife had died, but six out of ten of his children had survived and landed on their feet. They were all responsible and functional adults. Yet, Jozef Zeleny wanted to die. He contacted a relative in the town of Monongahela, located on a river of that name and the border of Virginia. He intended to march from there, up and across the ridge line, and disappear into a snowstorm. Hypothermia is a benevolent death. After a while, you no longer feel the cold. You begin to feel warm and sensuous . You want to lie down and sleep. You go to sleep. Then you die. Why did Jozef Zeleny want to die? To answer this question, we must look into his background . It involved a drama which originated a full generation earlier. *** Jozef Zeleny was born near Svidnik, in northeastern Slovakia. Seven generations of his ancestors had served in the military as Hungarian Hussars. Zeleny began his adult life in this hereditary occupation. He was admitted to the Ludovika Military Academy in Budapest and graduated with the rank of sub-lieutenant on the eve of the Great War. In August of 1914 he was dispatched to the Eastern Front. Here he became infected with the spirit of Slovak nationalism , which resented Hungarian domination. Many Czechs and Slovaks in the Austro-Hungarian Army either deserted or were captured by the Russian army. In this way Zeleny became a member of the Czechoslovak Legion. �134 SLOVAKIA-2017 The Czechoslovak Legion in Russia was a curious organization. Colonies of Czechs and Slovaks had existed in Russia since the 19 th century. After the outbreak of the war, Czechs and Slovaks in Russia were allowed to organize themselves into a military unit called the Druiina, which served as an auxiliary to the Russian Army. Originally, the Drui ina engaged in reconnaissance and infiltration of Slavic units in the Austro-Hungarian army. As it demonstrated its competence, the Druiina, grew, with more captured Slavic prisoners. In March of 1917 revolution erupted in Petrograd and on March 15 th Tsar Nicholas II abdicated and a Provisional Government replaced him. Most Czech and Slovak Legionnaires disliked Tsarist rule and initially welcomed the Russian Revolution. They had chafed under the restrictions imposed upon them by the Tsarist government and looked forward to more freedom of action. Zeleny participated in the Czechoslovak Legion's baptism of fire at the battle of Zborov on July 2, 1917. Zborov (Zboriv in Ukrainian), is a village in the Carpathian foothills of western Ukraine, then part of the Austrian province of Galicia. In its vicinity, two fortified Austrian positions, Galish and Kalish, guarded the approaches to the city of Lviv (Lemberg, Lvov). Two Finnish Regiments of the Russian Army were ordered to effect a pincers movement around Galish. The Legionnaires were supposed to move in after the Finns. However, the Czechs and Slovaks were impatient for action and moved ahead of the Finns. Their opponents were largely Czechs or Bosnian Serbs, who were poorly-motivated. While the Russian command hesitated in the southern sector, the Legionnaires, led by Captain Radola Gajda, stormed the hills overlooking the battlefield. This breakthrough resulted in the capture of 62 Austro-Hungarian officers, 3,150 soldiers, 20 pieces of arti llery and 40 machine guns. Russian General Selichev then declared, "Czech eagles led Russian chickens ." After this victory, the Russian Provisional Government recognized the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia as an independent army, answerable to the Czechoslovak National Council in Paris, led by T.G. Masaryk, Milan R. Stefanik and Edvard Benes. However, the Provisional Government was toppled by a military coup in Petrograd, led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin on November 7, 1917. Since the incoming Bolshevik government wanted peace with Germany in order to create a communist state in Russia, it inherited a large number �SLOVAKIA-2017 135 of Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war, many of whom were armed and roaming the countryside. The Czechoslovak Legionnaires were among them, and continued to support the Western Allies. On the other hand, many German and Hungarian prisoners of war had joined the newly-established Red Guards. They now controlled large areas of Siberia. On May 15, 1918, an incident occurred in Russia which had international ramifications. At the railway station in Chelyabinsk, in the Ural Mountains, a train carrying Czechoslovak Legionnaires drew alongside a train bearing repatriated Hungarian p.o.w. ' s headed in the opposite direction. The Bolsheviks had made peace with the Germans and Austro-Hungarians in December of 1917 and had agreed to repatriate each other's p.o.w.'s. As the trains passed each other, a shouting match ensued and one of the Hungarians hurled a lead pipe and fractured a Czech soldier's skull. The well-armed Legionnaires pulled the culprit off the train and hanged him on the spot. The local Soviet government demanded an inquiry and arrested three Czechoslovak officers who attended the inquiry. As soon as their comrades heard of this incident, they stormed the jail, freed their officers, and seized control of the town. In Moscow, Commissar of War Leon Trotsky, ordered that any armed Czechoslovak soldiers found along the Trans-Siberian Railway were to be shot on the spot. This was probably Trotsky ' s biggest mistake. Relieved of the necessity of negotiating with the Bolsheviks, the Legionnaires seized control of the Trans-Siberian railroad and blasted their way east all the way to Vladivostok on the Pacific. For eighteen months this army without a country controlled the world ' s largest land mass. *** And so, Lieutenant Zeleny found himself in Siberia. It was a huge land of contrasts and contradictions. Covered in snow and frost during the long winter, it became a field of flowers in the summer. The land was rich in natural resources. Much of the timber was cut and the minerals were mined by convict labor. Tens of thousands of Russian men and women , convicted of crimes ranging from murder to petty theft or even simple vagrancy, had been deported there. Siberia boasted a penal system operated at a profit. On the other hand, Siberia also contained many Russians who had moved there in �136 SLOVAKIA-2017 search of land and greater liberty. It was a land of unlimited opportunity for those who were able to withstand its rigors. Peasants in Siberia became accustomed to thinking and acting more independently than their kinsmen in European Russia. This would have fateful consequences for the White side during the Russian Civil War. Although there were theaters and other forms of amusement in Omsk, Irkutsk and Vladivostok, the chief form of recreation in Siberia was the consumption of vodka. Harbing, a city the Russians built in Manchuria, on a stretch of land they obtained as a concession from China, boasted a distillery that produced thirty million gallons of vodka per year. Other distilleries in Siberia soon equaled this production . As in many frontier cultures, Siberia was more inclined to dispense alcohol than education. In the late 1880's the American journalist George Kennan observe that in each settlement, there were thirty saloons for every school. Jozef Zeleny liked to drink. He acclimatized to the local culture. He managed to digest kumis (fermented mare ' s milk), and cultivated a genuine fondness for another fermented beverage made of juice derived from reindeer antlers. But, serious drinking involved vodka. For this reason he visited a certain tavern in Omsk in the summer of 1918. There he was attracted to a very striking, brown-eyed blonde. As a rule, women did not frequent taverns unless they were prostitutes. Something in her bearing suggested that she was not. Jozef left her alone. Three days later he encountered her in the local park. She was walking a dog on a leash. It was said to be a Jack Russel , although it had the face of a Pit Bull. Suddenly, two larger unleashed dogs appeared . They bore down upon the little guy. Jozef seized a fallen tree branch and rushed into the fray. The little guy was way ahead of him. Roaring like a lion, he plunged forward and hit one of the bigger dogs with his head, causing it to bowl over. Meanwhile, Jozef hit to other dog with his switch. Both bigger dogs ran off. Man and small dog stood triumphantly on the field of battle. The blonde woman laughed delightedly. "Bravo! " she exclaimmed. "You were both magnificent." Jozef looked at her with narrowed eyes. "I saw you in the tavern a few days ago. I see that you are some kind of lady. You have no business in a place like that. Why did you go there?" �SLOVAKIA-2017 137 "Because I was waiting for someone to tell me that, instead of trying to pick me up. I need a friend ... and some help." Jozef was stunned by her answer. This is how he met Ludmilla Suslova. She was a schoolteacher. Her father worked for the Directorate, which claimed to be the government of Siberia. The Directorate consisted of Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries and was opposed to the Bolsheviks in Moscow. The Directorate enjoyed the patronage of the Czechoslovak Legion. Ludmilla's husband had recently abandoned her. Their small house was in need of repair. She needed a good man around the house and Jozef qualified. She told him that he could move in rent-free if he maintained the house. He was amenable to such an arrangement because he currently occupied a tepluska, one of the railway boxcars attached to an armored train, along with other Legionnaires. A comer was set aside for games of cards or chess, but there was no privacy. Jozef and Ludmilla did not bond immediately. He was intimidated by her beauty. He initially bonded with her dog Yasha. He was useless as a watchdog since he barked only at other animals. This sad-eyed canine brought great joy to Jozef s life. Ultimately, nature took its course between Jozef and Ludmilla. One day, when working together in the house, their bodies pressed against each other. Mutually-suppressed desire spontaneously exploded. They did not even make it into the bedroom. Thereafter, they lived as man and wife. *** Both the Western Allies and Japan had long been seeking an excuse to intervene in Russia against the Bolsheviks. Now they had one. In the summer of 1918 they recognized the Czechoslovak Legionnaires as co-belligerents against Germany and Austria-Hungary and could justify landing troops in Siberia under the pretext of rendering aid to their allies. However, the paradigm shifted in the autumn months. The Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary disintegrated in October and on the 28 th the newly-created Czechoslovak Republic emerged. Now the Legionnaires lost interest in fighting the Bolsheviks and just wanted to go home. Furthermore, on November 15 1\ just after the armistice which ended the Great War, the Directory in Omsk was toppled by a �138 SLOVAKIA-2017 military coup. A certain Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak, who just two weeks earlier had been living in a cheap Tokyo hotel, claimed the title of Supreme Commander of all Russia. He was unequal to the task. Although personally honest and well-intentioned, Kolchak had little control over his subordinates, most of whom were thieves and bandits in the pay of the Japanese, and who committed various war crimes against the civilian population. About six months after Kolchak assumed power, just as the black flies and mosquitos in Siberia began to reassert themselves, Captain (yes, he had been promoted) Zeleny had a revealing experience. He passed through a barnyard in which wounded Russian soldiers lay in the hay. The insects attacked the pus oozing from their wounds. Distressed by what he saw, Zeleny approached an elegantlydressed White Russian officer, who was speaking in French to a lady on his arm. "These men are in bad shape!" Jozef exclaimed. "You should help them out!" "Please don ' t talk about things like that," the officer replied . "You' II upset the lady." When Jozef related the incident to Ludmilla, he declared "A regime built upon this kind of shit cannot survive." Ludmilla agreed. Yet, for a time, given the backing of the Western Allies and Japan, it looked as if Kolchak might win. On March 6, 1919, he launched a 700-mile offensive in the Urals that stretched from the forests of fir in the north to the steppes below Oren berg in the south. His armies reached Ufa, halfway between the Urals and the Volga. Here the Whites were met by the Army of Turkestan, as well as the I 51, 4 th and 8 th Red Armies, led by General Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze. Frunze was incapacitated by an artillery concussion while advancing on Ufa, but his subordinate, Vasily lvanovich Chapayev, in command of the 25 th Rifle Regiment, pressed ahead. Chapayev was already a legend among the Reds. As a partisan commander the previous year, he had tangled with the Czechoslovak Legionnaires in the Urals. He had since gone to Moscow for advanced military training. He then returned to the Urals front as a regular field commander. Chapayed was himself wounded in the storming of the city, but the Reds prevailed and captured Ufa on June 81\ Now the way was open for the Reds to cross the Urals. Kolchak's government, to say nothing of the Czechoslovak Legionnaires, prepared to evacuate Omsk. "Marry me," Jozef urged �SLOVAKIA-2017 139 Ludmilla. "As an officer's wife, you can return with me to our new country of Czechoslovakia. It will be a good place to live." Ludmilla shook her head sadly. "You Western Slavs can carry your country with you. It is different with us Russians. I can never be at home in another place, regardless of who rules it or how." And so, Jozef and Ludmilla parted ways. Omsk fell to the Red Army on November 14 th . Ludmilla was killed when a stray artillery shell hit her house. A Russian who fled the country later informed Jozef of her death. He never ceased to grieve for her. Happily, Yasha survived and found another home. While evacuating Siberia in 1919, the Czechs and Slovaks kept the best trains for themselves. An exasperated Kolchak cabled his erstwhile subordinate in eastern Siberia, the Kozak atman Grigorii Semyonov, urging him to halt the Czechoslovak trains at all cost. The Legionnaires intercepted the cable and then blocked Kolchak ' s trains at Irkutsk. The desperate Kolchak then abdicated as Supreme Commander of Russia and threw himself on the mercy of the Allies, who now included Czechoslovakia. The previous year the Legionnaires had captured Kazan on the Volga, where they found the tsarist gold reserves . They now negotiated with the Bolsheviks for free rite of passage in return for the gold reserves and the Bolsheviks eagerly accepted. As Kolchak's train, containing cocaine but not much else, reached Irkutsk on January 15, 1920, the Legionnaire guards abandoned him. The city council of Irkutsk then arrested Kolchak. The council consisted of Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries. However, Bolsheviks were also in town. Lenin wanted Kolchak brought to Moscow to stand trial. However, one of Kolchak's commanders tried to rescue him and, when the city council heard of this, it executed Kolchak by firing squad on February 7, 1920 and dumped his body into a hole in the ice on the river Angara. By the end of 1920 the last of the Czechoslovak Legionnaires withdrew by sea from Vladivostok. British and American ships transported them to either Vancouver in Canada or San Francisco in the USA . They then crossed both countries by rail and were shipped to Europe across the Atlantic. Most of them returned to the newlycreated Czechoslovakia. A few decided to remain in the USA. One of them was Jozef Zeleny. *** �140 SLOVAKIA-2017 Jozef had relatives in the Pittsburgh area. The found him employment in the local steel mill. Due to his education and service in the military, Jozko (his pet name) soon became a foreman . He also took an interest in the Slovak community and joined one of their fraternal-benefit societies . Slovak organizations in the Pittsburgh region had played a role in the creation of Czechoslovakia. In 1918 T.G. Masaryk, head of the Czecho-Slovak liberation movement, visited the Mecca of American Slovaks to seek a mandate for the union of the Czechs and Slovaks in a future Czecho-Slovakia because the Slovaks back home were not free to speak their minds. His visit attracted large crowds, including South Slavs. His negotiations with the Slovaks on May 29-31 were quite tempestuous, but led to the signing of the Pittsburgh Agreement, which promised the Slovaks their own Diet, administration, courts, schools and the use of their own language. In other words, home-rule. Unfortunately, when Masaryk returned to the new Czechoslovakia, he first forgot and later repudiated the Pittsburgh Agreement, which led to a breakdown of relations between the Czechs and the Slovaks in the first Czechoslovak Republic. The steel towns of the greater Pittsburgh area were also populated by Carpatho-Rusyns from Hungary. In eastern Slovakia the distinction between Slovak and Rusyn remains somewhat nebulous. Indeed, Jozko qualified as a "Rusnak" (the popular term for Rusyn). Following the lead of the Slovaks, many joined fraternal organizations, which not only provided benefits to workers but published newspapers as well. Through these institutions the Rusyns acquired political awareness . One of their organizations was the Greek Catholic Union headquartered in the Homestead-Munhall district. Another was the United Societies of America, based in McKeesport, which contained both Greek Catholi c and Orthodox members. On July 23 , 1918, they merged to form the American National Council of UhroRusyns. They resolved to join Czechoslovakia in exchange for territorial autonomy. As in the case of the Slovaks, the Prague government decided that they were not ready for autonomy. During the course of his participation in the politics of the fraternals, Jozko bonded with the president of his lodge. Th is individual, Ivan Kosko, some twenty years Zeleny's senior, was personally affable but was hopelessly corrupt. He had been dipping into the treas- �SLOVAKIA-2017 141 ury for some time. He knew he would get caught sooner or later if he did not put the money back. Yet Kosko had a certain bargaining collateral. It consisted of a fifteen year-old daughter who was living back in the Old Country in Kosice with an aunt. This dark haired, wind-swept lass was comely to behold. Kosko showed Jozef Zeleny a picture of her as enticement. He indicated that he wanted to have a responsible husband for her in America, but this required money. Kosko pulled it off. In this manner Jozef Zeleny acquired a mailorder bride. Although he would not admit it , he was marrying her to drown the memory of Ludmilla. And, even though he and Marija produced a considerable number of youngsters between them, things did not work. Jozef Zeleny never ceased to mourn for Ludmilla. There were significant differences between man and wife . As a native of the Svidnik area, Jozef was considered a Rusnak, and definitely Pan-Slav. Marija, a native of Kosice, was culturally if not politically Magyarone. She was deeply religious. Jozef was more spiritual than religious. He loved the Old Church Slavonic liturgy of the Greek Catholic Church. But he never went to confession. Marija asked him why. He explained it to her: "When I was back there in Ludovika, I had to work in the summers, to pay for my arrears and the upkeep of my horse during the school year. I was employed on the property of an affluent priest. One day, when I went to pitch hay in the barn, I heard giggling coming from the haystack. His Reverence was having a romp in the hay with one of the local girls. Alright, this man might represent God when he stands before the altar. But when he steps back from the altar, he is as capable of sin and error as anyone else. I' ll be damned if I answer before him or anyone else." Jozef followed political developments in the New Czechoslovak Republic with great interest. Although he had seen the White side for what it was worth during the course of the Russian Civil War, he had a certain admiration for General Milan Rastislav Stefanik, who was definitely anti-Bolshevik. Stefanik hailed from a village called Kosariska, in the Brezova district of western Slovakia. During the 1848 revolution against Hungarian rule, a famous battle was fought at Brezova. Slovak mountaineers, fighting on their own terms and on their own terrain, defeated the Hungarian military in the otherwise disastrous September campaign. �142 SLOVAKIA-2017 Such was Stefanik ' s heritage. As the son of a Lutheran minister, he was raised in a particularly patriotic regional environment. To assure his son's advancement without the latter succumbing to the pressures of magyarization, his father helped Milan obtain a scholarship in Prague. The old man was utterly appalled with the results. Milan became an agnostic among a circle of Slovak intellectuals in Prague who rallied under Czech philosophy professor T.G. Masaryk. He became the president of the Slovak student organization in Prague known as Detvan. The students in Detvan tended to major in the mundane sciences. Although Stefanik attended Masaryk' s philosophy classes, he majored in astronomy. Upon graduation, he borrowed some money, emigrated to France, and found employment in the Medoun observatory near Paris. In this capacity he engaged in roughly a dozen learned expeditions to other countries. He acquired French citizenship in 1912. He also learned how to fly. Stefanik thus became an officer in the air corps of the French Army when the Great War began. Given his membership on the Czechoslovak National Council, the French eventually accorded Stefanik the rank of brigadiergeneral. He became the driving force in the creation of the Czechoslovak Legion . In this capacity he clashed with Edvard Benes, who soon became foreign minister in the new Czechoslovak Republic. On the other hand, Stefanik advocated pressing an offensive against the Bolsheviks in Siberia, whereas Benes followed Masaryk' s lead in avoiding intervention in Russia's internal affairs. Then there was the issue of Slovak autonomy. Stefanik came from a school of Slovaks who were considered more pro-Czech than the Czechs themselves . Yet, during the Great War, he had occasion to visit the United States, where he solicited American Slovak support. After his interactions with the fraternal leaders, Stefanik considered that, with their advice and financial support, Slovakia could be worthy of autonomy. He resented his name being inscribed to a declaration of independence for Czechoslovakia which made no provision for Slovakia's status . Stefanik and Benes hated each other. Stefanik regarded Benes as "this first grade socialist, this paper revolutionary, this distorted diplomat." Benes responded by labeling Stefanik as "this astronomer who thinks he is a soldier, this peasant who thinks he is an aristocrat, this politician who thinks he is a genius. " �SLOVAKIA-2017 143 Insofar as Benes was entrenched in Prague while Stefanik was with the Legion in Siberia, the Czech foreign minister had the upper hand. Benes had the ministry of defense bifurcated. Stefanik, as Minister of War, retained command of Czechoslovakia's armed forces abroad (the Legion in Siberia), while a clone of Benes, Vaclav Klofac, became the Minister of National Defense .. Stefanik nonetheless prepared to return home. He made official visits to France and Italy. On the morning of May 5, 1919, he boarded a Caproni aircraft in the north Italian city of Udine. It was a three hour flight to Bratislava, Stefanik's intended destination. As he circled the runway of Vajnory, his plane suddenly fell to the ground from a height of 500 meters. Some witnesses charged that Stefanik' s plane had been shot down by a Czech artillery battery. The incident was officially described as an accident. Indeed, this might well have been the case. No evidence has ever been found that Benes had Stefanik murdered. This unfortunate incident came at a time when the Czechoslovak Republic was experiencing border clashes with Hungary, at this time under a Bolshevik government. The markings on the Caproni aircraft (red, white and green) were identical to the Hungarian national colors, albeit in horizontal order. Yet, years afterward, members of the artillery battery maintained that they were given their orders and that there was no mistake. They were expecting that plane. It stood to reason that there would be an appropriate state funeral. Its proceedings were recorded by Robert W. Seton-Watson, a distinguished British historian, who attended. Being Scottish, SetonWatson had a certain romantic attraction for a people who were highlanders with a heroic attitude towards life. He had championed the Slovak cause when they were under Hungarian rule. During the Great War, R. W. Seton-Watson served as adviser to the British government on Eastern European affairs. He became a personal friend of T. G. Masaryk. If Masaryk is said to be the founding father of Czechoslovakia, then Seton-Watson qualifies as the godfather. Seton-Watson description of Stefanik's funeral remains poignant to this day. Bratislava had only recently been occupied by the Czechs. Seton-Watson noted that Skols - Czech gymnastic society members recently assuming para-military roles - kept perfect order during the funeral procession, which extended a mile and a half: "Considering that the Czechs have been here exactly three months in �144 SLOVAKIA-2017 occupation of the town ... it was a ceremony which must have duly impressed the naturally lukewarm Magyar and German citizens, as suggesting that the newcomers had come to stay and are perfectly capable of taking charge." In regard to the aftermath of the ceremonies, Seton-Watson noted: "the coffin left for Brezova ... where the Slovak peasants - this seems to me so typical of their good taste and feeling - have on their accord hewn a rock grave for him on the highest point of the Little Carpathians, overlooking the whole western district." *** A former Legionnaire sent an account of Stefanik' s funeral to Jozef. Jozef mourned for Stefanik. He also subscribed to the theory that Stefanik had been murdered at the instigation of the foreign ministry . He began brooding deeply on the relationship between his life and the recent historical events. He began having nightmares. Throughout the odyssey across Siberia, Jozef had observed atrocities. These not only consisted of the usual burned villages and the numerous hanging of peasants. The Legionnaires became desensitized to the likes of that. But Jozef also had occasion to witness the grisly mutilation of innocent peasants by Kozaks and Mongols. These haunted his dreams. In any case, he could no longer sleep without vodka. And he still grieved for Ludmilla. There are people who, following the death of a spouse or loved one, marry, produce children, yet still grieve for the deceased a full decade later. Jozef Zeleny was such an individual. Eventually, he began taking out his angst on family members. Three specific incidents merit scrutiny. The first of these concerned his eldest daughter, Margarite, when she was twelve years old. He was drinking heavily that day when he could no longer hold his alcohol as he had previously. Margarite was playing hop scotch with other girls. Her father summoned her home with a single whistle. "Ah, gee whiz, I always gotta go," she complained to her friends. Jozef overheard the remark and did not like it. He belabored his daughter with his razor strap repeatedly and with vigor. The next day (when he was sober), he saw Margarite disrobe to step into the wash tub . Her noted the black and blue marks on her back and her rump. �SLOVAKIA-2017 145 "Who did this to you?" he gasped. "You did!" Marija threw it back m his face. "When she was playing hop scotch." Jozko paled and lowered his head. "I'll never beat her again," he vowed. Indeed, on this he kept his word. But he was still capable of emotional excess. On one occasion, when Marija was out of the house, he was minding the youngsters. One infant daughter, Leona, messed her diapers. Her father flew into a rage. His eldest son, Janko, was now a big, strapping young man. Aware of his father's capacity for violence, he intervened decisively. He picked up a railroad tie and cracked his father across the ribs, breaking two of them. Father and son never got close to each other again. Yet the most egregious emotional excess of Jozef Zeleny was yet to come. It concerned one of his daughters, named Helena, the beauty of the litter. Endowed with long dark hair and green eyes, Helena looked more Magyar than Slovak. One could tell she would do well one day. One day, at age seventeen, Helena came home from school, at a time when her mother was not home. There had been a layoff in the steel mill, which extended to the level of foreman . Consequently Jozef Zeleny simply lay around the house, drinking and whittling wood. And now, his daughter was home. "Where is your mother?" he demanded. "I don ' t know," she responded. "You are lying! " her father bellowed. And he threw his knife at her. Here it should be noted that Jozef Zeleny, having been trained by Gypsies, was an excellent knife thrower, whether he was drunk or sober. If he wanted to impale his daughter, he definitely would have done so. The knife whizzed past her head and pinned a lock of her hair against the wall behind her. In a state of shock, Helena's head hit the wall, and she fell to the floor unconscious. When she woke, she could not walk for the next two months. The attending doctor legally petitioned for her to be taken out of the house. She was moved into the house of her elder sister Margarite, now married. As Helena recovered, Margarite made her scrub floors and generally worked her like a dog. �146 SLOVAKIA-2017 Helena Zelenova nonetheless became the most successful of Jozko ' s offspring. She became a cocktail waitress. In this capacity she encountered a piano player in a night club. Reinhard Wolfmeister, of Germanic origin, was not your ordinary piano player. He qualified as a genuine pianist. He began playing piano at age four, had an affection for Chopin, and progressed to Paderewski. He attained such a mastery of Paderewski that he qualified for a scholarship in music at the Sorbonne, in Paris. His mother wanted him to be a doctor. After three years of pre-med at the University of Pittsburgh, Reinhard decided he did not want to be a doctor. This being the era of the Great Depression, he could look down the bluff from Mount Washington and see the tin shantytowns. He decided people didn ' t have enough money to afford doctors. So, instead, he took two courses at the Robert Morris Business College, gained employment in a freight shipping company, and was eventually dragged, kicking and screaming, upstairs to the vice- presidency. Yet insofar as he still loved music, he played piano in nightclubs in the evenings. He worked two jobs. He made money and invested it wisely. Eventually, the Wolfmeister family moved to Florida. Here Helena integrated herself into the local society so well that her Slovak sisters came to describe her as the "Queen of the Jews." *** Jozef Zeleny had enough intelligence left to realize he was losing it. Marija passed away after a brief illness, and he mourned for her. But he still grieved for Ludmilla to an even greater extent. Then there was Helena's forthcoming marriage. Having a heroic attitude towards life, Jozef Zeleny could not appreciate that which was unheroic. His upcoming son-in-law could have been a concert pianist in Paris, yet opted to become the manager of a trucking company in Pittsburgh instead. It made no sense. Jozko once again began to brood deeply. He had worked long enough in the steel industry to benefit from the gains that labor unions made for steelworkers under the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He had a nice pension and began looking for an exit. �SLOVAKIA-2017 147 Jozef had a cousin who lived in Monongahela. He asked if he could visit there for several weeks "for reasons of mental health." His cousin replied in the affirmative. Jozef had yet to reach his dreadful decision when he first went to Monongahela. Yet it is worth nothing that he had one previous experience with hypothermia. Several years back, he had been three miles from home on the coldest night of the winter. The temperature was fifteen degrees below zero and accompanied by thirty mile-an-hour winds. It was snowing horizontally throughout the Monongahela valley. The public transportation system was paralyzed. Jozko was jumping up and down in a futile attempt to warm himself. Since it was too cold to walk, he ran and ran and ran. At the end of the second mile, he wasn't cold anymore. He began feeling like Ulysses hearing the calling of the Sirens. He experienced an erection. And he wanted to lie down and go to sleep. Then he realized what was happening. He was beginning to freeze. Jozef Zeleny resisted the temptation to succumb. He pushed on the last mile to the tavern, where he rented a room upstairs. Ice hung from his normally upturned moustaches. After four shots of vodka, he thawed out... except for his feet. Even though he had worn two pairs of socks, frostbite had gotten into his feet. It felt like he was walking on concrete blocks for the next sixteen hours. Aside from that, it had been a euphoric experience. And so, in Monongahela, Jozko frowned thoughtfully as the wind hit hard and it was obvious that a snowstorm was on the way. "I'm going for a walk," he announced. "JEE-zus Ker-RIST! " his cousin exclaimed. "It's colder than a well digger's ass out there! Have you lost your f'ck"n mind?" I have my reasons," Jozef replied cryptically. He commenced walking across the ridge in a westerly direction. The snowstorm blew into his face. In spite of the severity of the weather, he perceived the terrain as being beautiful. It reminded him of Siberia. As the delirium which accompanies hypothermia took hold, Jozef saw an image before him. It was Ludmilla. He staggered forward. *** �148 SLOVAKIA-2017 Most people who knew her agreed that Celeste Romanczykowa was a rough piece of work. Her house - little more than a cottage stood atop the ridge to which Jozef was ascending. Celeste was the product of a union between a Polish coal miner and a West Virginia hillbilly. So it stood to reason that she could be fractious at times. Auburn, brown eyed, and generously endowed in the breasts and the rump, she was comely to behold to men who are not obsessed with skinny women. Celeste was a widow. Her coal miner husband had died of black lung three years earlier. She was noted for a good heart, and loved dogs. But she did not suffer tyranny gracefully, and consequently ignored the overtures of her husband 's cronies among the coal miners. She lived alone and was lonely. As the snowstorm moved in, she went out on the hillside to gather wood. She saw the strange figure staggering up the hill. "Who are you?" she asked, pulling him by the sleeve. He muttered a few words in Slovak. Being half-Polish, she more or less understood. If she did not know who he was, she understood what he was. She dragged him into the house. Once he reached the couch, he collapsed unconscious. Through a neighbor, Celeste summoned the local doctor. After administering Jozef some medicine, he declared: "If you had discovered him an hour later, it would have been too late. But now I think he'll make it. Just keep him warm. Celeste gazed down at the man on the coach. She noticed the upturned moustaches. Her paternal side of the family had come from the Dukla Pass, between Poland and Slovakia. She perceived that he had at some point in his life been a cavalryman. Later, when his eyes opened, she became hypnotized by their ice blue, steel glaze. Jozko stirred. "Ludmilla, ... " he murmured. "You hush now," she said softly. "I' m going to take care of you." He opened his eyes. And smiled. � 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 2017, Vol. 43 Description An account of the resource Vol. 43 (No. 80-81), 2017. 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 2017 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-2017 133 SIBERIA: A SLOVAK TALE (A story based upon the life of the author's grandfather, Jan Janosko) R. Vladimir Baumgarten Jozef Zeleny, most recently an employee of United States Steel, headquartered in Homestead, Pennsylvania, decided that he no longer wished to live . This puzzled people, after it was all over. By Slovak-American standards, Jozef Zeleny was by no means a failure. Granted his wife had died, but six out of ten of his children had survived and landed on their feet. They were all responsible and functional adults. Yet, Jozef Zeleny wanted to die. He contacted a relative in the town of Monongahela, located on a river of that name and the border of Virginia. He intended to march from there, up and across the ridge line, and disappear into a snowstorm. Hypothermia is a benevolent death. After a while, you no longer feel the cold. You begin to feel warm and sensuous . You want to lie down and sleep. You go to sleep. Then you die. Why did Jozef Zeleny want to die? To answer this question, we must look into his background . It involved a drama which originated a full generation earlier. *** Jozef Zeleny was born near Svidnik, in northeastern Slovakia. Seven generations of his ancestors had served in the military as Hungarian Hussars. Zeleny began his adult life in this hereditary occupation. He was admitted to the Ludovika Military Academy in Budapest and graduated with the rank of sub-lieutenant on the eve of the Great War. In August of 1914 he was dispatched to the Eastern Front. Here he became infected with the spirit of Slovak nationalism , which resented Hungarian domination. Many Czechs and Slovaks in the Austro-Hungarian Army either deserted or were captured by the Russian army. In this way Zeleny became a member of the Czechoslovak Legion. 134 SLOVAKIA-2017 The Czechoslovak Legion in Russia was a curious organization. Colonies of Czechs and Slovaks had existed in Russia since the 19 th century. After the outbreak of the war, Czechs and Slovaks in Russia were allowed to organize themselves into a military unit called the Druiina, which served as an auxiliary to the Russian Army. Originally, the Drui ina engaged in reconnaissance and infiltration of Slavic units in the Austro-Hungarian army. As it demonstrated its competence, the Druiina, grew, with more captured Slavic prisoners. In March of 1917 revolution erupted in Petrograd and on March 15 th Tsar Nicholas II abdicated and a Provisional Government replaced him. Most Czech and Slovak Legionnaires disliked Tsarist rule and initially welcomed the Russian Revolution. They had chafed under the restrictions imposed upon them by the Tsarist government and looked forward to more freedom of action. Zeleny participated in the Czechoslovak Legion's baptism of fire at the battle of Zborov on July 2, 1917. Zborov (Zboriv in Ukrainian), is a village in the Carpathian foothills of western Ukraine, then part of the Austrian province of Galicia. In its vicinity, two fortified Austrian positions, Galish and Kalish, guarded the approaches to the city of Lviv (Lemberg, Lvov). Two Finnish Regiments of the Russian Army were ordered to effect a pincers movement around Galish. The Legionnaires were supposed to move in after the Finns. However, the Czechs and Slovaks were impatient for action and moved ahead of the Finns. Their opponents were largely Czechs or Bosnian Serbs, who were poorly-motivated. While the Russian command hesitated in the southern sector, the Legionnaires, led by Captain Radola Gajda, stormed the hills overlooking the battlefield. This breakthrough resulted in the capture of 62 Austro-Hungarian officers, 3,150 soldiers, 20 pieces of arti llery and 40 machine guns. Russian General Selichev then declared, "Czech eagles led Russian chickens ." After this victory, the Russian Provisional Government recognized the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia as an independent army, answerable to the Czechoslovak National Council in Paris, led by T.G. Masaryk, Milan R. Stefanik and Edvard Benes. However, the Provisional Government was toppled by a military coup in Petrograd, led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin on November 7, 1917. Since the incoming Bolshevik government wanted peace with Germany in order to create a communist state in Russia, it inherited a large number SLOVAKIA-2017 135 of Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war, many of whom were armed and roaming the countryside. The Czechoslovak Legionnaires were among them, and continued to support the Western Allies. On the other hand, many German and Hungarian prisoners of war had joined the newly-established Red Guards. They now controlled large areas of Siberia. On May 15, 1918, an incident occurred in Russia which had international ramifications. At the railway station in Chelyabinsk, in the Ural Mountains, a train carrying Czechoslovak Legionnaires drew alongside a train bearing repatriated Hungarian p.o.w. ' s headed in the opposite direction. The Bolsheviks had made peace with the Germans and Austro-Hungarians in December of 1917 and had agreed to repatriate each other's p.o.w.'s. As the trains passed each other, a shouting match ensued and one of the Hungarians hurled a lead pipe and fractured a Czech soldier's skull. The well-armed Legionnaires pulled the culprit off the train and hanged him on the spot. The local Soviet government demanded an inquiry and arrested three Czechoslovak officers who attended the inquiry. As soon as their comrades heard of this incident, they stormed the jail, freed their officers, and seized control of the town. In Moscow, Commissar of War Leon Trotsky, ordered that any armed Czechoslovak soldiers found along the Trans-Siberian Railway were to be shot on the spot. This was probably Trotsky ' s biggest mistake. Relieved of the necessity of negotiating with the Bolsheviks, the Legionnaires seized control of the Trans-Siberian railroad and blasted their way east all the way to Vladivostok on the Pacific. For eighteen months this army without a country controlled the world ' s largest land mass. *** And so, Lieutenant Zeleny found himself in Siberia. It was a huge land of contrasts and contradictions. Covered in snow and frost during the long winter, it became a field of flowers in the summer. The land was rich in natural resources. Much of the timber was cut and the minerals were mined by convict labor. Tens of thousands of Russian men and women , convicted of crimes ranging from murder to petty theft or even simple vagrancy, had been deported there. Siberia boasted a penal system operated at a profit. On the other hand, Siberia also contained many Russians who had moved there in 136 SLOVAKIA-2017 search of land and greater liberty. It was a land of unlimited opportunity for those who were able to withstand its rigors. Peasants in Siberia became accustomed to thinking and acting more independently than their kinsmen in European Russia. This would have fateful consequences for the White side during the Russian Civil War. Although there were theaters and other forms of amusement in Omsk, Irkutsk and Vladivostok, the chief form of recreation in Siberia was the consumption of vodka. Harbing, a city the Russians built in Manchuria, on a stretch of land they obtained as a concession from China, boasted a distillery that produced thirty million gallons of vodka per year. Other distilleries in Siberia soon equaled this production . As in many frontier cultures, Siberia was more inclined to dispense alcohol than education. In the late 1880's the American journalist George Kennan observe that in each settlement, there were thirty saloons for every school. Jozef Zeleny liked to drink. He acclimatized to the local culture. He managed to digest kumis (fermented mare ' s milk), and cultivated a genuine fondness for another fermented beverage made of juice derived from reindeer antlers. But, serious drinking involved vodka. For this reason he visited a certain tavern in Omsk in the summer of 1918. There he was attracted to a very striking, brown-eyed blonde. As a rule, women did not frequent taverns unless they were prostitutes. Something in her bearing suggested that she was not. Jozef left her alone. Three days later he encountered her in the local park. She was walking a dog on a leash. It was said to be a Jack Russel , although it had the face of a Pit Bull. Suddenly, two larger unleashed dogs appeared . They bore down upon the little guy. Jozef seized a fallen tree branch and rushed into the fray. The little guy was way ahead of him. Roaring like a lion, he plunged forward and hit one of the bigger dogs with his head, causing it to bowl over. Meanwhile, Jozef hit to other dog with his switch. Both bigger dogs ran off. Man and small dog stood triumphantly on the field of battle. The blonde woman laughed delightedly. "Bravo! " she exclaimmed. "You were both magnificent." Jozef looked at her with narrowed eyes. "I saw you in the tavern a few days ago. I see that you are some kind of lady. You have no business in a place like that. Why did you go there?" SLOVAKIA-2017 137 "Because I was waiting for someone to tell me that, instead of trying to pick me up. I need a friend ... and some help." Jozef was stunned by her answer. This is how he met Ludmilla Suslova. She was a schoolteacher. Her father worked for the Directorate, which claimed to be the government of Siberia. The Directorate consisted of Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries and was opposed to the Bolsheviks in Moscow. The Directorate enjoyed the patronage of the Czechoslovak Legion. Ludmilla's husband had recently abandoned her. Their small house was in need of repair. She needed a good man around the house and Jozef qualified. She told him that he could move in rent-free if he maintained the house. He was amenable to such an arrangement because he currently occupied a tepluska, one of the railway boxcars attached to an armored train, along with other Legionnaires. A comer was set aside for games of cards or chess, but there was no privacy. Jozef and Ludmilla did not bond immediately. He was intimidated by her beauty. He initially bonded with her dog Yasha. He was useless as a watchdog since he barked only at other animals. This sad-eyed canine brought great joy to Jozef s life. Ultimately, nature took its course between Jozef and Ludmilla. One day, when working together in the house, their bodies pressed against each other. Mutually-suppressed desire spontaneously exploded. They did not even make it into the bedroom. Thereafter, they lived as man and wife. *** Both the Western Allies and Japan had long been seeking an excuse to intervene in Russia against the Bolsheviks. Now they had one. In the summer of 1918 they recognized the Czechoslovak Legionnaires as co-belligerents against Germany and Austria-Hungary and could justify landing troops in Siberia under the pretext of rendering aid to their allies. However, the paradigm shifted in the autumn months. The Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary disintegrated in October and on the 28 th the newly-created Czechoslovak Republic emerged. Now the Legionnaires lost interest in fighting the Bolsheviks and just wanted to go home. Furthermore, on November 15 1\ just after the armistice which ended the Great War, the Directory in Omsk was toppled by a 138 SLOVAKIA-2017 military coup. A certain Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak, who just two weeks earlier had been living in a cheap Tokyo hotel, claimed the title of Supreme Commander of all Russia. He was unequal to the task. Although personally honest and well-intentioned, Kolchak had little control over his subordinates, most of whom were thieves and bandits in the pay of the Japanese, and who committed various war crimes against the civilian population. About six months after Kolchak assumed power, just as the black flies and mosquitos in Siberia began to reassert themselves, Captain (yes, he had been promoted) Zeleny had a revealing experience. He passed through a barnyard in which wounded Russian soldiers lay in the hay. The insects attacked the pus oozing from their wounds. Distressed by what he saw, Zeleny approached an elegantlydressed White Russian officer, who was speaking in French to a lady on his arm. "These men are in bad shape!" Jozef exclaimed. "You should help them out!" "Please don ' t talk about things like that," the officer replied . "You' II upset the lady." When Jozef related the incident to Ludmilla, he declared "A regime built upon this kind of shit cannot survive." Ludmilla agreed. Yet, for a time, given the backing of the Western Allies and Japan, it looked as if Kolchak might win. On March 6, 1919, he launched a 700-mile offensive in the Urals that stretched from the forests of fir in the north to the steppes below Oren berg in the south. His armies reached Ufa, halfway between the Urals and the Volga. Here the Whites were met by the Army of Turkestan, as well as the I 51, 4 th and 8 th Red Armies, led by General Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze. Frunze was incapacitated by an artillery concussion while advancing on Ufa, but his subordinate, Vasily lvanovich Chapayev, in command of the 25 th Rifle Regiment, pressed ahead. Chapayev was already a legend among the Reds. As a partisan commander the previous year, he had tangled with the Czechoslovak Legionnaires in the Urals. He had since gone to Moscow for advanced military training. He then returned to the Urals front as a regular field commander. Chapayed was himself wounded in the storming of the city, but the Reds prevailed and captured Ufa on June 81\ Now the way was open for the Reds to cross the Urals. Kolchak's government, to say nothing of the Czechoslovak Legionnaires, prepared to evacuate Omsk. "Marry me," Jozef urged SLOVAKIA-2017 139 Ludmilla. "As an officer's wife, you can return with me to our new country of Czechoslovakia. It will be a good place to live." Ludmilla shook her head sadly. "You Western Slavs can carry your country with you. It is different with us Russians. I can never be at home in another place, regardless of who rules it or how." And so, Jozef and Ludmilla parted ways. Omsk fell to the Red Army on November 14 th . Ludmilla was killed when a stray artillery shell hit her house. A Russian who fled the country later informed Jozef of her death. He never ceased to grieve for her. Happily, Yasha survived and found another home. While evacuating Siberia in 1919, the Czechs and Slovaks kept the best trains for themselves. An exasperated Kolchak cabled his erstwhile subordinate in eastern Siberia, the Kozak atman Grigorii Semyonov, urging him to halt the Czechoslovak trains at all cost. The Legionnaires intercepted the cable and then blocked Kolchak ' s trains at Irkutsk. The desperate Kolchak then abdicated as Supreme Commander of Russia and threw himself on the mercy of the Allies, who now included Czechoslovakia. The previous year the Legionnaires had captured Kazan on the Volga, where they found the tsarist gold reserves . They now negotiated with the Bolsheviks for free rite of passage in return for the gold reserves and the Bolsheviks eagerly accepted. As Kolchak's train, containing cocaine but not much else, reached Irkutsk on January 15, 1920, the Legionnaire guards abandoned him. The city council of Irkutsk then arrested Kolchak. The council consisted of Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries. However, Bolsheviks were also in town. Lenin wanted Kolchak brought to Moscow to stand trial. However, one of Kolchak's commanders tried to rescue him and, when the city council heard of this, it executed Kolchak by firing squad on February 7, 1920 and dumped his body into a hole in the ice on the river Angara. By the end of 1920 the last of the Czechoslovak Legionnaires withdrew by sea from Vladivostok. British and American ships transported them to either Vancouver in Canada or San Francisco in the USA . They then crossed both countries by rail and were shipped to Europe across the Atlantic. Most of them returned to the newlycreated Czechoslovakia. A few decided to remain in the USA. One of them was Jozef Zeleny. *** 140 SLOVAKIA-2017 Jozef had relatives in the Pittsburgh area. The found him employment in the local steel mill. Due to his education and service in the military, Jozko (his pet name) soon became a foreman . He also took an interest in the Slovak community and joined one of their fraternal-benefit societies . Slovak organizations in the Pittsburgh region had played a role in the creation of Czechoslovakia. In 1918 T.G. Masaryk, head of the Czecho-Slovak liberation movement, visited the Mecca of American Slovaks to seek a mandate for the union of the Czechs and Slovaks in a future Czecho-Slovakia because the Slovaks back home were not free to speak their minds. His visit attracted large crowds, including South Slavs. His negotiations with the Slovaks on May 29-31 were quite tempestuous, but led to the signing of the Pittsburgh Agreement, which promised the Slovaks their own Diet, administration, courts, schools and the use of their own language. In other words, home-rule. Unfortunately, when Masaryk returned to the new Czechoslovakia, he first forgot and later repudiated the Pittsburgh Agreement, which led to a breakdown of relations between the Czechs and the Slovaks in the first Czechoslovak Republic. The steel towns of the greater Pittsburgh area were also populated by Carpatho-Rusyns from Hungary. In eastern Slovakia the distinction between Slovak and Rusyn remains somewhat nebulous. Indeed, Jozko qualified as a "Rusnak" (the popular term for Rusyn). Following the lead of the Slovaks, many joined fraternal organizations, which not only provided benefits to workers but published newspapers as well. Through these institutions the Rusyns acquired political awareness . One of their organizations was the Greek Catholic Union headquartered in the Homestead-Munhall district. Another was the United Societies of America, based in McKeesport, which contained both Greek Catholi c and Orthodox members. On July 23 , 1918, they merged to form the American National Council of UhroRusyns. They resolved to join Czechoslovakia in exchange for territorial autonomy. As in the case of the Slovaks, the Prague government decided that they were not ready for autonomy. During the course of his participation in the politics of the fraternals, Jozko bonded with the president of his lodge. Th is individual, Ivan Kosko, some twenty years Zeleny's senior, was personally affable but was hopelessly corrupt. He had been dipping into the treas- SLOVAKIA-2017 141 ury for some time. He knew he would get caught sooner or later if he did not put the money back. Yet Kosko had a certain bargaining collateral. It consisted of a fifteen year-old daughter who was living back in the Old Country in Kosice with an aunt. This dark haired, wind-swept lass was comely to behold. Kosko showed Jozef Zeleny a picture of her as enticement. He indicated that he wanted to have a responsible husband for her in America, but this required money. Kosko pulled it off. In this manner Jozef Zeleny acquired a mailorder bride. Although he would not admit it , he was marrying her to drown the memory of Ludmilla. And, even though he and Marija produced a considerable number of youngsters between them, things did not work. Jozef Zeleny never ceased to mourn for Ludmilla. There were significant differences between man and wife . As a native of the Svidnik area, Jozef was considered a Rusnak, and definitely Pan-Slav. Marija, a native of Kosice, was culturally if not politically Magyarone. She was deeply religious. Jozef was more spiritual than religious. He loved the Old Church Slavonic liturgy of the Greek Catholic Church. But he never went to confession. Marija asked him why. He explained it to her: "When I was back there in Ludovika, I had to work in the summers, to pay for my arrears and the upkeep of my horse during the school year. I was employed on the property of an affluent priest. One day, when I went to pitch hay in the barn, I heard giggling coming from the haystack. His Reverence was having a romp in the hay with one of the local girls. Alright, this man might represent God when he stands before the altar. But when he steps back from the altar, he is as capable of sin and error as anyone else. I' ll be damned if I answer before him or anyone else." Jozef followed political developments in the New Czechoslovak Republic with great interest. Although he had seen the White side for what it was worth during the course of the Russian Civil War, he had a certain admiration for General Milan Rastislav Stefanik, who was definitely anti-Bolshevik. Stefanik hailed from a village called Kosariska, in the Brezova district of western Slovakia. During the 1848 revolution against Hungarian rule, a famous battle was fought at Brezova. Slovak mountaineers, fighting on their own terms and on their own terrain, defeated the Hungarian military in the otherwise disastrous September campaign. 142 SLOVAKIA-2017 Such was Stefanik ' s heritage. As the son of a Lutheran minister, he was raised in a particularly patriotic regional environment. To assure his son's advancement without the latter succumbing to the pressures of magyarization, his father helped Milan obtain a scholarship in Prague. The old man was utterly appalled with the results. Milan became an agnostic among a circle of Slovak intellectuals in Prague who rallied under Czech philosophy professor T.G. Masaryk. He became the president of the Slovak student organization in Prague known as Detvan. The students in Detvan tended to major in the mundane sciences. Although Stefanik attended Masaryk' s philosophy classes, he majored in astronomy. Upon graduation, he borrowed some money, emigrated to France, and found employment in the Medoun observatory near Paris. In this capacity he engaged in roughly a dozen learned expeditions to other countries. He acquired French citizenship in 1912. He also learned how to fly. Stefanik thus became an officer in the air corps of the French Army when the Great War began. Given his membership on the Czechoslovak National Council, the French eventually accorded Stefanik the rank of brigadiergeneral. He became the driving force in the creation of the Czechoslovak Legion . In this capacity he clashed with Edvard Benes, who soon became foreign minister in the new Czechoslovak Republic. On the other hand, Stefanik advocated pressing an offensive against the Bolsheviks in Siberia, whereas Benes followed Masaryk' s lead in avoiding intervention in Russia's internal affairs. Then there was the issue of Slovak autonomy. Stefanik came from a school of Slovaks who were considered more pro-Czech than the Czechs themselves . Yet, during the Great War, he had occasion to visit the United States, where he solicited American Slovak support. After his interactions with the fraternal leaders, Stefanik considered that, with their advice and financial support, Slovakia could be worthy of autonomy. He resented his name being inscribed to a declaration of independence for Czechoslovakia which made no provision for Slovakia's status . Stefanik and Benes hated each other. Stefanik regarded Benes as "this first grade socialist, this paper revolutionary, this distorted diplomat." Benes responded by labeling Stefanik as "this astronomer who thinks he is a soldier, this peasant who thinks he is an aristocrat, this politician who thinks he is a genius. " SLOVAKIA-2017 143 Insofar as Benes was entrenched in Prague while Stefanik was with the Legion in Siberia, the Czech foreign minister had the upper hand. Benes had the ministry of defense bifurcated. Stefanik, as Minister of War, retained command of Czechoslovakia's armed forces abroad (the Legion in Siberia), while a clone of Benes, Vaclav Klofac, became the Minister of National Defense .. Stefanik nonetheless prepared to return home. He made official visits to France and Italy. On the morning of May 5, 1919, he boarded a Caproni aircraft in the north Italian city of Udine. It was a three hour flight to Bratislava, Stefanik's intended destination. As he circled the runway of Vajnory, his plane suddenly fell to the ground from a height of 500 meters. Some witnesses charged that Stefanik' s plane had been shot down by a Czech artillery battery. The incident was officially described as an accident. Indeed, this might well have been the case. No evidence has ever been found that Benes had Stefanik murdered. This unfortunate incident came at a time when the Czechoslovak Republic was experiencing border clashes with Hungary, at this time under a Bolshevik government. The markings on the Caproni aircraft (red, white and green) were identical to the Hungarian national colors, albeit in horizontal order. Yet, years afterward, members of the artillery battery maintained that they were given their orders and that there was no mistake. They were expecting that plane. It stood to reason that there would be an appropriate state funeral. Its proceedings were recorded by Robert W. Seton-Watson, a distinguished British historian, who attended. Being Scottish, SetonWatson had a certain romantic attraction for a people who were highlanders with a heroic attitude towards life. He had championed the Slovak cause when they were under Hungarian rule. During the Great War, R. W. Seton-Watson served as adviser to the British government on Eastern European affairs. He became a personal friend of T. G. Masaryk. If Masaryk is said to be the founding father of Czechoslovakia, then Seton-Watson qualifies as the godfather. Seton-Watson description of Stefanik's funeral remains poignant to this day. Bratislava had only recently been occupied by the Czechs. Seton-Watson noted that Skols - Czech gymnastic society members recently assuming para-military roles - kept perfect order during the funeral procession, which extended a mile and a half: "Considering that the Czechs have been here exactly three months in 144 SLOVAKIA-2017 occupation of the town ... it was a ceremony which must have duly impressed the naturally lukewarm Magyar and German citizens, as suggesting that the newcomers had come to stay and are perfectly capable of taking charge." In regard to the aftermath of the ceremonies, Seton-Watson noted: "the coffin left for Brezova ... where the Slovak peasants - this seems to me so typical of their good taste and feeling - have on their accord hewn a rock grave for him on the highest point of the Little Carpathians, overlooking the whole western district." *** A former Legionnaire sent an account of Stefanik' s funeral to Jozef. Jozef mourned for Stefanik. He also subscribed to the theory that Stefanik had been murdered at the instigation of the foreign ministry . He began brooding deeply on the relationship between his life and the recent historical events. He began having nightmares. Throughout the odyssey across Siberia, Jozef had observed atrocities. These not only consisted of the usual burned villages and the numerous hanging of peasants. The Legionnaires became desensitized to the likes of that. But Jozef also had occasion to witness the grisly mutilation of innocent peasants by Kozaks and Mongols. These haunted his dreams. In any case, he could no longer sleep without vodka. And he still grieved for Ludmilla. There are people who, following the death of a spouse or loved one, marry, produce children, yet still grieve for the deceased a full decade later. Jozef Zeleny was such an individual. Eventually, he began taking out his angst on family members. Three specific incidents merit scrutiny. The first of these concerned his eldest daughter, Margarite, when she was twelve years old. He was drinking heavily that day when he could no longer hold his alcohol as he had previously. Margarite was playing hop scotch with other girls. Her father summoned her home with a single whistle. "Ah, gee whiz, I always gotta go," she complained to her friends. Jozef overheard the remark and did not like it. He belabored his daughter with his razor strap repeatedly and with vigor. The next day (when he was sober), he saw Margarite disrobe to step into the wash tub . Her noted the black and blue marks on her back and her rump. SLOVAKIA-2017 145 "Who did this to you?" he gasped. "You did!" Marija threw it back m his face. "When she was playing hop scotch." Jozko paled and lowered his head. "I'll never beat her again," he vowed. Indeed, on this he kept his word. But he was still capable of emotional excess. On one occasion, when Marija was out of the house, he was minding the youngsters. One infant daughter, Leona, messed her diapers. Her father flew into a rage. His eldest son, Janko, was now a big, strapping young man. Aware of his father's capacity for violence, he intervened decisively. He picked up a railroad tie and cracked his father across the ribs, breaking two of them. Father and son never got close to each other again. Yet the most egregious emotional excess of Jozef Zeleny was yet to come. It concerned one of his daughters, named Helena, the beauty of the litter. Endowed with long dark hair and green eyes, Helena looked more Magyar than Slovak. One could tell she would do well one day. One day, at age seventeen, Helena came home from school, at a time when her mother was not home. There had been a layoff in the steel mill, which extended to the level of foreman . Consequently Jozef Zeleny simply lay around the house, drinking and whittling wood. And now, his daughter was home. "Where is your mother?" he demanded. "I don ' t know," she responded. "You are lying! " her father bellowed. And he threw his knife at her. Here it should be noted that Jozef Zeleny, having been trained by Gypsies, was an excellent knife thrower, whether he was drunk or sober. If he wanted to impale his daughter, he definitely would have done so. The knife whizzed past her head and pinned a lock of her hair against the wall behind her. In a state of shock, Helena's head hit the wall, and she fell to the floor unconscious. When she woke, she could not walk for the next two months. The attending doctor legally petitioned for her to be taken out of the house. She was moved into the house of her elder sister Margarite, now married. As Helena recovered, Margarite made her scrub floors and generally worked her like a dog. 146 SLOVAKIA-2017 Helena Zelenova nonetheless became the most successful of Jozko ' s offspring. She became a cocktail waitress. In this capacity she encountered a piano player in a night club. Reinhard Wolfmeister, of Germanic origin, was not your ordinary piano player. He qualified as a genuine pianist. He began playing piano at age four, had an affection for Chopin, and progressed to Paderewski. He attained such a mastery of Paderewski that he qualified for a scholarship in music at the Sorbonne, in Paris. His mother wanted him to be a doctor. After three years of pre-med at the University of Pittsburgh, Reinhard decided he did not want to be a doctor. This being the era of the Great Depression, he could look down the bluff from Mount Washington and see the tin shantytowns. He decided people didn ' t have enough money to afford doctors. So, instead, he took two courses at the Robert Morris Business College, gained employment in a freight shipping company, and was eventually dragged, kicking and screaming, upstairs to the vice- presidency. Yet insofar as he still loved music, he played piano in nightclubs in the evenings. He worked two jobs. He made money and invested it wisely. Eventually, the Wolfmeister family moved to Florida. Here Helena integrated herself into the local society so well that her Slovak sisters came to describe her as the "Queen of the Jews." *** Jozef Zeleny had enough intelligence left to realize he was losing it. Marija passed away after a brief illness, and he mourned for her. But he still grieved for Ludmilla to an even greater extent. Then there was Helena's forthcoming marriage. Having a heroic attitude towards life, Jozef Zeleny could not appreciate that which was unheroic. His upcoming son-in-law could have been a concert pianist in Paris, yet opted to become the manager of a trucking company in Pittsburgh instead. It made no sense. Jozko once again began to brood deeply. He had worked long enough in the steel industry to benefit from the gains that labor unions made for steelworkers under the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He had a nice pension and began looking for an exit. SLOVAKIA-2017 147 Jozef had a cousin who lived in Monongahela. He asked if he could visit there for several weeks "for reasons of mental health." His cousin replied in the affirmative. Jozef had yet to reach his dreadful decision when he first went to Monongahela. Yet it is worth nothing that he had one previous experience with hypothermia. Several years back, he had been three miles from home on the coldest night of the winter. The temperature was fifteen degrees below zero and accompanied by thirty mile-an-hour winds. It was snowing horizontally throughout the Monongahela valley. The public transportation system was paralyzed. Jozko was jumping up and down in a futile attempt to warm himself. Since it was too cold to walk, he ran and ran and ran. At the end of the second mile, he wasn't cold anymore. He began feeling like Ulysses hearing the calling of the Sirens. He experienced an erection. And he wanted to lie down and go to sleep. Then he realized what was happening. He was beginning to freeze. Jozef Zeleny resisted the temptation to succumb. He pushed on the last mile to the tavern, where he rented a room upstairs. Ice hung from his normally upturned moustaches. After four shots of vodka, he thawed out... except for his feet. Even though he had worn two pairs of socks, frostbite had gotten into his feet. It felt like he was walking on concrete blocks for the next sixteen hours. Aside from that, it had been a euphoric experience. And so, in Monongahela, Jozko frowned thoughtfully as the wind hit hard and it was obvious that a snowstorm was on the way. "I'm going for a walk," he announced. "JEE-zus Ker-RIST! " his cousin exclaimed. "It's colder than a well digger's ass out there! Have you lost your f'ck"n mind?" I have my reasons," Jozef replied cryptically. He commenced walking across the ridge in a westerly direction. The snowstorm blew into his face. In spite of the severity of the weather, he perceived the terrain as being beautiful. It reminded him of Siberia. As the delirium which accompanies hypothermia took hold, Jozef saw an image before him. It was Ludmilla. He staggered forward. *** 148 SLOVAKIA-2017 Most people who knew her agreed that Celeste Romanczykowa was a rough piece of work. Her house - little more than a cottage stood atop the ridge to which Jozef was ascending. Celeste was the product of a union between a Polish coal miner and a West Virginia hillbilly. So it stood to reason that she could be fractious at times. Auburn, brown eyed, and generously endowed in the breasts and the rump, she was comely to behold to men who are not obsessed with skinny women. Celeste was a widow. Her coal miner husband had died of black lung three years earlier. She was noted for a good heart, and loved dogs. But she did not suffer tyranny gracefully, and consequently ignored the overtures of her husband 's cronies among the coal miners. She lived alone and was lonely. As the snowstorm moved in, she went out on the hillside to gather wood. She saw the strange figure staggering up the hill. "Who are you?" she asked, pulling him by the sleeve. He muttered a few words in Slovak. Being half-Polish, she more or less understood. If she did not know who he was, she understood what he was. She dragged him into the house. Once he reached the couch, he collapsed unconscious. Through a neighbor, Celeste summoned the local doctor. After administering Jozef some medicine, he declared: "If you had discovered him an hour later, it would have been too late. But now I think he'll make it. Just keep him warm. Celeste gazed down at the man on the coach. She noticed the upturned moustaches. Her paternal side of the family had come from the Dukla Pass, between Poland and Slovakia. She perceived that he had at some point in his life been a cavalryman. Later, when his eyes opened, she became hypnotized by their ice blue, steel glaze. Jozko stirred. "Ludmilla, ... " he murmured. "You hush now," she said softly. "I' m going to take care of you." He opened his eyes. And smiled.  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 Siberia: A Slovak Folk Tale Description An account of the resource R. Vladimir Baumgarten Slovakia, Vol. 43 (No. 80-81), 2017 pp. 133-148 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Baumgarten, R. Vladimir Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/14d9aa1cd0a470dc9de5ca76a6d90670.pdf fff1cd896634d603fd9f016a79e43d98 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 13 INTERVIEW Sir Robert Bruce Lockhardt and_ the Slovak Aviators (Broadcast by the B.B.C. May 8 at 7 p. m. EST and May 9 at 2:45 p. m. EST. Released on May 8, 1953, 7 p. m. EST.) Tlh e thrree Slovak avfatars, Lieutenant Kmrnan, Sergeant FleiS'Clhhacker and Sergeant Momar, who .fiew, Mrurch 13, 1953, from Piest'.amy into the Brr,i'tish 2i0Ile 'in Austria, are now in London. Sill' Robert Bruce Locldlardlt had an interview ,wJtJh them there whiicll was brooo'casit by the B.B.C. into Czecho-Slovrukfo.. Sir Robert Bruce Loci{hardt, former di'Plomat in Pirague, spoke in Czech while the three aviaJtors answered in Sfovak. Sir Robert: Tell me, plea;se, the reason foir yoUJr courageouis escaipe :Erorn Ozeicfuo~Slovakia? Have you fled beca UJSe ()(f rpoJi'tiK!a,l or ooonomiic motives, or ibecause of both? Krman: We .fled Czech·o~Slovrukiia because of pdli'tical and economic reasons. Our 1poli.tical convictions have never been along Communist lines and our sympathies went to the Western AJI:li~s. To .remain in Communist Czecho,Slovalkda when we had the ;pos!silbility of flying abroad wou!ld have been equal to giviing Ulp living. Any acti:viity against the Communist regime at lbhe pr~enrt time ~ing irmpossllble, theire is now ibult one opportuni,'ty to work for our people and !this oppontunilty lies outside of the lron Curtain. For these reasons we had no pers_peotirve in"' Ozec'llo,SlovaJkia. 01.l1I' officers reproached U'S many times on. accoun/t of our political ind;tfference. FuPthermore, conditions in a:11 branches of life were tenrilble, impossible to imrugine for people in the Western World. Sir Robert: What diflference did you olbserwe after your escape between the life in Ozecllo-Slovakia and tJhaJt ilil Wes.tern IDurope? War imltance, what do people on the stre~s looik Hke or what !kind of .artilcles are being sold in ,t he stores? Fleischhacker: After my escaipe I wa·s sU1I1prised to see how many rtJhings people were a!ble to buy for a small amount of money . For example, I had to spend my two month's salary to get a decent suit, while here a worker can �14 SLOVAKIA bu~ a silt with one week of worik. Freedom of speec'h impressed me deeply and I was immensely sur,pziised to see in a London ,prur'k a crowd which any one, wlho desilred to do so, icowld address on a sulbject of hiis f.ree choice. I was most impressed by ,t he faces of the persons -:- wilbh whom I am not yet aJble to speak -- which reflected satisfaction and poise. ENery one is rwel.1.iJ. dressed and every(bodiy belhaves nicely with one andt:Jher. Motorists rure very courteous to pedestrians, and waiitJin,g lfoc the buses - in so orderly a manner rwi'bhou't even one pushing - seems to me ailmost unbelievaible. Sir Robert: Blow st-rong is rt'he anti-communist feeling in Czecho-Slovakia:? Couid you tell me, Wlhat is, in _your ~ timation, the per,centage of the po,p ulation whiic'h adheres to Communi,s m? Molnar: W!hait ,t he conditions are in this respect in Czechia, I do not ,knorw. As for Slo'Vakia, .the anti-Comunist attitude of tlhe ipopu4ation e~ends all over the counltry. Resistance a;ga'ioot the regime is 'Very strong. Every person who follows with open eyes the activities of the :regume is, as a matter of prin!Ciiple, a,gaiilllst it. Expressed in .p ercentage, the ,situa;tion [odk•s ld!ke this: eighty per cent of tlle Slovaks are not memb~rs of tlle Communist Party, neiJther a;re they adherents of Communism. The o.v erwhelmmg majority of them are against Communism wilbh tlhei:r wiho1e hearts and souJs. Twenty per cenlt are Communists, but even ha1:f of tllese are only because they w,ant ,t o keep theilr jobs or get better ones. Sir Robert: Do you mean t:haJt the Communist regime is more hated now ltJhan it was in 1948? Krman: I know that in Slovaikia resistance to Communism is of an older date. Alf1ter the First World War, OU!l' fatillers tasted of Communism during the strug.gle against the Bo:lshevism of Bella lfohn in Hungary. So, the dldest generation have inifornned us very we1'1 '3J'bout this danger. During the Hife of the Slovak State, W1hen Slovak soldiers fOU!ght against Coonmun:ism on Soviet temitory, they had tlle oppoa:-tunilty to e,operience fiirst 'hand what Oommtmism is. T,here- �SLOVAKIA 15 fore, I am coiwinced .fuaJt in S'loIValkia there was from tihe beginning of fue Comlmltmist dominamion greater and moire decisive oppO'siltion aigainst the regime than in Ozechiia. T,he Red A'I1my, aJt tlhe ti!me of ' 11:iJberaticm" of our cotm'try, only conf:iimned whait our soldiera saw in Sovti.et Russia. Sir Robert: Wlhat is the alttitude of the non-Communist population towa,rd foz,mer ipolitical parties and refugees? Molnar: The non-Communist population of SlovaJkia condemns these parties and bhcir leading personaJltities who fled to the Western coU!Illtries. 'Dhe reason for bb/is attitude is that in 'Spite of the fact that t!hey have had a greater percentage of people on theiir side, they weire unable to check the expansion of the CommU!Ilist reg1ime and ,t o prevent its taking over of the ,w'hole Government. Sir Robert: Iis the anti-CommUillisit attiltulde stronger among fuose who are ll!Ildeir 30 years of age or among the older ones·? Fleischlt3(cker: The anltli..Communist feeling is stronger among ·people more than 30 yeairs old, because, s1ionce tlhe end of fue Second Wo,r,ld War, the youth is educ-aJted in the Communist spirilt in tlhe sohools, in the factories, in the military servke. There are many yOU!Il.g men of 25 wiho fall for Communist promises. The majo:rd.ty of men of 30, however, still remembers well the times of lilberty, the times when food and cl·o thes were not rationed and wlhen there was a great possilbility for everylbod,y to get a job. Sir Robert: Do the Czechs and S1oivaks stiH remember the great men like T. G. Masairyk, Milan Steifanrnk, Edward Benes, Jan Masa.iryik, and Alrchlbishop Beram.? Are these personalities known ,b y the young generaJtion? Krman: '11he young ,p eople know very little o!f ,tihese men, because the Commll!Ilist regime - wifuout any consideraition for theli,r merilts - is ipresenlting them in a very bad 1ight. Neverth~less, Milan Ra'stislav Stefanik enjo,yetl the fame of a national saint in Slovakia. Lately, however, tJhe Communists in our country try to destroy everything which draws the attention of our people to his memory. �16 SLOVAKIA In Bohemia and Moraivia the names Olf T. G. Masaryk, Edward Benes and Archbishop Beran axe still. quite popuiar, but not m S1ovaJkia, where the names of Hlinka, Tiso, Stefanik preva,i'l. Sir Robert: How do the anti-Communist Czecho~Slovalks im~,gii,ne lbhe ,1ilberation of Ozecho-Siovrukia. and the future of their Staite in a li!beraited Elllrope? Molnar: The majorilty of the anti-Communist Slovaks i:. for a Central-European federaJtion of peoples, in which every nation wi.N decide its. own af,fa:II'ls and wihere every memlber whlll have equal,i ty o,f r~ghrts wtiith oither pairtners. But :t!he main task i'S to be seen in the common decision o!f all these peoip[e,s - Czeclhs, S1ovaJks, Magyars and alt.hens to destroy the Communist tyranny. - ('Slovruk League PTess BU!reau by pemnission of the BBC, London, and ,t he interviewed). • • • WHO SAID IT? "I fully understand the reasons which led France and Great Britain to demand that we should not fight in September 1938 • . . . In that year, I think the only countries in Europe prepared for the war were GERMANY, THE SOVIET UNION AND CZECHOSLOVAKIA. I had no doubts whatever about Czechoslovak preparedness. Our resources were great and they were fully mobilized. From 1933, when Hitler took the whole power in Germany into his hands, I WAS SU RE that Europe was moving rapidly towards a great and terrible crisis . . . . In 1938 in September we had ONE MILLION AND A HALF splendidly equipped soldiers. They were at the disposal of the struggle for democracy and freedom together with all our powerful industries. The events in 1938 prevented it.' Nazi Germany disbanded and destroyed this splendid army. Only a very small part of it succeeded In reaching the Allied countries." Dr. Benes, Speech, New York, May 26, 1943). • • • "Czecho-Slovakia and Germany were the only two countries in Europe, which, in the September 1938 crisis, were TOTALLY PREPARED FOR WAR. As for us, our resources were mobilized to the highest degree. And these resources were very great! • . • Had not PRAGUE adopted during the September crisis a passive attitude, Hitler would have unleashed the war then • • • . WE, therefore, under irresistible pressure submitted to the decision which had been made. I RESIGNED THE OFFICE OF PRESIDENT, made preparations in the country for a struggle against Naziism in the event of war, and went into exile. The whole nation very soon understood." - Dr. Edward Benes, Central European Observer, 1-17-41) . � SLOVAKIA 13 INTERVIEW Sir Robert Bruce Lockhardt and_ the Slovak Aviators (Broadcast by the B.B.C. May 8 at 7 p. m. EST and May 9 at 2:45 p. m. EST. Released on May 8, 1953, 7 p. m. EST.) Tlh e thrree Slovak avfatars, Lieutenant Kmrnan, Sergeant FleiS'Clhhacker and Sergeant Momar, who .fiew, Mrurch 13, 1953, from Piest'.amy into the Brr,i'tish 2i0Ile 'in Austria, are now in London. Sill' Robert Bruce Locldlardlt had an interview ,wJtJh them there whiicll was brooo'casit by the B.B.C. into Czecho-Slovrukfo.. Sir Robert Bruce Loci{hardt, former di'Plomat in Pirague, spoke in Czech while the three aviaJtors answered in Sfovak. Sir Robert: Tell me, plea;se, the reason foir yoUJr courageouis escaipe :Erorn Ozeicfuo~Slovakia? Have you fled beca UJSe ()(f rpoJi'tiK!a,l or ooonomiic motives, or ibecause of both? Krman: We .fled Czech·o~Slovrukiia because of pdli'tical and economic reasons. Our 1poli.tical convictions have never been along Communist lines and our sympathies went to the Western AJI:li~s. To .remain in Communist Czecho,Slovalkda when we had the ;pos!silbility of flying abroad wou!ld have been equal to giviing Ulp living. Any acti:viity against the Communist regime at lbhe pr~enrt time ~ing irmpossllble, theire is now ibult one opportuni,'ty to work for our people and !this oppontunilty lies outside of the lron Curtain. For these reasons we had no pers_peotirve in"' Ozec'llo,SlovaJkia. 01.l1I' officers reproached U'S many times on. accoun/t of our political ind;tfference. FuPthermore, conditions in a:11 branches of life were tenrilble, impossible to imrugine for people in the Western World. Sir Robert: What diflference did you olbserwe after your escape between the life in Ozecllo-Slovakia and tJhaJt ilil Wes.tern IDurope? War imltance, what do people on the stre~s looik Hke or what !kind of .artilcles are being sold in ,t he stores? Fleischhacker: After my escaipe I wa·s sU1I1prised to see how many rtJhings people were a!ble to buy for a small amount of money . For example, I had to spend my two month's salary to get a decent suit, while here a worker can �14 SLOVAKIA bu~ a silt with one week of worik. Freedom of speec'h impressed me deeply and I was immensely sur,pziised to see in a London ,prur'k a crowd which any one, wlho desilred to do so, icowld address on a sulbject of hiis f.ree choice. I was most impressed by ,t he faces of the persons -:- wilbh whom I am not yet aJble to speak -- which reflected satisfaction and poise. ENery one is rwel.1.iJ. dressed and every(bodiy belhaves nicely with one andt:Jher. Motorists rure very courteous to pedestrians, and waiitJin,g lfoc the buses - in so orderly a manner rwi'bhou't even one pushing - seems to me ailmost unbelievaible. Sir Robert: Blow st-rong is rt'he anti-communist feeling in Czecho-Slovakia:? Couid you tell me, Wlhat is, in _your ~ timation, the per,centage of the po,p ulation whiic'h adheres to Communi,s m? Molnar: W!hait ,t he conditions are in this respect in Czechia, I do not ,knorw. As for Slo'Vakia, .the anti-Comunist attitude of tlhe ipopu4ation e~ends all over the counltry. Resistance a;ga'ioot the regime is 'Very strong. Every person who follows with open eyes the activities of the :regume is, as a matter of prin!Ciiple, a,gaiilllst it. Expressed in .p ercentage, the ,situa;tion [odk•s ld!ke this: eighty per cent of tlle Slovaks are not memb~rs of tlle Communist Party, neiJther a;re they adherents of Communism. The o.v erwhelmmg majority of them are against Communism wilbh tlhei:r wiho1e hearts and souJs. Twenty per cenlt are Communists, but even ha1:f of tllese are only because they w,ant ,t o keep theilr jobs or get better ones. Sir Robert: Do you mean t:haJt the Communist regime is more hated now ltJhan it was in 1948? Krman: I know that in Slovaikia resistance to Communism is of an older date. Alf1ter the First World War, OU!l' fatillers tasted of Communism during the strug.gle against the Bo:lshevism of Bella lfohn in Hungary. So, the dldest generation have inifornned us very we1'1 '3J'bout this danger. During the Hife of the Slovak State, W1hen Slovak soldiers fOU!ght against Coonmun:ism on Soviet temitory, they had tlle oppoa:-tunilty to e,operience fiirst 'hand what Oommtmism is. T,here- �SLOVAKIA 15 fore, I am coiwinced .fuaJt in S'loIValkia there was from tihe beginning of fue Comlmltmist dominamion greater and moire decisive oppO'siltion aigainst the regime than in Ozechiia. T,he Red A'I1my, aJt tlhe ti!me of ' 11:iJberaticm" of our cotm'try, only conf:iimned whait our soldiera saw in Sovti.et Russia. Sir Robert: Wlhat is the alttitude of the non-Communist population towa,rd foz,mer ipolitical parties and refugees? Molnar: The non-Communist population of SlovaJkia condemns these parties and bhcir leading personaJltities who fled to the Western coU!Illtries. 'Dhe reason for bb/is attitude is that in 'Spite of the fact that t!hey have had a greater percentage of people on theiir side, they weire unable to check the expansion of the CommU!Ilist reg1ime and ,t o prevent its taking over of the ,w'hole Government. Sir Robert: Iis the anti-CommUillisit attiltulde stronger among fuose who are ll!Ildeir 30 years of age or among the older ones·? Fleischlt3(cker: The anltli..Communist feeling is stronger among ·people more than 30 yeairs old, because, s1ionce tlhe end of fue Second Wo,r,ld War, the youth is educ-aJted in the Communist spirilt in tlhe sohools, in the factories, in the military servke. There are many yOU!Il.g men of 25 wiho fall for Communist promises. The majo:rd.ty of men of 30, however, still remembers well the times of lilberty, the times when food and cl·o thes were not rationed and wlhen there was a great possilbility for everylbod,y to get a job. Sir Robert: Do the Czechs and S1oivaks stiH remember the great men like T. G. Masairyk, Milan Steifanrnk, Edward Benes, Jan Masa.iryik, and Alrchlbishop Beram.? Are these personalities known ,b y the young generaJtion? Krman: '11he young ,p eople know very little o!f ,tihese men, because the Commll!Ilist regime - wifuout any consideraition for theli,r merilts - is ipresenlting them in a very bad 1ight. Neverth~less, Milan Ra'stislav Stefanik enjo,yetl the fame of a national saint in Slovakia. Lately, however, tJhe Communists in our country try to destroy everything which draws the attention of our people to his memory. �16 SLOVAKIA In Bohemia and Moraivia the names Olf T. G. Masaryk, Edward Benes and Archbishop Beran axe still. quite popuiar, but not m S1ovaJkia, where the names of Hlinka, Tiso, Stefanik preva,i'l. Sir Robert: How do the anti-Communist Czecho~Slovalks im~,gii,ne lbhe ,1ilberation of Ozecho-Siovrukia. and the future of their Staite in a li!beraited Elllrope? Molnar: The majorilty of the anti-Communist Slovaks i:. for a Central-European federaJtion of peoples, in which every nation wi.N decide its. own af,fa:II'ls and wihere every memlber whlll have equal,i ty o,f r~ghrts wtiith oither pairtners. But :t!he main task i'S to be seen in the common decision o!f all these peoip[e,s - Czeclhs, S1ovaJks, Magyars and alt.hens to destroy the Communist tyranny. - ('Slovruk League PTess BU!reau by pemnission of the BBC, London, and ,t he interviewed). • • • WHO SAID IT? "I fully understand the reasons which led France and Great Britain to demand that we should not fight in September 1938 • . . . In that year, I think the only countries in Europe prepared for the war were GERMANY, THE SOVIET UNION AND CZECHOSLOVAKIA. I had no doubts whatever about Czechoslovak preparedness. Our resources were great and they were fully mobilized. From 1933, when Hitler took the whole power in Germany into his hands, I WAS SU RE that Europe was moving rapidly towards a great and terrible crisis . . . . In 1938 in September we had ONE MILLION AND A HALF splendidly equipped soldiers. They were at the disposal of the struggle for democracy and freedom together with all our powerful industries. The events in 1938 prevented it.' Nazi Germany disbanded and destroyed this splendid army. Only a very small part of it succeeded In reaching the Allied countries." Dr. Benes, Speech, New York, May 26, 1943). • • • "Czecho-Slovakia and Germany were the only two countries in Europe, which, in the September 1938 crisis, were TOTALLY PREPARED FOR WAR. As for us, our resources were mobilized to the highest degree. And these resources were very great! • . • Had not PRAGUE adopted during the September crisis a passive attitude, Hitler would have unleashed the war then • • • . WE, therefore, under irresistible pressure submitted to the decision which had been made. I RESIGNED THE OFFICE OF PRESIDENT, made preparations in the country for a struggle against Naziism in the event of war, and went into exile. The whole nation very soon understood." - Dr. Edward Benes, Central European Observer, 1-17-41) . � 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 SLOVAKIA 13 INTERVIEW Sir Robert Bruce Lockhardt and_ the Slovak Aviators (Broadcast by the B.B.C. May 8 at 7 p. m. EST and May 9 at 2:45 p. m. EST. Released on May 8, 1953, 7 p. m. EST.) Tlh e thrree Slovak avfatars, Lieutenant Kmrnan, Sergeant FleiS'Clhhacker and Sergeant Momar, who .fiew, Mrurch 13, 1953, from Piest'.amy into the Brr,i'tish 2i0Ile 'in Austria, are now in London. Sill' Robert Bruce Locldlardlt had an interview ,wJtJh them there whiicll was brooo'casit by the B.B.C. into Czecho-Slovrukfo.. Sir Robert Bruce Loci{hardt, former di'Plomat in Pirague, spoke in Czech while the three aviaJtors answered in Sfovak. Sir Robert: Tell me, plea;se, the reason foir yoUJr courageouis escaipe :Erorn Ozeicfuo~Slovakia? Have you fled beca UJSe ()(f rpoJi'tiK!a,l or ooonomiic motives, or ibecause of both? Krman: We .fled Czech·o~Slovrukiia because of pdli'tical and economic reasons. Our 1poli.tical convictions have never been along Communist lines and our sympathies went to the Western AJI:li~s. To .remain in Communist Czecho,Slovalkda when we had the ;pos!silbility of flying abroad wou!ld have been equal to giviing Ulp living. Any acti:viity against the Communist regime at lbhe pr~enrt time ~ing irmpossllble, theire is now ibult one opportuni,'ty to work for our people and !this oppontunilty lies outside of the lron Curtain. For these reasons we had no pers_peotirve in"' Ozec'llo,SlovaJkia. 01.l1I' officers reproached U'S many times on. accoun/t of our political ind;tfference. FuPthermore, conditions in a:11 branches of life were tenrilble, impossible to imrugine for people in the Western World. Sir Robert: What diflference did you olbserwe after your escape between the life in Ozecllo-Slovakia and tJhaJt ilil Wes.tern IDurope? War imltance, what do people on the stre~s looik Hke or what !kind of .artilcles are being sold in ,t he stores? Fleischhacker: After my escaipe I wa·s sU1I1prised to see how many rtJhings people were a!ble to buy for a small amount of money . For example, I had to spend my two month's salary to get a decent suit, while here a worker can 14 SLOVAKIA bu~ a silt with one week of worik. Freedom of speec'h impressed me deeply and I was immensely sur,pziised to see in a London ,prur'k a crowd which any one, wlho desilred to do so, icowld address on a sulbject of hiis f.ree choice. I was most impressed by ,t he faces of the persons -:- wilbh whom I am not yet aJble to speak -- which reflected satisfaction and poise. ENery one is rwel.1.iJ. dressed and every(bodiy belhaves nicely with one andt:Jher. Motorists rure very courteous to pedestrians, and waiitJin,g lfoc the buses - in so orderly a manner rwi'bhou't even one pushing - seems to me ailmost unbelievaible. Sir Robert: Blow st-rong is rt'he anti-communist feeling in Czecho-Slovakia:? Couid you tell me, Wlhat is, in _your ~ timation, the per,centage of the po,p ulation whiic'h adheres to Communi,s m? Molnar: W!hait ,t he conditions are in this respect in Czechia, I do not ,knorw. As for Slo'Vakia, .the anti-Comunist attitude of tlhe ipopu4ation e~ends all over the counltry. Resistance a;ga'ioot the regime is 'Very strong. Every person who follows with open eyes the activities of the :regume is, as a matter of prin!Ciiple, a,gaiilllst it. Expressed in .p ercentage, the ,situa;tion [odk•s ld!ke this: eighty per cent of tlle Slovaks are not memb~rs of tlle Communist Party, neiJther a;re they adherents of Communism. The o.v erwhelmmg majority of them are against Communism wilbh tlhei:r wiho1e hearts and souJs. Twenty per cenlt are Communists, but even ha1:f of tllese are only because they w,ant ,t o keep theilr jobs or get better ones. Sir Robert: Do you mean t:haJt the Communist regime is more hated now ltJhan it was in 1948? Krman: I know that in Slovaikia resistance to Communism is of an older date. Alf1ter the First World War, OU!l' fatillers tasted of Communism during the strug.gle against the Bo:lshevism of Bella lfohn in Hungary. So, the dldest generation have inifornned us very we1'1 '3J'bout this danger. During the Hife of the Slovak State, W1hen Slovak soldiers fOU!ght against Coonmun:ism on Soviet temitory, they had tlle oppoa:-tunilty to e,operience fiirst 'hand what Oommtmism is. T,here- SLOVAKIA 15 fore, I am coiwinced .fuaJt in S'loIValkia there was from tihe beginning of fue Comlmltmist dominamion greater and moire decisive oppO'siltion aigainst the regime than in Ozechiia. T,he Red A'I1my, aJt tlhe ti!me of ' 11:iJberaticm" of our cotm'try, only conf:iimned whait our soldiera saw in Sovti.et Russia. Sir Robert: Wlhat is the alttitude of the non-Communist population towa,rd foz,mer ipolitical parties and refugees? Molnar: The non-Communist population of SlovaJkia condemns these parties and bhcir leading personaJltities who fled to the Western coU!Illtries. 'Dhe reason for bb/is attitude is that in 'Spite of the fact that t!hey have had a greater percentage of people on theiir side, they weire unable to check the expansion of the CommU!Ilist reg1ime and ,t o prevent its taking over of the ,w'hole Government. Sir Robert: Iis the anti-CommUillisit attiltulde stronger among fuose who are ll!Ildeir 30 years of age or among the older ones·? Fleischlt3(cker: The anltli..Communist feeling is stronger among ·people more than 30 yeairs old, because, s1ionce tlhe end of fue Second Wo,r,ld War, the youth is educ-aJted in the Communist spirilt in tlhe sohools, in the factories, in the military servke. There are many yOU!Il.g men of 25 wiho fall for Communist promises. The majo:rd.ty of men of 30, however, still remembers well the times of lilberty, the times when food and cl·o thes were not rationed and wlhen there was a great possilbility for everylbod,y to get a job. Sir Robert: Do the Czechs and S1oivaks stiH remember the great men like T. G. Masairyk, Milan Steifanrnk, Edward Benes, Jan Masa.iryik, and Alrchlbishop Beram.? Are these personalities known ,b y the young generaJtion? Krman: '11he young ,p eople know very little o!f ,tihese men, because the Commll!Ilist regime - wifuout any consideraition for theli,r merilts - is ipresenlting them in a very bad 1ight. Neverth~less, Milan Ra'stislav Stefanik enjo,yetl the fame of a national saint in Slovakia. Lately, however, tJhe Communists in our country try to destroy everything which draws the attention of our people to his memory. 16 SLOVAKIA In Bohemia and Moraivia the names Olf T. G. Masaryk, Edward Benes and Archbishop Beran axe still. quite popuiar, but not m S1ovaJkia, where the names of Hlinka, Tiso, Stefanik preva,i'l. Sir Robert: How do the anti-Communist Czecho~Slovalks im~,gii,ne lbhe ,1ilberation of Ozecho-Siovrukia. and the future of their Staite in a li!beraited Elllrope? Molnar: The majorilty of the anti-Communist Slovaks i:. for a Central-European federaJtion of peoples, in which every nation wi.N decide its. own af,fa:II'ls and wihere every memlber whlll have equal,i ty o,f r~ghrts wtiith oither pairtners. But :t!he main task i'S to be seen in the common decision o!f all these peoip[e,s - Czeclhs, S1ovaJks, Magyars and alt.hens to destroy the Communist tyranny. - ('Slovruk League PTess BU!reau by pemnission of the BBC, London, and ,t he interviewed). • • • WHO SAID IT? "I fully understand the reasons which led France and Great Britain to demand that we should not fight in September 1938 • . . . In that year, I think the only countries in Europe prepared for the war were GERMANY, THE SOVIET UNION AND CZECHOSLOVAKIA. I had no doubts whatever about Czechoslovak preparedness. Our resources were great and they were fully mobilized. From 1933, when Hitler took the whole power in Germany into his hands, I WAS SU RE that Europe was moving rapidly towards a great and terrible crisis . . . . In 1938 in September we had ONE MILLION AND A HALF splendidly equipped soldiers. They were at the disposal of the struggle for democracy and freedom together with all our powerful industries. The events in 1938 prevented it.' Nazi Germany disbanded and destroyed this splendid army. Only a very small part of it succeeded In reaching the Allied countries." Dr. Benes, Speech, New York, May 26, 1943). • • • "Czecho-Slovakia and Germany were the only two countries in Europe, which, in the September 1938 crisis, were TOTALLY PREPARED FOR WAR. As for us, our resources were mobilized to the highest degree. And these resources were very great! • . • Had not PRAGUE adopted during the September crisis a passive attitude, Hitler would have unleashed the war then • • • . WE, therefore, under irresistible pressure submitted to the decision which had been made. I RESIGNED THE OFFICE OF PRESIDENT, made preparations in the country for a struggle against Naziism in the event of war, and went into exile. The whole nation very soon understood." - Dr. Edward Benes, Central European Observer, 1-17-41) .  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 Sir Robert Bruce Lockhardt and the Slovak Aviators Description An account of the resource Slovakia, Vol. 3, No. 2 (7), July 1953 pp. 13-16 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource July 1953 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/0226d0dbb8be61341c5316e246bbf441.pdf 2c82293e937a7c62570f891dc067525c PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA IOI DOCUMENTATION: Sketches from a Slovak Catholic Parish in Pittston, PA [1900] by Matus Jankola (Translated by M. Mark Stolarik) 1 A nice, transparent picture is what you wish, I know. 2 However, that will be impossible. It is very difficult to write something short and interesting about our life here. I would, indeed, like to present you with something short, but our American conditions 'The Rev. Matus Jankola (1872, Budapest - 1916. Bridgeport, CT) was one of the most important leaders of Slovak Catholics in America. He emigrated to the USA with his family in 1893 and was consecrated a priest in 1895. He then served his people in Slovak parishes in Pittston. Wilkes-Barre and. from 1907 to his death in Bridgeport. Connecticut. A strong Slonk nationalist. Jankola served for a while as president of the First Catholic Slovak Union. he founded the Society of Slovak Priests in the USA. and. most important of all. the teaching order of the Sisters of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Danville, PA. When World War I broke out Jankola supported the destruction of Austria-Hungary and the creation of a federal Czccho-Slovak Republic. I have translated into English and reprinted his article on ··crty z katolfckcj slovcnskcj farnosti v Pit tston , PA", Tovary.{stvo. III (Rufombcrok. Slovakia. 1900). 301-05 for the benefit of our readers because it contains very valuable observations and insights into the early life of Slovak-Americans. For more on Jankola's life sec Jozef Pauco, Matiis Janka/a. kifoz a n.iroclovec (Danville. PA. 1959). ' Jankola wrote this article in response to a request from the Rev. Frantisek Richard Osvald. publisher and editor of Tovary.sstvo. �SLOVAKIA 102 could fill the entire issue of Tovary(stvo; nevertheless I will leave space for people more important than me. I would also like to reassure our nervous Lords I in Hungary I that they will find nothing "American" in my article which should cause them to worry. The Immense Size of the United States. With your permission I will begin with Adam and Eve, because I cannot do otherwise. The United States are truly strange with its people, customs, with its climate and untold wealth, and immense size. It is as far from New York to San Francisco as it is across the Atlantic Ocean-three days by train . If we were to compare this huge republic with Hungary , the former would be like a large, fat cat, and the latter like a mouse. For instance, Johnson 's Universal Encyclopedia gives the following statistics: the United States (including Alaska) covers 3,595 ,000 square miles whereas Hungary covers only 125,000 square miles. The state of Texas is composed of 265,780 square miles , while Austria-Hungary comprises only 264,204 square miles . Thus, the United States is 28 1/2 times larger than Hungary. Approximately a quarter of a million Slovaks live all over this huge country, and my parish is but a tiny dot. Slovak oases. One can find Slovaks all over the United States, especially in commercial and industrial cities. Our colonies resemble oases in the Sahara. They arc especially noticeable in the coal regions of Pennsylvania. The vast majority of our people work in the soft and hard coal mines. So, for instance, one will find Slovaks in the 150-milc stretch from Carbondale all the way to Shamokin , in the finest hard-coal region of the world. Some of the scams of coal arc up to twenty-five feet thick! This area is full of breakers sitting on mine shafts . It is the "Eldorado" of coal , and it employs upwards of 80,000 workers. Fifteen years ago you could count the number of Slovaks here on your fingers, today �SLOVAKIA 103 there are thousands. They are well-organized into 200 branches of fraternal-benefit societies, twelve Roman Catholic parishes, an equal number of Greek Catholic ones, and four Lutheran parishes. The Diocese of Scranton. It is the most "Slovak" of all dioceses in America, with JO Slovak parishes served by eight Roman Catholic priests, and an equal number of Greek Catholics . We Roman Catholics also have our own schools, but not everywhere. The Greek Catholic priests , on the other hand , do not care about having their own schools. We have Roman Catholic parishes in the following towns and cities: in Oliphant (founded in 1889) under the patronage of the Holy Ghost, with a filial parish in Jessup (founded in I 896) under the patronage of St. Michael; in Scranton (founded in 1895) under the patronage of the Holy Family; in Plymouth (founded in 1886) under the patronage of St. Stephen the King; in Wilkes-Barre (founded in 1895) under the patronage of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; in Freeland (founded in 1893) under the patronage of St. John Ncpomuccnc; in Nanticoke (founded in I 888) under the patronage of St. Joseph; in Hazleton (founded in I 883) under the patronage of St. Joseph; in Pittston (founded in 1894) under the patronage of St. John the Baptist, with a filial parish in Maltby (founded in 1895) under the patronage of the Holy Trinity. At the moment we arc building a church dedicated to Sts. Cyril and Mcthodius as a filial of Plymouth. The author of this article organized the parishes in WilkesBarre and Maltby . Pittston and Other Matters. In the northern portion of Luzerne County (each county has a court house which can impose the death penalty) is a beautiful valley drained by the Susquehanna River, which resembles the Yah river at Koma.mo . The valley is approximately 20 miles long and two miles wide. It �SLOVAKIA 104 contains the best coal, and boasts 40 breakers ; The breakers and the mines below them are owned by small and large corporations . Various nationalities work here: Slovaks, Poles , Lithuanians, Italians; the Irish , Scots and Welsh are regarded as Americans, since they speak English, and our people do not. This "Wyoming Valley" has 130,000 inhabitants. Its most important cities arc Wilkes-Barre, with 60,000 people , Pittston with 15 ,000 , Nanticoke and Plymouth with 12,000. We Slovaks number more than 8,000. Surrounding these cities, as chicks s urround their mother hens, arc scattered the various villages and "places" where most of our countrymen live, because the housing is cheaper there. The houses that they rent arc of clapboard construction and consist of 3-4 rooms, with a kitchen, and give them some freedom. The entire population depends upon the coal industry , be cause there is no other. When coal is in demand . there is plenty of work and good times. and the miner can earn up to $80.00 per month, or more. It all depends upon how many wagons of coal he can fill ; at other times earnings arc skimpy: $10.00 to $20.00 per month. or less. In hard times. people work only 2-3 days a week. and goof oil the rest of the time . Even Vienna has beggars! The miner requires $4.00 to $8.00 a month to clothe and feed himself, his wife and children, and during hard times he often falls into debt. When winter comes the mines usually come alive. and the miner can pay off his debts . That's when the butcher. the grocer and saloonkeeper arc paid off. The Jewish saloonkeeper is like a white raven m America . Herc a Slovak can open his own business with a few hundred dollars in capital , become a businessman , and move up to a hig her class, just like in Hungary , when one becomes an aristocrat. Our �SLOVAKIA 105 brothers like to drink in America as well , so there are lots of saloons . Our comrades in the "wet" districts like to run up a tab, and promise to pay up on pay day. However, all saloonkcepers complain that they are owed more than they care to mention . It is impossible to collect on such a debt because state laws do not recognize it. Our saloonkccpers sell not only beer but also whiskey. Slovaks drink only the cheapest brand , which costs $ 1.25 a gallon and is pure poison! A gall on of good whiskey costs $4.00 to $6.00, but our people avoid it because it is not "strong" enough! Our Shortcomings. The most important day in the entire month is payday. Other industries pay twice a month . Here, it comes only once a month. On payday evening there is happiness and good cheer, and the saloonkeepers have their harvest, as does the devil. The "places" and "patches" are the mos t lively. because they have no police constables. Many houses arc full of noise , laughter and singing, because Slovaks love to sing, but this merrymaking often ends in sadness. The "finale" is usually a fi ght , jail , a fine , and judgment. The largest beneficiaries arc the squires and lawyers . These squabbles have often ended with the death penalty or life impri sonment. The day after one often finds in front of homes, or saloons. empty SO-litre kegs, drained of their beer and resembling cannons in Lad ys mith . In recent times , however, things have gotten better - people do not have much money, they arc more careful, and all nationalities arc organized into fratern al-benefit societies and parishes. We shouldn't be surprised by such be haviour, because the hungry do not know moderation. they stuff themselves until they get sick. Not all Slovaks behave like animals on payday. Usually it is only the bachelors, who live as boarders. Some Slovak homes contain as many as 12 boarders who pay $2.00 to $3 .00 per month for room and board . The poor owner of the hou se has to suffer much abuse because , if he �106 SLOVAKIA becomes too strict, the boarders will go elsewhere. The morality of these boarders is rapidly deteriorating (only a minority is upright). Many are married, but while their wives arc enjoying themselves in Slovakia, their husbands are having a good time in America. Some drink too much, and do not go to work until they arc penniless . They won 't hear of going to church or to confes- sion , with the excuse that their church is in the Old Country, as is their pastor, and they will go to him when they return. How many of them have already died in sin! The mines are very dangerous . Death comes as easily here as pears falling from a shaking tree. Every day one hears about someone being burned by coal gas, being crushed by coal or rocks, and killed . The hospitals in Wilkes-Barre and Pittston are full of such patients . It is fairly common to see people on the street who arc missing hands, legs or who arc crippled in some way. In America it is appalling to see so much human tragedy ; life here is worth nothing. Another failing of our people is that they arc very argumentative and sue each other. In parishes they claim that, because they financially support the church, they arc free to criticize the priest, his behaviour. his sermons , his orders and his general handling of matters (especially financial ones). The Poles arc "masters" at this game, they are leaving the Church and have even established a large number of national. independent parishes free from Irish bishops. Our Slovaks arc a more humble, they will grumble , criticize, but then give way. If other nationalities <lid not set a bad example for them, our Slovaks would be quiet. Herc, too. the proverb "The sheep arc like the shepherd," holds true. These arc the faults of our Slovaks. However, the Slovaks also have a lot of �SLOVAKIA 107 good qualities, but I don't need to list them, because they are obvious to all who see. My parish. Twenty years ago there wasn't a single Slovak soul here. No Slovaks, except me, live in the city of Pittston itself. The nearest Slovaks have to walk about twenty minutes to get to church. For this reason, I have one of the worst parishes in America. Whenever it is cold, or it rains, I always fear that few people will show up in church. My parishioners live in seven "places" around Pittston. These are: West Pittston, with seven families; Sturmerville, with about 40 families; Wyoming, with ten families; in Port Griffith, with about 40 families; Smithville, with 24 families; Duryea, with about 16 families; and Pittston Junction with 14 families. About 30 of them own their homes. Three or four parishioners own 3-4 homes . The majority of my parishioners hail from Spis County in Slovakia. For instance, Port Griffith houses Slovaks predominantly from the northern Spis region of "pod Magura" (from the villages of Nedeca, Trips , Yysny and Nizny Laps, Kacvin, Cierna Hora and so on.). 3 Others come from Abauj, Zemplfn, Saris and Uzhorod counties. Only a few originate in Grava or Trencfn counties. These statistics cover only parishioners, that is, those who regularly support the church. About 200 boarders, plus 60 families support my parish. Another 200-300 boarders never set foot in the church, and are not parishioners. In America there are three kinds of Catholics. The majority are good, they fulfil their Christian duty, live as Christians , support their parish and priest, the organist and so on. Then you have the lukewarm Catholics, who hem and haw; and finally, the boarders, who don't give a hoot, live a carefree life, pay no ·' This region was ceded by Czecho-Slovakia to Poland after World War I in spi te of the fact that the majority of its inhabitants identified themselves as Slovaks. �SLOVAKIA 108 attention to their souls, and plan to live a Christian life only in the Old Country! To this group also belong the "enlightened ones" and various other individuals. You might be surprised that I can give you only an estimate of the number of my parishioners. That's because our people are always looking for better work, and always on the move, like the Jews. In my Annual Spiritual Report for the Bishop I estimated 800 "souls." The Slovaks care about their religion in spite of the fact that they are abroad and have to fend for themselves in a land which proclaims "liberty of conscience" and has many temptations. We have no patrons, no foundations, no church property , and the state does not support us. The people have to take the initiative, build their churches, and support their priests and bishops by themselves. Priests are paid between $600 and $1 ,000 yearly and the parishes have to pay a church tax to the bishop of between $25 and $200 per month (my poor parish pays only $50 per month). In America we have a sixth Commandment: support your parishes. How do Slovaks support their churches and parishes in America'? In various ways. Where there is no debt or where there are a lot of parishioners, they contribute in small amounts. In some places parishioners pay up to $ 1.00 monthly, in other places 7 5 or 50 cents or only 25 cents (as for instance. in Freeland). With me families generally pay 75 cents and individuals 50 cents, for a total of about $6 .00 per year. In addition , because this year we will be building a church (our present church was purchased from the Germans and is too small and ugly), families arc supposed to contribute an additional $ I0.00 and individuals $5.00 more per year. In some parishes these monthly contributions are gathered by "collectors" , in others, such as in Irish churches , the people �SLOVAKIA 109 bring the money directly to the parish. We have two "collectors" at each location and, as soon as payday arrives, they visit every Slovak home and collect their dues. I went out collecting for the new church myself on two occasions. That's how it is in America! All gifts go into the parish treasury and all expenses are paid out of it: the building, the priest, the organist, the churchwarden, and the church and rectory decorations. The American priest, who is really a missionary, owns onl y his vestments and his books. He simpl y cannot afford to own any furniture or other material that he would have to transport from parish to parish. Ownership-the role of the priest. All churches, sc hools, cemeteries and so on arc church property and arc registered in the name of the bishop in trust. In our parish the property is registered in the land registry office as fo llows : St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Congregation in Pittston, PA , in trust of the Rt. Rev. M.J. Hoban, Bishop of Scranton , PA. In other places the property is registered directly in the name of the bishop, or in the name of the bishop and the parish council; that depends on diocesan laws and state laws. The bishop does not concern himself with parish finances unless a problem appears in the annual report. In my case I control everything. The parish finances are in my name and I write the checks. Once a year I call a meeting of the parish collectors, who are also the trustees, and I show them the books. After that I announce these figures in church: what was our income, expenses, and how much of our debt we have retired . Other pries ts post these figures on the ch urch doors; still others publish them and hand them out to their parishioners. Those church finan ces! They have caused many uprisings rn 4 American parishes . In some places the priest has no control over ' I have desc ribed some of these " uprisings" in my '·Lay Initiative in American Slovak Pari shes. 1880- 1930" in Records of the American Catholic Hi storical �SLOVAKIA 110 the finances, he receives his pay, and that is it. But these are exceptions (among Slovaks they rarely arise), and very bad ones, and such priests are to be pitied. If the people see that their pastor is devoted, active, a good administrator, pays his debts (especially this, or he will be warned), is not arrogant (with some people you have to be very tactful), rude, cheap, demanding, snobbish and lazy, and does not shirk his duties on Sunday after Mass, then the people will support him. The Slovaks are very good in this regard. However, if one's predecessor ruined everything, then it is very difficult to regain the people's trust. From this you musn 't conclude that the priest here is a servant of the people and has no authority. We all know that in Hungary, if the priest sides with the nobles, he will triumph, but what do the people think of him? I know that people value good priests more in America than they do in Hungary. We live in a land of 40 million Protestants and atheists but it is unheard of that someone would insult a Roman Catholic priest, as often happened in Hungary. We don 't normally wear vestments in public, but we do wear Roman collars, and even without it people recognize us and address us as "Father." Here, as in the old country, people do complain to the bishops about us, and especially here where there are so many trains and streetcars, and most often about that miserable treasury, and mostly it is by the smartalecks and loudmouths who wish to control the parish. We do not have great formalities here, we address the bishop simply as "Bishop" (and usually he also serves as his own secretary) and, if he so wishes, he simply tells you that he is removing you from the parish. You are now on vacation Society of Philadelphia, 83, 3-4 (September-December. 1972). 151 -8: as has Raymond J. Kupke in ..The Slovak National Catholic Church. Passaic. New Jersey. and the Jeczusko Affair," in Slovakia, 33, 60-61 (1987-88). 63 -86. �SLOVAKIA 111 and can travel wherever you want (provided you have the finances). However, since America is a "free country" you can appeal to the Apostolic Delegate in Washington , or even to Rome itself! Here you can do it. The spiritual life. If we did not have those dissolute "boarders" among us, I could safely say that our people would be the best, the most moral and religious of all. Those who were raised in a religious way in the old country are good Catholics here as well. The work of priests in Slovakia is evident here. My Spis Slovaks are the best of all those in Pittston-they attend services the most, they s upport the parish the most, and they obey and respect their pastor. Forty children attend the parochial sc hool and if they lived closer, over 100 would attend. The people go to confession 2-3 times a year. We have a Rosary Society of the Sacred Heart and a Living Rosary Society; both have many members . Thirty of them subscribe to the religious magazine Po.sol. In the last year my parishioners raised almost $4,000 for the support of their church. This is how we live in distant America, torn from our motherland, but very few of us wish to return. It must really be better here for the poor working person. Indeed , it is! � SLOVAKIA IOI DOCUMENTATION: Sketches from a Slovak Catholic Parish in Pittston, PA [1900] by Matus Jankola (Translated by M. Mark Stolarik) 1 A nice, transparent picture is what you wish, I know. 2 However, that will be impossible. It is very difficult to write something short and interesting about our life here. I would, indeed, like to present you with something short, but our American conditions 'The Rev. Matus Jankola (1872, Budapest - 1916. Bridgeport, CT) was one of the most important leaders of Slovak Catholics in America. He emigrated to the USA with his family in 1893 and was consecrated a priest in 1895. He then served his people in Slovak parishes in Pittston. Wilkes-Barre and. from 1907 to his death in Bridgeport. Connecticut. A strong Slonk nationalist. Jankola served for a while as president of the First Catholic Slovak Union. he founded the Society of Slovak Priests in the USA. and. most important of all. the teaching order of the Sisters of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Danville, PA. When World War I broke out Jankola supported the destruction of Austria-Hungary and the creation of a federal Czccho-Slovak Republic. I have translated into English and reprinted his article on ··crty z katolfckcj slovcnskcj farnosti v Pit tston , PA", Tovary.{stvo. III (Rufombcrok. Slovakia. 1900). 301-05 for the benefit of our readers because it contains very valuable observations and insights into the early life of Slovak-Americans. For more on Jankola's life sec Jozef Pauco, Matiis Janka/a. kifoz a n.iroclovec (Danville. PA. 1959). ' Jankola wrote this article in response to a request from the Rev. Frantisek Richard Osvald. publisher and editor of Tovary.sstvo. �SLOVAKIA 102 could fill the entire issue of Tovary(stvo; nevertheless I will leave space for people more important than me. I would also like to reassure our nervous Lords I in Hungary I that they will find nothing "American" in my article which should cause them to worry. The Immense Size of the United States. With your permission I will begin with Adam and Eve, because I cannot do otherwise. The United States are truly strange with its people, customs, with its climate and untold wealth, and immense size. It is as far from New York to San Francisco as it is across the Atlantic Ocean-three days by train . If we were to compare this huge republic with Hungary , the former would be like a large, fat cat, and the latter like a mouse. For instance, Johnson 's Universal Encyclopedia gives the following statistics: the United States (including Alaska) covers 3,595 ,000 square miles whereas Hungary covers only 125,000 square miles. The state of Texas is composed of 265,780 square miles , while Austria-Hungary comprises only 264,204 square miles . Thus, the United States is 28 1/2 times larger than Hungary. Approximately a quarter of a million Slovaks live all over this huge country, and my parish is but a tiny dot. Slovak oases. One can find Slovaks all over the United States, especially in commercial and industrial cities. Our colonies resemble oases in the Sahara. They arc especially noticeable in the coal regions of Pennsylvania. The vast majority of our people work in the soft and hard coal mines. So, for instance, one will find Slovaks in the 150-milc stretch from Carbondale all the way to Shamokin , in the finest hard-coal region of the world. Some of the scams of coal arc up to twenty-five feet thick! This area is full of breakers sitting on mine shafts . It is the "Eldorado" of coal , and it employs upwards of 80,000 workers. Fifteen years ago you could count the number of Slovaks here on your fingers, today �SLOVAKIA 103 there are thousands. They are well-organized into 200 branches of fraternal-benefit societies, twelve Roman Catholic parishes, an equal number of Greek Catholic ones, and four Lutheran parishes. The Diocese of Scranton. It is the most "Slovak" of all dioceses in America, with JO Slovak parishes served by eight Roman Catholic priests, and an equal number of Greek Catholics . We Roman Catholics also have our own schools, but not everywhere. The Greek Catholic priests , on the other hand , do not care about having their own schools. We have Roman Catholic parishes in the following towns and cities: in Oliphant (founded in 1889) under the patronage of the Holy Ghost, with a filial parish in Jessup (founded in I 896) under the patronage of St. Michael; in Scranton (founded in 1895) under the patronage of the Holy Family; in Plymouth (founded in 1886) under the patronage of St. Stephen the King; in Wilkes-Barre (founded in 1895) under the patronage of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; in Freeland (founded in 1893) under the patronage of St. John Ncpomuccnc; in Nanticoke (founded in I 888) under the patronage of St. Joseph; in Hazleton (founded in I 883) under the patronage of St. Joseph; in Pittston (founded in 1894) under the patronage of St. John the Baptist, with a filial parish in Maltby (founded in 1895) under the patronage of the Holy Trinity. At the moment we arc building a church dedicated to Sts. Cyril and Mcthodius as a filial of Plymouth. The author of this article organized the parishes in WilkesBarre and Maltby . Pittston and Other Matters. In the northern portion of Luzerne County (each county has a court house which can impose the death penalty) is a beautiful valley drained by the Susquehanna River, which resembles the Yah river at Koma.mo . The valley is approximately 20 miles long and two miles wide. It �SLOVAKIA 104 contains the best coal, and boasts 40 breakers ; The breakers and the mines below them are owned by small and large corporations . Various nationalities work here: Slovaks, Poles , Lithuanians, Italians; the Irish , Scots and Welsh are regarded as Americans, since they speak English, and our people do not. This "Wyoming Valley" has 130,000 inhabitants. Its most important cities arc Wilkes-Barre, with 60,000 people , Pittston with 15 ,000 , Nanticoke and Plymouth with 12,000. We Slovaks number more than 8,000. Surrounding these cities, as chicks s urround their mother hens, arc scattered the various villages and "places" where most of our countrymen live, because the housing is cheaper there. The houses that they rent arc of clapboard construction and consist of 3-4 rooms, with a kitchen, and give them some freedom. The entire population depends upon the coal industry , be cause there is no other. When coal is in demand . there is plenty of work and good times. and the miner can earn up to $80.00 per month, or more. It all depends upon how many wagons of coal he can fill ; at other times earnings arc skimpy: $10.00 to $20.00 per month. or less. In hard times. people work only 2-3 days a week. and goof oil the rest of the time . Even Vienna has beggars! The miner requires $4.00 to $8.00 a month to clothe and feed himself, his wife and children, and during hard times he often falls into debt. When winter comes the mines usually come alive. and the miner can pay off his debts . That's when the butcher. the grocer and saloonkeeper arc paid off. The Jewish saloonkeeper is like a white raven m America . Herc a Slovak can open his own business with a few hundred dollars in capital , become a businessman , and move up to a hig her class, just like in Hungary , when one becomes an aristocrat. Our �SLOVAKIA 105 brothers like to drink in America as well , so there are lots of saloons . Our comrades in the "wet" districts like to run up a tab, and promise to pay up on pay day. However, all saloonkcepers complain that they are owed more than they care to mention . It is impossible to collect on such a debt because state laws do not recognize it. Our saloonkccpers sell not only beer but also whiskey. Slovaks drink only the cheapest brand , which costs $ 1.25 a gallon and is pure poison! A gall on of good whiskey costs $4.00 to $6.00, but our people avoid it because it is not "strong" enough! Our Shortcomings. The most important day in the entire month is payday. Other industries pay twice a month . Here, it comes only once a month. On payday evening there is happiness and good cheer, and the saloonkeepers have their harvest, as does the devil. The "places" and "patches" are the mos t lively. because they have no police constables. Many houses arc full of noise , laughter and singing, because Slovaks love to sing, but this merrymaking often ends in sadness. The "finale" is usually a fi ght , jail , a fine , and judgment. The largest beneficiaries arc the squires and lawyers . These squabbles have often ended with the death penalty or life impri sonment. The day after one often finds in front of homes, or saloons. empty SO-litre kegs, drained of their beer and resembling cannons in Lad ys mith . In recent times , however, things have gotten better - people do not have much money, they arc more careful, and all nationalities arc organized into fratern al-benefit societies and parishes. We shouldn't be surprised by such be haviour, because the hungry do not know moderation. they stuff themselves until they get sick. Not all Slovaks behave like animals on payday. Usually it is only the bachelors, who live as boarders. Some Slovak homes contain as many as 12 boarders who pay $2.00 to $3 .00 per month for room and board . The poor owner of the hou se has to suffer much abuse because , if he �106 SLOVAKIA becomes too strict, the boarders will go elsewhere. The morality of these boarders is rapidly deteriorating (only a minority is upright). Many are married, but while their wives arc enjoying themselves in Slovakia, their husbands are having a good time in America. Some drink too much, and do not go to work until they arc penniless . They won 't hear of going to church or to confes- sion , with the excuse that their church is in the Old Country, as is their pastor, and they will go to him when they return. How many of them have already died in sin! The mines are very dangerous . Death comes as easily here as pears falling from a shaking tree. Every day one hears about someone being burned by coal gas, being crushed by coal or rocks, and killed . The hospitals in Wilkes-Barre and Pittston are full of such patients . It is fairly common to see people on the street who arc missing hands, legs or who arc crippled in some way. In America it is appalling to see so much human tragedy ; life here is worth nothing. Another failing of our people is that they arc very argumentative and sue each other. In parishes they claim that, because they financially support the church, they arc free to criticize the priest, his behaviour. his sermons , his orders and his general handling of matters (especially financial ones). The Poles arc "masters" at this game, they are leaving the Church and have even established a large number of national. independent parishes free from Irish bishops. Our Slovaks arc a more humble, they will grumble , criticize, but then give way. If other nationalities <lid not set a bad example for them, our Slovaks would be quiet. Herc, too. the proverb "The sheep arc like the shepherd," holds true. These arc the faults of our Slovaks. However, the Slovaks also have a lot of �SLOVAKIA 107 good qualities, but I don't need to list them, because they are obvious to all who see. My parish. Twenty years ago there wasn't a single Slovak soul here. No Slovaks, except me, live in the city of Pittston itself. The nearest Slovaks have to walk about twenty minutes to get to church. For this reason, I have one of the worst parishes in America. Whenever it is cold, or it rains, I always fear that few people will show up in church. My parishioners live in seven "places" around Pittston. These are: West Pittston, with seven families; Sturmerville, with about 40 families; Wyoming, with ten families; in Port Griffith, with about 40 families; Smithville, with 24 families; Duryea, with about 16 families; and Pittston Junction with 14 families. About 30 of them own their homes. Three or four parishioners own 3-4 homes . The majority of my parishioners hail from Spis County in Slovakia. For instance, Port Griffith houses Slovaks predominantly from the northern Spis region of "pod Magura" (from the villages of Nedeca, Trips , Yysny and Nizny Laps, Kacvin, Cierna Hora and so on.). 3 Others come from Abauj, Zemplfn, Saris and Uzhorod counties. Only a few originate in Grava or Trencfn counties. These statistics cover only parishioners, that is, those who regularly support the church. About 200 boarders, plus 60 families support my parish. Another 200-300 boarders never set foot in the church, and are not parishioners. In America there are three kinds of Catholics. The majority are good, they fulfil their Christian duty, live as Christians , support their parish and priest, the organist and so on. Then you have the lukewarm Catholics, who hem and haw; and finally, the boarders, who don't give a hoot, live a carefree life, pay no ·' This region was ceded by Czecho-Slovakia to Poland after World War I in spi te of the fact that the majority of its inhabitants identified themselves as Slovaks. �SLOVAKIA 108 attention to their souls, and plan to live a Christian life only in the Old Country! To this group also belong the "enlightened ones" and various other individuals. You might be surprised that I can give you only an estimate of the number of my parishioners. That's because our people are always looking for better work, and always on the move, like the Jews. In my Annual Spiritual Report for the Bishop I estimated 800 "souls." The Slovaks care about their religion in spite of the fact that they are abroad and have to fend for themselves in a land which proclaims "liberty of conscience" and has many temptations. We have no patrons, no foundations, no church property , and the state does not support us. The people have to take the initiative, build their churches, and support their priests and bishops by themselves. Priests are paid between $600 and $1 ,000 yearly and the parishes have to pay a church tax to the bishop of between $25 and $200 per month (my poor parish pays only $50 per month). In America we have a sixth Commandment: support your parishes. How do Slovaks support their churches and parishes in America'? In various ways. Where there is no debt or where there are a lot of parishioners, they contribute in small amounts. In some places parishioners pay up to $ 1.00 monthly, in other places 7 5 or 50 cents or only 25 cents (as for instance. in Freeland). With me families generally pay 75 cents and individuals 50 cents, for a total of about $6 .00 per year. In addition , because this year we will be building a church (our present church was purchased from the Germans and is too small and ugly), families arc supposed to contribute an additional $ I0.00 and individuals $5.00 more per year. In some parishes these monthly contributions are gathered by "collectors" , in others, such as in Irish churches , the people �SLOVAKIA 109 bring the money directly to the parish. We have two "collectors" at each location and, as soon as payday arrives, they visit every Slovak home and collect their dues. I went out collecting for the new church myself on two occasions. That's how it is in America! All gifts go into the parish treasury and all expenses are paid out of it: the building, the priest, the organist, the churchwarden, and the church and rectory decorations. The American priest, who is really a missionary, owns onl y his vestments and his books. He simpl y cannot afford to own any furniture or other material that he would have to transport from parish to parish. Ownership-the role of the priest. All churches, sc hools, cemeteries and so on arc church property and arc registered in the name of the bishop in trust. In our parish the property is registered in the land registry office as fo llows : St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Congregation in Pittston, PA , in trust of the Rt. Rev. M.J. Hoban, Bishop of Scranton , PA. In other places the property is registered directly in the name of the bishop, or in the name of the bishop and the parish council; that depends on diocesan laws and state laws. The bishop does not concern himself with parish finances unless a problem appears in the annual report. In my case I control everything. The parish finances are in my name and I write the checks. Once a year I call a meeting of the parish collectors, who are also the trustees, and I show them the books. After that I announce these figures in church: what was our income, expenses, and how much of our debt we have retired . Other pries ts post these figures on the ch urch doors; still others publish them and hand them out to their parishioners. Those church finan ces! They have caused many uprisings rn 4 American parishes . In some places the priest has no control over ' I have desc ribed some of these " uprisings" in my '·Lay Initiative in American Slovak Pari shes. 1880- 1930" in Records of the American Catholic Hi storical �SLOVAKIA 110 the finances, he receives his pay, and that is it. But these are exceptions (among Slovaks they rarely arise), and very bad ones, and such priests are to be pitied. If the people see that their pastor is devoted, active, a good administrator, pays his debts (especially this, or he will be warned), is not arrogant (with some people you have to be very tactful), rude, cheap, demanding, snobbish and lazy, and does not shirk his duties on Sunday after Mass, then the people will support him. The Slovaks are very good in this regard. However, if one's predecessor ruined everything, then it is very difficult to regain the people's trust. From this you musn 't conclude that the priest here is a servant of the people and has no authority. We all know that in Hungary, if the priest sides with the nobles, he will triumph, but what do the people think of him? I know that people value good priests more in America than they do in Hungary. We live in a land of 40 million Protestants and atheists but it is unheard of that someone would insult a Roman Catholic priest, as often happened in Hungary. We don 't normally wear vestments in public, but we do wear Roman collars, and even without it people recognize us and address us as "Father." Here, as in the old country, people do complain to the bishops about us, and especially here where there are so many trains and streetcars, and most often about that miserable treasury, and mostly it is by the smartalecks and loudmouths who wish to control the parish. We do not have great formalities here, we address the bishop simply as "Bishop" (and usually he also serves as his own secretary) and, if he so wishes, he simply tells you that he is removing you from the parish. You are now on vacation Society of Philadelphia, 83, 3-4 (September-December. 1972). 151 -8: as has Raymond J. Kupke in ..The Slovak National Catholic Church. Passaic. New Jersey. and the Jeczusko Affair," in Slovakia, 33, 60-61 (1987-88). 63 -86. �SLOVAKIA 111 and can travel wherever you want (provided you have the finances). However, since America is a "free country" you can appeal to the Apostolic Delegate in Washington , or even to Rome itself! Here you can do it. The spiritual life. If we did not have those dissolute "boarders" among us, I could safely say that our people would be the best, the most moral and religious of all. Those who were raised in a religious way in the old country are good Catholics here as well. The work of priests in Slovakia is evident here. My Spis Slovaks are the best of all those in Pittston-they attend services the most, they s upport the parish the most, and they obey and respect their pastor. Forty children attend the parochial sc hool and if they lived closer, over 100 would attend. The people go to confession 2-3 times a year. We have a Rosary Society of the Sacred Heart and a Living Rosary Society; both have many members . Thirty of them subscribe to the religious magazine Po.sol. In the last year my parishioners raised almost $4,000 for the support of their church. This is how we live in distant America, torn from our motherland, but very few of us wish to return. It must really be better here for the poor working person. Indeed , it is! � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 2003, Vol. 37 Description An account of the resource Vol. 37 (No. 68-69), 2003. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SLOVAKIA IOI DOCUMENTATION: Sketches from a Slovak Catholic Parish in Pittston, PA [1900] by Matus Jankola (Translated by M. Mark Stolarik) 1 A nice, transparent picture is what you wish, I know. 2 However, that will be impossible. It is very difficult to write something short and interesting about our life here. I would, indeed, like to present you with something short, but our American conditions 'The Rev. Matus Jankola (1872, Budapest - 1916. Bridgeport, CT) was one of the most important leaders of Slovak Catholics in America. He emigrated to the USA with his family in 1893 and was consecrated a priest in 1895. He then served his people in Slovak parishes in Pittston. Wilkes-Barre and. from 1907 to his death in Bridgeport. Connecticut. A strong Slonk nationalist. Jankola served for a while as president of the First Catholic Slovak Union. he founded the Society of Slovak Priests in the USA. and. most important of all. the teaching order of the Sisters of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Danville, PA. When World War I broke out Jankola supported the destruction of Austria-Hungary and the creation of a federal Czccho-Slovak Republic. I have translated into English and reprinted his article on ··crty z katolfckcj slovcnskcj farnosti v Pit tston , PA", Tovary.{stvo. III (Rufombcrok. Slovakia. 1900). 301-05 for the benefit of our readers because it contains very valuable observations and insights into the early life of Slovak-Americans. For more on Jankola's life sec Jozef Pauco, Matiis Janka/a. kifoz a n.iroclovec (Danville. PA. 1959). ' Jankola wrote this article in response to a request from the Rev. Frantisek Richard Osvald. publisher and editor of Tovary.sstvo. SLOVAKIA 102 could fill the entire issue of Tovary(stvo; nevertheless I will leave space for people more important than me. I would also like to reassure our nervous Lords I in Hungary I that they will find nothing "American" in my article which should cause them to worry. The Immense Size of the United States. With your permission I will begin with Adam and Eve, because I cannot do otherwise. The United States are truly strange with its people, customs, with its climate and untold wealth, and immense size. It is as far from New York to San Francisco as it is across the Atlantic Ocean-three days by train . If we were to compare this huge republic with Hungary , the former would be like a large, fat cat, and the latter like a mouse. For instance, Johnson 's Universal Encyclopedia gives the following statistics: the United States (including Alaska) covers 3,595 ,000 square miles whereas Hungary covers only 125,000 square miles. The state of Texas is composed of 265,780 square miles , while Austria-Hungary comprises only 264,204 square miles . Thus, the United States is 28 1/2 times larger than Hungary. Approximately a quarter of a million Slovaks live all over this huge country, and my parish is but a tiny dot. Slovak oases. One can find Slovaks all over the United States, especially in commercial and industrial cities. Our colonies resemble oases in the Sahara. They arc especially noticeable in the coal regions of Pennsylvania. The vast majority of our people work in the soft and hard coal mines. So, for instance, one will find Slovaks in the 150-milc stretch from Carbondale all the way to Shamokin , in the finest hard-coal region of the world. Some of the scams of coal arc up to twenty-five feet thick! This area is full of breakers sitting on mine shafts . It is the "Eldorado" of coal , and it employs upwards of 80,000 workers. Fifteen years ago you could count the number of Slovaks here on your fingers, today SLOVAKIA 103 there are thousands. They are well-organized into 200 branches of fraternal-benefit societies, twelve Roman Catholic parishes, an equal number of Greek Catholic ones, and four Lutheran parishes. The Diocese of Scranton. It is the most "Slovak" of all dioceses in America, with JO Slovak parishes served by eight Roman Catholic priests, and an equal number of Greek Catholics . We Roman Catholics also have our own schools, but not everywhere. The Greek Catholic priests , on the other hand , do not care about having their own schools. We have Roman Catholic parishes in the following towns and cities: in Oliphant (founded in 1889) under the patronage of the Holy Ghost, with a filial parish in Jessup (founded in I 896) under the patronage of St. Michael; in Scranton (founded in 1895) under the patronage of the Holy Family; in Plymouth (founded in 1886) under the patronage of St. Stephen the King; in Wilkes-Barre (founded in 1895) under the patronage of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; in Freeland (founded in 1893) under the patronage of St. John Ncpomuccnc; in Nanticoke (founded in I 888) under the patronage of St. Joseph; in Hazleton (founded in I 883) under the patronage of St. Joseph; in Pittston (founded in 1894) under the patronage of St. John the Baptist, with a filial parish in Maltby (founded in 1895) under the patronage of the Holy Trinity. At the moment we arc building a church dedicated to Sts. Cyril and Mcthodius as a filial of Plymouth. The author of this article organized the parishes in WilkesBarre and Maltby . Pittston and Other Matters. In the northern portion of Luzerne County (each county has a court house which can impose the death penalty) is a beautiful valley drained by the Susquehanna River, which resembles the Yah river at Koma.mo . The valley is approximately 20 miles long and two miles wide. It SLOVAKIA 104 contains the best coal, and boasts 40 breakers ; The breakers and the mines below them are owned by small and large corporations . Various nationalities work here: Slovaks, Poles , Lithuanians, Italians; the Irish , Scots and Welsh are regarded as Americans, since they speak English, and our people do not. This "Wyoming Valley" has 130,000 inhabitants. Its most important cities arc Wilkes-Barre, with 60,000 people , Pittston with 15 ,000 , Nanticoke and Plymouth with 12,000. We Slovaks number more than 8,000. Surrounding these cities, as chicks s urround their mother hens, arc scattered the various villages and "places" where most of our countrymen live, because the housing is cheaper there. The houses that they rent arc of clapboard construction and consist of 3-4 rooms, with a kitchen, and give them some freedom. The entire population depends upon the coal industry , be cause there is no other. When coal is in demand . there is plenty of work and good times. and the miner can earn up to $80.00 per month, or more. It all depends upon how many wagons of coal he can fill ; at other times earnings arc skimpy: $10.00 to $20.00 per month. or less. In hard times. people work only 2-3 days a week. and goof oil the rest of the time . Even Vienna has beggars! The miner requires $4.00 to $8.00 a month to clothe and feed himself, his wife and children, and during hard times he often falls into debt. When winter comes the mines usually come alive. and the miner can pay off his debts . That's when the butcher. the grocer and saloonkeeper arc paid off. The Jewish saloonkeeper is like a white raven m America . Herc a Slovak can open his own business with a few hundred dollars in capital , become a businessman , and move up to a hig her class, just like in Hungary , when one becomes an aristocrat. Our SLOVAKIA 105 brothers like to drink in America as well , so there are lots of saloons . Our comrades in the "wet" districts like to run up a tab, and promise to pay up on pay day. However, all saloonkcepers complain that they are owed more than they care to mention . It is impossible to collect on such a debt because state laws do not recognize it. Our saloonkccpers sell not only beer but also whiskey. Slovaks drink only the cheapest brand , which costs $ 1.25 a gallon and is pure poison! A gall on of good whiskey costs $4.00 to $6.00, but our people avoid it because it is not "strong" enough! Our Shortcomings. The most important day in the entire month is payday. Other industries pay twice a month . Here, it comes only once a month. On payday evening there is happiness and good cheer, and the saloonkeepers have their harvest, as does the devil. The "places" and "patches" are the mos t lively. because they have no police constables. Many houses arc full of noise , laughter and singing, because Slovaks love to sing, but this merrymaking often ends in sadness. The "finale" is usually a fi ght , jail , a fine , and judgment. The largest beneficiaries arc the squires and lawyers . These squabbles have often ended with the death penalty or life impri sonment. The day after one often finds in front of homes, or saloons. empty SO-litre kegs, drained of their beer and resembling cannons in Lad ys mith . In recent times , however, things have gotten better - people do not have much money, they arc more careful, and all nationalities arc organized into fratern al-benefit societies and parishes. We shouldn't be surprised by such be haviour, because the hungry do not know moderation. they stuff themselves until they get sick. Not all Slovaks behave like animals on payday. Usually it is only the bachelors, who live as boarders. Some Slovak homes contain as many as 12 boarders who pay $2.00 to $3 .00 per month for room and board . The poor owner of the hou se has to suffer much abuse because , if he 106 SLOVAKIA becomes too strict, the boarders will go elsewhere. The morality of these boarders is rapidly deteriorating (only a minority is upright). Many are married, but while their wives arc enjoying themselves in Slovakia, their husbands are having a good time in America. Some drink too much, and do not go to work until they arc penniless . They won 't hear of going to church or to confes- sion , with the excuse that their church is in the Old Country, as is their pastor, and they will go to him when they return. How many of them have already died in sin! The mines are very dangerous . Death comes as easily here as pears falling from a shaking tree. Every day one hears about someone being burned by coal gas, being crushed by coal or rocks, and killed . The hospitals in Wilkes-Barre and Pittston are full of such patients . It is fairly common to see people on the street who arc missing hands, legs or who arc crippled in some way. In America it is appalling to see so much human tragedy ; life here is worth nothing. Another failing of our people is that they arc very argumentative and sue each other. In parishes they claim that, because they financially support the church, they arc free to criticize the priest, his behaviour. his sermons , his orders and his general handling of matters (especially financial ones). The Poles arc "masters" at this game, they are leaving the Church and have even established a large number of national. independent parishes free from Irish bishops. Our Slovaks arc a more humble, they will grumble , criticize, but then give way. If other nationalities <lid not set a bad example for them, our Slovaks would be quiet. Herc, too. the proverb "The sheep arc like the shepherd," holds true. These arc the faults of our Slovaks. However, the Slovaks also have a lot of SLOVAKIA 107 good qualities, but I don't need to list them, because they are obvious to all who see. My parish. Twenty years ago there wasn't a single Slovak soul here. No Slovaks, except me, live in the city of Pittston itself. The nearest Slovaks have to walk about twenty minutes to get to church. For this reason, I have one of the worst parishes in America. Whenever it is cold, or it rains, I always fear that few people will show up in church. My parishioners live in seven "places" around Pittston. These are: West Pittston, with seven families; Sturmerville, with about 40 families; Wyoming, with ten families; in Port Griffith, with about 40 families; Smithville, with 24 families; Duryea, with about 16 families; and Pittston Junction with 14 families. About 30 of them own their homes. Three or four parishioners own 3-4 homes . The majority of my parishioners hail from Spis County in Slovakia. For instance, Port Griffith houses Slovaks predominantly from the northern Spis region of "pod Magura" (from the villages of Nedeca, Trips , Yysny and Nizny Laps, Kacvin, Cierna Hora and so on.). 3 Others come from Abauj, Zemplfn, Saris and Uzhorod counties. Only a few originate in Grava or Trencfn counties. These statistics cover only parishioners, that is, those who regularly support the church. About 200 boarders, plus 60 families support my parish. Another 200-300 boarders never set foot in the church, and are not parishioners. In America there are three kinds of Catholics. The majority are good, they fulfil their Christian duty, live as Christians , support their parish and priest, the organist and so on. Then you have the lukewarm Catholics, who hem and haw; and finally, the boarders, who don't give a hoot, live a carefree life, pay no ·' This region was ceded by Czecho-Slovakia to Poland after World War I in spi te of the fact that the majority of its inhabitants identified themselves as Slovaks. SLOVAKIA 108 attention to their souls, and plan to live a Christian life only in the Old Country! To this group also belong the "enlightened ones" and various other individuals. You might be surprised that I can give you only an estimate of the number of my parishioners. That's because our people are always looking for better work, and always on the move, like the Jews. In my Annual Spiritual Report for the Bishop I estimated 800 "souls." The Slovaks care about their religion in spite of the fact that they are abroad and have to fend for themselves in a land which proclaims "liberty of conscience" and has many temptations. We have no patrons, no foundations, no church property , and the state does not support us. The people have to take the initiative, build their churches, and support their priests and bishops by themselves. Priests are paid between $600 and $1 ,000 yearly and the parishes have to pay a church tax to the bishop of between $25 and $200 per month (my poor parish pays only $50 per month). In America we have a sixth Commandment: support your parishes. How do Slovaks support their churches and parishes in America'? In various ways. Where there is no debt or where there are a lot of parishioners, they contribute in small amounts. In some places parishioners pay up to $ 1.00 monthly, in other places 7 5 or 50 cents or only 25 cents (as for instance. in Freeland). With me families generally pay 75 cents and individuals 50 cents, for a total of about $6 .00 per year. In addition , because this year we will be building a church (our present church was purchased from the Germans and is too small and ugly), families arc supposed to contribute an additional $ I0.00 and individuals $5.00 more per year. In some parishes these monthly contributions are gathered by "collectors" , in others, such as in Irish churches , the people SLOVAKIA 109 bring the money directly to the parish. We have two "collectors" at each location and, as soon as payday arrives, they visit every Slovak home and collect their dues. I went out collecting for the new church myself on two occasions. That's how it is in America! All gifts go into the parish treasury and all expenses are paid out of it: the building, the priest, the organist, the churchwarden, and the church and rectory decorations. The American priest, who is really a missionary, owns onl y his vestments and his books. He simpl y cannot afford to own any furniture or other material that he would have to transport from parish to parish. Ownership-the role of the priest. All churches, sc hools, cemeteries and so on arc church property and arc registered in the name of the bishop in trust. In our parish the property is registered in the land registry office as fo llows : St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Congregation in Pittston, PA , in trust of the Rt. Rev. M.J. Hoban, Bishop of Scranton , PA. In other places the property is registered directly in the name of the bishop, or in the name of the bishop and the parish council; that depends on diocesan laws and state laws. The bishop does not concern himself with parish finances unless a problem appears in the annual report. In my case I control everything. The parish finances are in my name and I write the checks. Once a year I call a meeting of the parish collectors, who are also the trustees, and I show them the books. After that I announce these figures in church: what was our income, expenses, and how much of our debt we have retired . Other pries ts post these figures on the ch urch doors; still others publish them and hand them out to their parishioners. Those church finan ces! They have caused many uprisings rn 4 American parishes . In some places the priest has no control over ' I have desc ribed some of these " uprisings" in my '·Lay Initiative in American Slovak Pari shes. 1880- 1930" in Records of the American Catholic Hi storical SLOVAKIA 110 the finances, he receives his pay, and that is it. But these are exceptions (among Slovaks they rarely arise), and very bad ones, and such priests are to be pitied. If the people see that their pastor is devoted, active, a good administrator, pays his debts (especially this, or he will be warned), is not arrogant (with some people you have to be very tactful), rude, cheap, demanding, snobbish and lazy, and does not shirk his duties on Sunday after Mass, then the people will support him. The Slovaks are very good in this regard. However, if one's predecessor ruined everything, then it is very difficult to regain the people's trust. From this you musn 't conclude that the priest here is a servant of the people and has no authority. We all know that in Hungary, if the priest sides with the nobles, he will triumph, but what do the people think of him? I know that people value good priests more in America than they do in Hungary. We live in a land of 40 million Protestants and atheists but it is unheard of that someone would insult a Roman Catholic priest, as often happened in Hungary. We don 't normally wear vestments in public, but we do wear Roman collars, and even without it people recognize us and address us as "Father." Here, as in the old country, people do complain to the bishops about us, and especially here where there are so many trains and streetcars, and most often about that miserable treasury, and mostly it is by the smartalecks and loudmouths who wish to control the parish. We do not have great formalities here, we address the bishop simply as "Bishop" (and usually he also serves as his own secretary) and, if he so wishes, he simply tells you that he is removing you from the parish. You are now on vacation Society of Philadelphia, 83, 3-4 (September-December. 1972). 151 -8: as has Raymond J. Kupke in ..The Slovak National Catholic Church. Passaic. New Jersey. and the Jeczusko Affair," in Slovakia, 33, 60-61 (1987-88). 63 -86. SLOVAKIA 111 and can travel wherever you want (provided you have the finances). However, since America is a "free country" you can appeal to the Apostolic Delegate in Washington , or even to Rome itself! Here you can do it. The spiritual life. If we did not have those dissolute "boarders" among us, I could safely say that our people would be the best, the most moral and religious of all. Those who were raised in a religious way in the old country are good Catholics here as well. The work of priests in Slovakia is evident here. My Spis Slovaks are the best of all those in Pittston-they attend services the most, they s upport the parish the most, and they obey and respect their pastor. Forty children attend the parochial sc hool and if they lived closer, over 100 would attend. The people go to confession 2-3 times a year. We have a Rosary Society of the Sacred Heart and a Living Rosary Society; both have many members . Thirty of them subscribe to the religious magazine Po.sol. In the last year my parishioners raised almost $4,000 for the support of their church. This is how we live in distant America, torn from our motherland, but very few of us wish to return. It must really be better here for the poor working person. Indeed , it is!  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sketches from a Slovak Catholic Parish in Pittston, PA [1900] by Matúš Jankola Description An account of the resource trans. by M. Mark Stolarik Slovakia, Vol. 37 (No. 68-69), 2003 pp. 101-111 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jankola, Matúš, 1872-1916 Stolarik, M. Mark, 1943- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 LCNAF SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/4355d5fa608dcbd2e5899b446d1a939b.pdf 80ffe57af0f2baf80c1a8cf5b8032a04 PDF Text Text 26 SLOVAKIA SLOVAK AND EUROPEAN SEPARATISM (AN INTERVIEW WITH THE LATE ROYAL TAYLOR) Joseph A. Mikus "The National Committee for a Free Eu.Tope" has a district office in Paris. After 1949, political exiles from Central Europe, from newsp3ipeI1lllen to students desiring scholarships, visited this office seeiking .American aid. The Czechs, in particu[ar, passed frequently throogh its doors. In order to infornn Americans that there was a large and well-organized group of Slo.vruks in Paris which desired to have direct contact with political personalities in the free West, I sought an a.ppointment by telephone, one day in the su!mmer of 1950, with Mr. Loyal TayJor, Chief of the American Divisi'on of NOFE in Paris. · Wihen I appeared in the waiting room of the office on F'ooh .AJvenue at five o'clock the following afternoon, I was welcomed iby a ipleasant, elderly gentleman. Shaking my hand and smiling while measuring me from head to foot, he greeted me with the words: "So you are that Sloivruk separatist!" ''That depends on how you take it, Mr. Taylor," I re1plied. "It is evident that unrtil now you have been informed by the Czechs. It is well that I harve come." ; . "Well, welicome and haive a chair!" "'Dhanlk you; gladly! As soon as I hang 'my coat I will exiplain our stand on thi,s matter." "I aim very curious," he said. In the meantime, we had entered his ctffice and sat down. Mr. Taylor crossed his legs and settled himself behind a. large desk, and I made myself comfortaible in the easy c•h air opposite him. "The matter is very simpie," I began. "The difference ,b etween the Ozechs and the Slovaks is the same as between any two indi.vhluals. Certainly, Mr. Taylor, you would not think to claim, for exarniple, that there is any relationship between you and me that could be designated as separatism. We are two different pel"SOns, not?" �SLOVAKIA 27 "That I admit," Mr. Taylor said, "but I am not certain that your comparison is correct. You form with the Czechs one Czechoslovak (sic) nation, I mean, one State." "That is what the Ozechs claim. But that is not true," I answered. "We are two, nations, two historic and ethnic individualities which existed long before Czecho-Slovakia and Wlhich, since 191'8, formed one State on a basis of a mutua!l and voluntary decision. The original aim of CzechoSloivakia was to guarantee ,p olitical freedom to both nations within the joint State, to the Czechs as well as to the Slovaks. That is what Benes ,s aid at the peace conference. That is the waiy it is stated in the Treaty otf St. Gernl.ain. But, sinlce the ~ h s by unilateral a:ction changed the original pUI'lpOSe of the Ozecho-Slovak State, and misused this jointly-creruted b,ody, so that through the fiction of a 'Czechoslovatk' nation they cOUlld enthrone their own hegemony, the SlovaJk,s ceased to. consider this State as their own." "These, then, are the reasons which led the Slovaks to separatism?" Mr. Taylor inquired. "Well, taiken logically, as I have already stated, there ,c an be no question albout a Ozech and Slovak separatism. It would be ,possi!ble to tallk rubout separatism only where a breaich of a natural entity unit would be conoorned. Separatism cannot be 31PPlied in describing the relation.ship of. one nation to another. They can be close or distant neighbors; they can be friends or enemies; but not separatists. Our relationshilp to the Ozechs is an international relationship, and the Owcho..,Slovak State was actuaUy the result Olf that international interest for the guarantee of the freedom of its peoples. As soon as this interest faided on the one side, so fell Czecho~Slovalkia - just as a bridge falls, when the swpiporting pillars on one side of the river are washed o.ut by a flood." "Just what do you mean?" interrwpted Mr. Taylor. "Well, as you certainly will admit, we si,g ned a treaty with the Czechs in 1918, the contents of which they changed on their own initiatiive and to their own adivanta.ge. To put it more conJCretely, we ordered ten wagons of wheat and they delivered ten wagons of chaff. Naturainy, we refused to accept the delivery." 1 �2·8 S LOVAKIA "What exactly do you wish to say when you claim that the Czechs unilaterally changed the treaty with the Slova:ks regarding a common state?" pressed Mr. Taylor, _ . '.'Specifically this: in 1920, the Prague Government dictated .a Constitution for Slo1Vrukia which depr:ived the Slovaks of all . national rights," I explained. "How did it do that?" Mr. Taylor askeid -w ith much surprise. ''Why Masaryik's Czecho~Slovakia was a democratic state! And, as far as I know, the Constitution was not dictated by the Goverillillent but was adopted by the CzechoSlovak parliaiment." "In regard to the first point, there are democracies and democracies," I replied. "There is an American democra cy, a British democracy, a French democracy. There was, then, a 'Ozechoslava!k' democracy and now there is a 'people's' democracy. W1h.at I mean to say is. that these all d1ffer, that is, they are political systems of varied content. In regard to tJhe Constitution, you are right in saying that it was adopted by the so~called National Re1Volutionary Assem1bly. What, perhaips., you do not know, i-s that the members of this so-called parliament had been named by the Government. In short, the revolutionary Government appoint.e<l the revolutionary parliament which confirmed and adopted the revolutionary Constitution which this same revolutionary government presented to it." •~Dr. Mikus, are you serious in making this claim?" asked Mr. Taylor witJh astonishment. "It seems to me, Mr. Taylor, that it would 'be out of place were I not to speak seriously," I replied. "But I will tell you another in:cred:ilble thing. Mr. Benes, as Minister of that revolutionary government, named himself and eleven other Czechs as SLOV\AK 'deputies' to this. revolutionary parlirument." "Really? I must admit that this is exciting and unfamiliar history to me. " ''That does not surziprise me, Mr. Taylor. The period dming which the Czech0-1Slovruk Republic was created, as well as tlh~_. indifvidual acts of the 'Czechoslova:k' democracy, is a terrain pm,posely bedimrrned, from the very beginmng, by �SLOVAKIA 29 Ozech propaganda. A strict, 'blackout,' imposed by Czech pro1paiganda and Czech political history, hangs oyer this period." ·' •No matter what the situation was in the past, Dr. M;i.kus, I belie;ve that you underestimate the determination with which the Czechs will fight for the maintenance of the Czecho..,Slovalk State." "I, on the other hand, am of the opinion that the West is n'()lt fully aware of the tenacity of the Slovaks in their struggle for national independence. Moreo:ver, while the struggle Olf the Czechs is ordinary greed for political power, the struggle Olf the Slovalks is much more. It is a struggle for freedom, for the very existence of the nation. While a state is only a form, a nation is a living, moral being. Even Masaryik, whom the Czechs like to quote so much, recognized the priority of a nation over a state when he said: 'Wihen indirvidual nations are striving for their independence and are attempting to break up states in which they have until now been incor,porated, that is not a fight against humanity and internationalism, but a fight against those who used the states for an artificial levelling of the status among peoples and politiical uniformity. Humanity, however, does not seek uniformity but union, and it is the independence of nations which will maike possible an organic association, an organiic federation of Europe'." "That is an astQIUilding statement," ejaculated Mr. Taylor. "Certainly! But it i,s important to know when Masaryk said these words. That quotation does not come from Masaryk, the post-,war statesman, but from Masaryk, the exiled politician, who, in 1917, in hi:s book The New Europe, was explaining to the Allies why Austria-Hungary should be bro/ken up. Even though the Slovaks regard Masaryk as an unfriendly personal, µevertheless, except for a few national separatists, we all a:gree with hlm on this point." "Then you do admit that there are separatists among · the S}()IV:aJks ?" said Mr. Taylor, smiling triumphantly. 'There are! How colJlld there not be? The question is, who are they? It is not Sidor, or Durcansky, as the Czechs claim." �30 SLOVAKIA "Then who can they ~ ?" "They are, beginning with Pa:panek, the Slovaks in the so-called 'Council of Free Czechoslovakia'." "Dr. Milkus, your deductions certainly suT!prise me." "Believe me, Mr. TaJYloir, that was not my intention. But it is as clear as tlhe sun. The Slovaks are a nation and a political individuality in Central Europe. From a nation.al standpoint, those S1ov,aJks are separatists who deserted. their nation.a1 heritaige, jomed the Czechs of their 01Wn free will., formed the 'Council of Free CZ'echoslovaikia' with them and, so, as a minority, franik,l y disregard the will of the nation from which they descended. This is a classi'cal example of separatiSIID." ."WeH, UJPOn my word, this is, the first time I ever heard of it! It certainly is something when a separatist like you, designates men lilke Papanek separatists." "I swppose it wiH remain so with these gentlemen until they die," 1 sa,id. "They haive lived and died so long with the Ozechs that politically they have ·o ocome completely captured ,b y them. The Slovak nation will probably have to strike tlhem off its list. Just look well. Even now they are setting out on the .p olitical waters of Central Europe playing host on .iboard to the Ozooh secessionists. And with them they wou.W. li!ke to win in the fight for a thing which, from the point of view od' IDuropean devel01pIDent, must certainly collalPse." "You mean, perhaips, with Chudoba, Prehala, etc."? "No! Certainly not!" I contradicted, laughing 'heartily. "I mean with Zenkl, Ripka, etc." "I must say, Dr. Milkus, that I find it diffioolt to overcome my astonishment over your unusual interpretation of a:ffairs." "It is poosilble. But, just think aver it, Mr. Taylor. Europe is maviDJg and <beginnin,g to unite. There wi!M be a joint IDuropean coail and steel. There is much talik of a Euiropean Council at Stra.sslmrg, of a European parliament, even of a IDuropean army. But Zenikl and his group do not wish to see such a development. He continues to see another Ver- �SLOVAKIA 31 sallies Ozecho..;SlovaJlda, which guaranteed to the Ozechs priority in power. Do you not think that these gentlemen 'let the world pass them by' as the Czech poet Vrehlitoky would hasve said of them? Don't you think that the politics of the 'Council of Free Ozechoslova1kia' is a typical case of European secession? When I compare the politilcs of the Czechs and their Sl()IVaJk colia!borato;rs to the effort ~nded for a united Europe, it appeara to me entirely the same as if the State of Ohio and the State of Pe:rmsylivania, for instance, attempted to secede from the American Union and to estaJblish an independent federated State, Penn-Ohi:o, right in the heart of the United States." "I note, Dr. Mikus, that your comparisons become bolder as you continue." "That, too, is possible," I said, smiling. "Nevertheless, one thing is certain. Whiie .America certainliy woUJld not tolerate aniy secession in her midst, yet politically and finaJ11.cially she s~rts the open separatism of the 'Council of Free Ozechoslovaki,a' in Central Europe. For today anyone, living between Germany and the Soviet Union who is for the status quo of 1918, is a European secessionist and separatist. Yet, on the other hand, the SlovaJks who are for a free Slovakia in a federated Europe are aipparentliy ignored by America. • • • As I was leaiving, Mr. Taylor accompanied me to the door and, shaiking his head, made a final comment: ''l lived in Buda;pest many years and I heard much of SlovaJki:a. I confess, however, that our conversation has troubled many of my current views. I must give it more thought.'' "Irf that is true, my visit to you will be well justified. Until we meet again, Mr. Taylor." Bowing to, him, I thought to mysel.tf: "It woll'ld be fatal for America, if in such a diy:n:a:mic period as exists today, her destiny and the destiny of the whole world should be directed ,b y political conformists." But this reflection was not heard by Mr. Taiylor. � 26 SLOVAKIA SLOVAK AND EUROPEAN SEPARATISM (AN INTERVIEW WITH THE LATE ROYAL TAYLOR) Joseph A. Mikus "The National Committee for a Free Eu.Tope" has a district office in Paris. After 1949, political exiles from Central Europe, from newsp3ipeI1lllen to students desiring scholarships, visited this office seeiking .American aid. The Czechs, in particu[ar, passed frequently throogh its doors. In order to infornn Americans that there was a large and well-organized group of Slo.vruks in Paris which desired to have direct contact with political personalities in the free West, I sought an a.ppointment by telephone, one day in the su!mmer of 1950, with Mr. Loyal TayJor, Chief of the American Divisi'on of NOFE in Paris. · Wihen I appeared in the waiting room of the office on F'ooh .AJvenue at five o'clock the following afternoon, I was welcomed iby a ipleasant, elderly gentleman. Shaking my hand and smiling while measuring me from head to foot, he greeted me with the words: "So you are that Sloivruk separatist!" ''That depends on how you take it, Mr. Taylor," I re1plied. "It is evident that unrtil now you have been informed by the Czechs. It is well that I harve come." ; . "Well, welicome and haive a chair!" "'Dhanlk you; gladly! As soon as I hang 'my coat I will exiplain our stand on thi,s matter." "I aim very curious," he said. In the meantime, we had entered his ctffice and sat down. Mr. Taylor crossed his legs and settled himself behind a. large desk, and I made myself comfortaible in the easy c•h air opposite him. "The matter is very simpie," I began. "The difference ,b etween the Ozechs and the Slovaks is the same as between any two indi.vhluals. Certainly, Mr. Taylor, you would not think to claim, for exarniple, that there is any relationship between you and me that could be designated as separatism. We are two different pel"SOns, not?" �SLOVAKIA 27 "That I admit," Mr. Taylor said, "but I am not certain that your comparison is correct. You form with the Czechs one Czechoslovak (sic) nation, I mean, one State." "That is what the Ozechs claim. But that is not true," I answered. "We are two, nations, two historic and ethnic individualities which existed long before Czecho-Slovakia and Wlhich, since 191'8, formed one State on a basis of a mutua!l and voluntary decision. The original aim of CzechoSloivakia was to guarantee ,p olitical freedom to both nations within the joint State, to the Czechs as well as to the Slovaks. That is what Benes ,s aid at the peace conference. That is the waiy it is stated in the Treaty otf St. Gernl.ain. But, sinlce the ~ h s by unilateral a:ction changed the original pUI'lpOSe of the Ozecho-Slovak State, and misused this jointly-creruted b,ody, so that through the fiction of a 'Czechoslovatk' nation they cOUlld enthrone their own hegemony, the SlovaJk,s ceased to. consider this State as their own." "These, then, are the reasons which led the Slovaks to separatism?" Mr. Taylor inquired. "Well, taiken logically, as I have already stated, there ,c an be no question albout a Ozech and Slovak separatism. It would be ,possi!ble to tallk rubout separatism only where a breaich of a natural entity unit would be conoorned. Separatism cannot be 31PPlied in describing the relation.ship of. one nation to another. They can be close or distant neighbors; they can be friends or enemies; but not separatists. Our relationshilp to the Ozechs is an international relationship, and the Owcho..,Slovak State was actuaUy the result Olf that international interest for the guarantee of the freedom of its peoples. As soon as this interest faided on the one side, so fell Czecho~Slovalkia - just as a bridge falls, when the swpiporting pillars on one side of the river are washed o.ut by a flood." "Just what do you mean?" interrwpted Mr. Taylor. "Well, as you certainly will admit, we si,g ned a treaty with the Czechs in 1918, the contents of which they changed on their own initiatiive and to their own adivanta.ge. To put it more conJCretely, we ordered ten wagons of wheat and they delivered ten wagons of chaff. Naturainy, we refused to accept the delivery." 1 �2·8 S LOVAKIA "What exactly do you wish to say when you claim that the Czechs unilaterally changed the treaty with the Slova:ks regarding a common state?" pressed Mr. Taylor, _ . '.'Specifically this: in 1920, the Prague Government dictated .a Constitution for Slo1Vrukia which depr:ived the Slovaks of all . national rights," I explained. "How did it do that?" Mr. Taylor askeid -w ith much surprise. ''Why Masaryik's Czecho~Slovakia was a democratic state! And, as far as I know, the Constitution was not dictated by the Goverillillent but was adopted by the CzechoSlovak parliaiment." "In regard to the first point, there are democracies and democracies," I replied. "There is an American democra cy, a British democracy, a French democracy. There was, then, a 'Ozechoslava!k' democracy and now there is a 'people's' democracy. W1h.at I mean to say is. that these all d1ffer, that is, they are political systems of varied content. In regard to tJhe Constitution, you are right in saying that it was adopted by the so~called National Re1Volutionary Assem1bly. What, perhaips., you do not know, i-s that the members of this so-called parliament had been named by the Government. In short, the revolutionary Government appoint.e<l the revolutionary parliament which confirmed and adopted the revolutionary Constitution which this same revolutionary government presented to it." •~Dr. Mikus, are you serious in making this claim?" asked Mr. Taylor witJh astonishment. "It seems to me, Mr. Taylor, that it would 'be out of place were I not to speak seriously," I replied. "But I will tell you another in:cred:ilble thing. Mr. Benes, as Minister of that revolutionary government, named himself and eleven other Czechs as SLOV\AK 'deputies' to this. revolutionary parlirument." "Really? I must admit that this is exciting and unfamiliar history to me. " ''That does not surziprise me, Mr. Taylor. The period dming which the Czech0-1Slovruk Republic was created, as well as tlh~_. indifvidual acts of the 'Czechoslova:k' democracy, is a terrain pm,posely bedimrrned, from the very beginmng, by �SLOVAKIA 29 Ozech propaganda. A strict, 'blackout,' imposed by Czech pro1paiganda and Czech political history, hangs oyer this period." ·' •No matter what the situation was in the past, Dr. M;i.kus, I belie;ve that you underestimate the determination with which the Czechs will fight for the maintenance of the Czecho..,Slovalk State." "I, on the other hand, am of the opinion that the West is n'()lt fully aware of the tenacity of the Slovaks in their struggle for national independence. Moreo:ver, while the struggle Olf the Czechs is ordinary greed for political power, the struggle Olf the Slovalks is much more. It is a struggle for freedom, for the very existence of the nation. While a state is only a form, a nation is a living, moral being. Even Masaryik, whom the Czechs like to quote so much, recognized the priority of a nation over a state when he said: 'Wihen indirvidual nations are striving for their independence and are attempting to break up states in which they have until now been incor,porated, that is not a fight against humanity and internationalism, but a fight against those who used the states for an artificial levelling of the status among peoples and politiical uniformity. Humanity, however, does not seek uniformity but union, and it is the independence of nations which will maike possible an organic association, an organiic federation of Europe'." "That is an astQIUilding statement," ejaculated Mr. Taylor. "Certainly! But it i,s important to know when Masaryk said these words. That quotation does not come from Masaryk, the post-,war statesman, but from Masaryk, the exiled politician, who, in 1917, in hi:s book The New Europe, was explaining to the Allies why Austria-Hungary should be bro/ken up. Even though the Slovaks regard Masaryk as an unfriendly personal, µevertheless, except for a few national separatists, we all a:gree with hlm on this point." "Then you do admit that there are separatists among · the S}()IV:aJks ?" said Mr. Taylor, smiling triumphantly. 'There are! How colJlld there not be? The question is, who are they? It is not Sidor, or Durcansky, as the Czechs claim." �30 SLOVAKIA "Then who can they ~ ?" "They are, beginning with Pa:panek, the Slovaks in the so-called 'Council of Free Czechoslovakia'." "Dr. Milkus, your deductions certainly suT!prise me." "Believe me, Mr. TaJYloir, that was not my intention. But it is as clear as tlhe sun. The Slovaks are a nation and a political individuality in Central Europe. From a nation.al standpoint, those S1ov,aJks are separatists who deserted. their nation.a1 heritaige, jomed the Czechs of their 01Wn free will., formed the 'Council of Free CZ'echoslovaikia' with them and, so, as a minority, franik,l y disregard the will of the nation from which they descended. This is a classi'cal example of separatiSIID." ."WeH, UJPOn my word, this is, the first time I ever heard of it! It certainly is something when a separatist like you, designates men lilke Papanek separatists." "I swppose it wiH remain so with these gentlemen until they die," 1 sa,id. "They haive lived and died so long with the Ozechs that politically they have ·o ocome completely captured ,b y them. The Slovak nation will probably have to strike tlhem off its list. Just look well. Even now they are setting out on the .p olitical waters of Central Europe playing host on .iboard to the Ozooh secessionists. And with them they wou.W. li!ke to win in the fight for a thing which, from the point of view od' IDuropean devel01pIDent, must certainly collalPse." "You mean, perhaips, with Chudoba, Prehala, etc."? "No! Certainly not!" I contradicted, laughing 'heartily. "I mean with Zenkl, Ripka, etc." "I must say, Dr. Milkus, that I find it diffioolt to overcome my astonishment over your unusual interpretation of a:ffairs." "It is poosilble. But, just think aver it, Mr. Taylor. Europe is maviDJg and <beginnin,g to unite. There wi!M be a joint IDuropean coail and steel. There is much talik of a Euiropean Council at Stra.sslmrg, of a European parliament, even of a IDuropean army. But Zenikl and his group do not wish to see such a development. He continues to see another Ver- �SLOVAKIA 31 sallies Ozecho..;SlovaJlda, which guaranteed to the Ozechs priority in power. Do you not think that these gentlemen 'let the world pass them by' as the Czech poet Vrehlitoky would hasve said of them? Don't you think that the politics of the 'Council of Free Ozechoslova1kia' is a typical case of European secession? When I compare the politilcs of the Czechs and their Sl()IVaJk colia!borato;rs to the effort ~nded for a united Europe, it appeara to me entirely the same as if the State of Ohio and the State of Pe:rmsylivania, for instance, attempted to secede from the American Union and to estaJblish an independent federated State, Penn-Ohi:o, right in the heart of the United States." "I note, Dr. Mikus, that your comparisons become bolder as you continue." "That, too, is possible," I said, smiling. "Nevertheless, one thing is certain. Whiie .America certainliy woUJld not tolerate aniy secession in her midst, yet politically and finaJ11.cially she s~rts the open separatism of the 'Council of Free Ozechoslovaki,a' in Central Europe. For today anyone, living between Germany and the Soviet Union who is for the status quo of 1918, is a European secessionist and separatist. Yet, on the other hand, the SlovaJks who are for a free Slovakia in a federated Europe are aipparentliy ignored by America. • • • As I was leaiving, Mr. Taylor accompanied me to the door and, shaiking his head, made a final comment: ''l lived in Buda;pest many years and I heard much of SlovaJki:a. I confess, however, that our conversation has troubled many of my current views. I must give it more thought.'' "Irf that is true, my visit to you will be well justified. Until we meet again, Mr. Taylor." Bowing to, him, I thought to mysel.tf: "It woll'ld be fatal for America, if in such a diy:n:a:mic period as exists today, her destiny and the destiny of the whole world should be directed ,b y political conformists." But this reflection was not heard by Mr. Taiylor. � 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 26 SLOVAKIA SLOVAK AND EUROPEAN SEPARATISM (AN INTERVIEW WITH THE LATE ROYAL TAYLOR) Joseph A. Mikus "The National Committee for a Free Eu.Tope" has a district office in Paris. After 1949, political exiles from Central Europe, from newsp3ipeI1lllen to students desiring scholarships, visited this office seeiking .American aid. The Czechs, in particu[ar, passed frequently throogh its doors. In order to infornn Americans that there was a large and well-organized group of Slo.vruks in Paris which desired to have direct contact with political personalities in the free West, I sought an a.ppointment by telephone, one day in the su!mmer of 1950, with Mr. Loyal TayJor, Chief of the American Divisi'on of NOFE in Paris. · Wihen I appeared in the waiting room of the office on F'ooh .AJvenue at five o'clock the following afternoon, I was welcomed iby a ipleasant, elderly gentleman. Shaking my hand and smiling while measuring me from head to foot, he greeted me with the words: "So you are that Sloivruk separatist!" ''That depends on how you take it, Mr. Taylor," I re1plied. "It is evident that unrtil now you have been informed by the Czechs. It is well that I harve come." ; . "Well, welicome and haive a chair!" "'Dhanlk you; gladly! As soon as I hang 'my coat I will exiplain our stand on thi,s matter." "I aim very curious," he said. In the meantime, we had entered his ctffice and sat down. Mr. Taylor crossed his legs and settled himself behind a. large desk, and I made myself comfortaible in the easy c•h air opposite him. "The matter is very simpie," I began. "The difference ,b etween the Ozechs and the Slovaks is the same as between any two indi.vhluals. Certainly, Mr. Taylor, you would not think to claim, for exarniple, that there is any relationship between you and me that could be designated as separatism. We are two different pel"SOns, not?" SLOVAKIA 27 "That I admit," Mr. Taylor said, "but I am not certain that your comparison is correct. You form with the Czechs one Czechoslovak (sic) nation, I mean, one State." "That is what the Ozechs claim. But that is not true," I answered. "We are two, nations, two historic and ethnic individualities which existed long before Czecho-Slovakia and Wlhich, since 191'8, formed one State on a basis of a mutua!l and voluntary decision. The original aim of CzechoSloivakia was to guarantee ,p olitical freedom to both nations within the joint State, to the Czechs as well as to the Slovaks. That is what Benes ,s aid at the peace conference. That is the waiy it is stated in the Treaty otf St. Gernl.ain. But, sinlce the ~ h s by unilateral a:ction changed the original pUI'lpOSe of the Ozecho-Slovak State, and misused this jointly-creruted b,ody, so that through the fiction of a 'Czechoslovatk' nation they cOUlld enthrone their own hegemony, the SlovaJk,s ceased to. consider this State as their own." "These, then, are the reasons which led the Slovaks to separatism?" Mr. Taylor inquired. "Well, taiken logically, as I have already stated, there ,c an be no question albout a Ozech and Slovak separatism. It would be ,possi!ble to tallk rubout separatism only where a breaich of a natural entity unit would be conoorned. Separatism cannot be 31PPlied in describing the relation.ship of. one nation to another. They can be close or distant neighbors; they can be friends or enemies; but not separatists. Our relationshilp to the Ozechs is an international relationship, and the Owcho..,Slovak State was actuaUy the result Olf that international interest for the guarantee of the freedom of its peoples. As soon as this interest faided on the one side, so fell Czecho~Slovalkia - just as a bridge falls, when the swpiporting pillars on one side of the river are washed o.ut by a flood." "Just what do you mean?" interrwpted Mr. Taylor. "Well, as you certainly will admit, we si,g ned a treaty with the Czechs in 1918, the contents of which they changed on their own initiatiive and to their own adivanta.ge. To put it more conJCretely, we ordered ten wagons of wheat and they delivered ten wagons of chaff. Naturainy, we refused to accept the delivery." 1 2·8 S LOVAKIA "What exactly do you wish to say when you claim that the Czechs unilaterally changed the treaty with the Slova:ks regarding a common state?" pressed Mr. Taylor, _ . '.'Specifically this: in 1920, the Prague Government dictated .a Constitution for Slo1Vrukia which depr:ived the Slovaks of all . national rights," I explained. "How did it do that?" Mr. Taylor askeid -w ith much surprise. ''Why Masaryik's Czecho~Slovakia was a democratic state! And, as far as I know, the Constitution was not dictated by the Goverillillent but was adopted by the CzechoSlovak parliaiment." "In regard to the first point, there are democracies and democracies," I replied. "There is an American democra cy, a British democracy, a French democracy. There was, then, a 'Ozechoslava!k' democracy and now there is a 'people's' democracy. W1h.at I mean to say is. that these all d1ffer, that is, they are political systems of varied content. In regard to tJhe Constitution, you are right in saying that it was adopted by the so~called National Re1Volutionary Assem1bly. What, perhaips., you do not know, i-s that the members of this so-called parliament had been named by the Government. In short, the revolutionary Government appoint.e<l the revolutionary parliament which confirmed and adopted the revolutionary Constitution which this same revolutionary government presented to it." •~Dr. Mikus, are you serious in making this claim?" asked Mr. Taylor witJh astonishment. "It seems to me, Mr. Taylor, that it would 'be out of place were I not to speak seriously," I replied. "But I will tell you another in:cred:ilble thing. Mr. Benes, as Minister of that revolutionary government, named himself and eleven other Czechs as SLOV\AK 'deputies' to this. revolutionary parlirument." "Really? I must admit that this is exciting and unfamiliar history to me. " ''That does not surziprise me, Mr. Taylor. The period dming which the Czech0-1Slovruk Republic was created, as well as tlh~_. indifvidual acts of the 'Czechoslova:k' democracy, is a terrain pm,posely bedimrrned, from the very beginmng, by SLOVAKIA 29 Ozech propaganda. A strict, 'blackout,' imposed by Czech pro1paiganda and Czech political history, hangs oyer this period." ·' •No matter what the situation was in the past, Dr. M;i.kus, I belie;ve that you underestimate the determination with which the Czechs will fight for the maintenance of the Czecho..,Slovalk State." "I, on the other hand, am of the opinion that the West is n'()lt fully aware of the tenacity of the Slovaks in their struggle for national independence. Moreo:ver, while the struggle Olf the Czechs is ordinary greed for political power, the struggle Olf the Slovalks is much more. It is a struggle for freedom, for the very existence of the nation. While a state is only a form, a nation is a living, moral being. Even Masaryik, whom the Czechs like to quote so much, recognized the priority of a nation over a state when he said: 'Wihen indirvidual nations are striving for their independence and are attempting to break up states in which they have until now been incor,porated, that is not a fight against humanity and internationalism, but a fight against those who used the states for an artificial levelling of the status among peoples and politiical uniformity. Humanity, however, does not seek uniformity but union, and it is the independence of nations which will maike possible an organic association, an organiic federation of Europe'." "That is an astQIUilding statement," ejaculated Mr. Taylor. "Certainly! But it i,s important to know when Masaryk said these words. That quotation does not come from Masaryk, the post-,war statesman, but from Masaryk, the exiled politician, who, in 1917, in hi:s book The New Europe, was explaining to the Allies why Austria-Hungary should be bro/ken up. Even though the Slovaks regard Masaryk as an unfriendly personal, µevertheless, except for a few national separatists, we all a:gree with hlm on this point." "Then you do admit that there are separatists among · the S}()IV:aJks ?" said Mr. Taylor, smiling triumphantly. 'There are! How colJlld there not be? The question is, who are they? It is not Sidor, or Durcansky, as the Czechs claim." 30 SLOVAKIA "Then who can they ~ ?" "They are, beginning with Pa:panek, the Slovaks in the so-called 'Council of Free Czechoslovakia'." "Dr. Milkus, your deductions certainly suT!prise me." "Believe me, Mr. TaJYloir, that was not my intention. But it is as clear as tlhe sun. The Slovaks are a nation and a political individuality in Central Europe. From a nation.al standpoint, those S1ov,aJks are separatists who deserted. their nation.a1 heritaige, jomed the Czechs of their 01Wn free will., formed the 'Council of Free CZ'echoslovaikia' with them and, so, as a minority, franik,l y disregard the will of the nation from which they descended. This is a classi'cal example of separatiSIID." ."WeH, UJPOn my word, this is, the first time I ever heard of it! It certainly is something when a separatist like you, designates men lilke Papanek separatists." "I swppose it wiH remain so with these gentlemen until they die," 1 sa,id. "They haive lived and died so long with the Ozechs that politically they have ·o ocome completely captured ,b y them. The Slovak nation will probably have to strike tlhem off its list. Just look well. Even now they are setting out on the .p olitical waters of Central Europe playing host on .iboard to the Ozooh secessionists. And with them they wou.W. li!ke to win in the fight for a thing which, from the point of view od' IDuropean devel01pIDent, must certainly collalPse." "You mean, perhaips, with Chudoba, Prehala, etc."? "No! Certainly not!" I contradicted, laughing 'heartily. "I mean with Zenkl, Ripka, etc." "I must say, Dr. Milkus, that I find it diffioolt to overcome my astonishment over your unusual interpretation of a:ffairs." "It is poosilble. But, just think aver it, Mr. Taylor. Europe is maviDJg and <beginnin,g to unite. There wi!M be a joint IDuropean coail and steel. There is much talik of a Euiropean Council at Stra.sslmrg, of a European parliament, even of a IDuropean army. But Zenikl and his group do not wish to see such a development. He continues to see another Ver- SLOVAKIA 31 sallies Ozecho..;SlovaJlda, which guaranteed to the Ozechs priority in power. Do you not think that these gentlemen 'let the world pass them by' as the Czech poet Vrehlitoky would hasve said of them? Don't you think that the politics of the 'Council of Free Ozechoslova1kia' is a typical case of European secession? When I compare the politilcs of the Czechs and their Sl()IVaJk colia!borato;rs to the effort ~nded for a united Europe, it appeara to me entirely the same as if the State of Ohio and the State of Pe:rmsylivania, for instance, attempted to secede from the American Union and to estaJblish an independent federated State, Penn-Ohi:o, right in the heart of the United States." "I note, Dr. Mikus, that your comparisons become bolder as you continue." "That, too, is possible," I said, smiling. "Nevertheless, one thing is certain. Whiie .America certainliy woUJld not tolerate aniy secession in her midst, yet politically and finaJ11.cially she s~rts the open separatism of the 'Council of Free Ozechoslovaki,a' in Central Europe. For today anyone, living between Germany and the Soviet Union who is for the status quo of 1918, is a European secessionist and separatist. Yet, on the other hand, the SlovaJks who are for a free Slovakia in a federated Europe are aipparentliy ignored by America. • • • As I was leaiving, Mr. Taylor accompanied me to the door and, shaiking his head, made a final comment: ''l lived in Buda;pest many years and I heard much of SlovaJki:a. I confess, however, that our conversation has troubled many of my current views. I must give it more thought.'' "Irf that is true, my visit to you will be well justified. Until we meet again, Mr. Taylor." Bowing to, him, I thought to mysel.tf: "It woll'ld be fatal for America, if in such a diy:n:a:mic period as exists today, her destiny and the destiny of the whole world should be directed ,b y political conformists." But this reflection was not heard by Mr. Taiylor.  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 and European Separatism: An Interview with the Late Royal Taylor Description An account of the resource Joseph A. Mikus Slovakia, Vol. 3, No. 3 (8), September 1953 pp. 26-31 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mikuš, Joseph A., 1909-2005 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource September 1953 LCNAF+dates https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/57bf29eb8ae2c1109d7aff74ead3bb38.pdf aa5c41e6906ac3a8d5a85674ddfd8255 PDF Text Text 40 SLOVAKIA Slovak and Ruthenian Easter Eggs in America: The Impact of Culture Contact on Immigrant Art and Custom ANDREW CINCURA University of California Decoration of Easter eggs, one of the most ancient calendar customs of the general Slavic area, (1) is still alive among the Slavic ethnic groups in Europe and America. Though there have been changes in the decoration of Easter eggs and in customs related to this form of folk art, Easter eggs are even now cherished by these groups as important and unaltered landmarks of the past. (2) The importance of Easter eggs has also been recognized in folkloristics. Although several Slavic and non-Slavic scholars have studied Easter eggs, either in connection with other disciplines, (3) or as part of a study of Slavic culture, (4) to my knowledge no scholar has studied the transmission of Slavic Easter egg decorative traditions from Europe to America. In this article, I want to briefly outline continuity and change of this transmission in connection with the Slavic and Ruthenian Easter eggs. (5) This is a pilot study based upon fieldwork among the Slovaks and Ruthenians in Cleveland, Ohio, (6) and will examine and interpret the data collected in the field in the terms of (a) implements and materials used in decoration of Easter eggs; (b) designs; (c) techniques of Easter egg manufacture; (d) customs involving decorated eggs. To begin with, the study of implements and materials used in egg decoration is concerned with technology and etymology. The implements employed in egg decoration belong basically to three groups. First, there are household implements, such as sharp-pointed knives, tin cooking utensils, dishes, glasses, spoons, glass jars, tin lids, electric heating plates, needles, brushes, pencils, awls, and baskets. Removed temporarily from their everyday use, these implements serve folk artists in egg decoration, usually without any special change as to the appearance and function of the implement in question. The second group of implements are represented by slightly modified household tools as, for example, needles and pins puslied lengthwise into large kitchen matches or into chopsticks (Figs. 1,4), sewing awls with attached thread, or thin wire (7), or rubberbands. (8). The third group consists of items bought or manufactured exclusively for egg decoration. This group is represented by three tools, oko, skrabacka, andpierko. The first of them, oko, (literally, "eye"), is an implement used either for immersion of eggs in, or for their removal out of, jars or glasses filled with water colors. The oko, consisting of two basic parts, �SLOVAKIA 41 ring and handle, is made of one piece of relatively solid wire. The ring, as the first part of the implement, is made by the bending of wire into the form of a circle of a slightly smaller diameter than the maximal width of the egg. The handle, on the other hand, is formed by a sharp bend of wire at the point qf the completed circle and in about 120 degree slant to the plane rep'resented by the ring (Fig. 7). The oko was manufactured by Mr. and Mrs. Molchak in order "to prevent scratches on the surfaces of freshly batiked eggs whenever the eggs were immersed into containers or removed with a spoon.'' The second tool, skrabacka ("scraper"), is either a commercially-acquired or a homemade awl with a thin pencil-like wooden or metallic handle . The skrabacka, being alternately used with sharp-pointed knives, is the most important tool in the so-called "scratch-carving" technique. (9) The third tool used exclusively in egg decoration, pierko ("pen"), is called also brko (''quillpen'') in Slovakia. A modern variant of pierko is the voskovacka (literally, "waxing fountain-pen"). Basically an implement consisting of a pencil-like wooden handle and a tiny funnel-like metallic cup attached diagonally to the end of the handle, the voskovacka is the most important tool in egg decoration both in Europe and in America. Its more or less archaic specimens were described by Cenek Zibrt, (10) while the modern equivalents of voskovacka were briefly treated by A. Vaclavik. (11) With the exception of Mrs. Jane Mad'ar (shown in Fig. 10), all my informants in Cleveland used the most modern variant of voskovacka when decorating with the batik technique. (12) The tools of the first and second groups are used in decoration either without any change or with slight modification, and as such they are mentioned by most of the sources consulted for this paper both in the terms of technology and terminology. In Cleveland I observed that all implements belonging to these two groups are generally used in a fashion similar to their use in Europe. One may say that an extensive give-and-take exchange exists between the uses of these tools for everyday needs in the household and in egg decoration. In view of this, the tools of these two groups may be considered the most evident instances of continuity in transmission of this form of folk art from Europe to America. (13) As to etymology, the implements described in connection with the third group above (i.e., oko, skrabacka, and voskovacka) are important items in the tracing of historic-ethnic proveniences and the links in material aspects of Easter customs. The usefulness of these terms is evident if one accepts the thesis that there is no term in folk art for something that actually does not exist. (14) Thus, if Slovak terms skrabacka, pierko, and voskovacka have equivalents in all other Slavic languages, this is also a proof of antiquity and popularity of this special group of implements. (15) If, on the contrary, the term oko does not exist in its specific meaning, for example, in Slovak, this might suggest �42 SLOVAKIA that the implement itself does not exist materially in the Slovak ethnic territory either. If in spite of this , however, both the term and implement are present among the Slovaks in America, this is either because of borrowing from another ethnic group in America, or because of an individual's invention . Either way, it is rather convincing evidence of change that took place between the points of origin and American use of this tool. Mr. Molchak, an American of Ukrainian ancestry , told me that he had seen a similar implement "somewhere in Cleveland.'' This information, linked together with the fact that Mr. Molchak did not know the Ukrainian name of this tool, hints that the implement is of Ukrainian origin, but Mrs. Molchak, an American of Slovak ancestry, gave it a Slovak name. The household implements mentioned in connection with groups one and two above are , on the contrary, of no value for a study along ethnic-comparative lines. Although also known in all Slavic languages, these implements are of interchangeable use, and as such they may be present in the cultures unfamiliar with egg decoration. Examined in connection with the informants in Cleveland , the tools of all three groups are relevant for the study of Slavic-English aspects concerning their terminology. In general, a shift to favor English terminology was observable among all my informants without regard to ethnic or sex group or age. Persistence in usage of traditional Slavic terms was still visible in connection with the most recent immigrants. The American-born Slovak and Ruthenian informants, on the contrary, have shown a tendency to favor Slavic terms only in the cases when the implements were of frequent use at home and infrequently mentioned at school. For example, the childen of Mr. and Mrs. Molchak were well acquainted with the terms of pentlicka ("ribbon" in Slovak dialectical usage) or kistka ("waxing pen" in Ruthenian and Eastern Slovak usage) while the Anglo-American terms were consistently favored whenever the children spoke about knives, spoons, or canples. In essence, one can say that the Old World terms were dropped whenever their specific equivalents existed in English. On the other' hand, the Slavic terms were retained even by the American-born informants whenever neither objects nor terms were present in American culture. The second aspect of this study concerns the examination of materials used in egg decoration. Closely related to the study of implements, these materials are used for preparation of colors and the materials employed in the so-called ''relief techniques.'' Since the materials used in the relief techniques will be treated extensively later in this article, only the materials used in preparation of colors will be considered at this point. These materials, at any rate, are of utmost importance for the study of transmission of Easter eggs in its corollary aspect of change . Considered at the point of departure from Europe, these materials represent a medley of knowledge and notions · concerning chemistry, botany, and physics, at a folklife level. In America, �SLOVAKIA 43 on the contrary, all coloring substances are commercially acquired in the form of "new coloring kits, easy to use" either in the so-called "Chick-chick plastic bag" or "Paint me" paper box varieties. In order to understand better the nature and extent of this change, let us examine the materials used for coloring and tinting of eggs first in their European form and then in connection with their American counterpart. According to the majority of my informants, "onions and tea leaves cooked together with eggs were used most often for coloring and tinting by our mothers in Europe , but also some 'other things ' may be used for this work." (16) Although unspecific as to the rest of tinting substances, the informants in Cleveland still gave me enough clues in order to continue with the study of this aspect in connection with the written sources. Thus, the "other things" mentioned by informants may have been: the overcooked "Spring rye, hay and coffee; clover leaves (tied to the eggs and cooked in the) extract of ... young grass (and) parsley" (17) for regular tinting, and "the cabbage 'acid' " (18) for 'etching' of parts of eggs not covered by wax. ( 19) In America, as stated, the tinting and coloring kits are bought. These kits, costing ''only a few dollars,'' (20) contain all basic colors in powder form. The coloring fluid is prepared ''by the mixing of the powder with hot water and vinegar," (21) according to specific directions for use. I have not seen any of my informants work with the etching technique; therefore, I mention it here only in order to stress its relative importance in Europe and its absence among my informants in Ohio. The linguistic aspect concerning the materials used for tinting and coloring is, in my opinion, important only in its European version. The terms used in identification of various tinting and coloring substances or materials are either well-known throughout the Slavic area or restricted to some small regions. The widely spread terms are, again like the terms denoting certain tools, an indication of popularity and presence of these materials and substances in the individual Slavic countries. On the other hand, the terms restricted to certain small regions are undeniable proof that the particular material was used only locally or regionally. This conclusion is based upon the fact that these terms are ''tinted'' with dialecticism to such an extent that they cannot be found in average dictionaries nor identified by those of my informants possessing rather advanced formal education in art history or folk art technology. So, for example, neither Dr. Cincik and Miss Petrushka nor Mrs. Osadca were able to give me any information on the terms of pryzyly or kampeska. (22) The commercially acquired American kits are of no value in the study of folk terminology in connection with materials used for tinting and coloring. As products of mass oriented manufacture, these kits reflect primarily an artificial interference with folk tradition. �44 SLOVAKIA What conclusions could be drawn from this short study of implements and materials used in egg decoration? The frequent use of household tools in egg decoration, to start with, suggests that decorated eggs have roots in a self-sustaining economy. Analyzed with respect to the European tradition, this hypothesis is indirectly supported by many statements of the authors consulted for this paper. Thus, according to Vaclavik, "a laid-away razor knife" (23) was frequently reshaped into a pin-pointed tool and used in the scratchcarving technique, (24) and "a pocket knife with a broken point" (25) was employed for the same purpose by Zibrt's informants. However, "an old spoon (with handle) thrust into the side of a beet-made candlestick" (26) is, perhaps, the most characteristic example of the selfsustaining character of tools in Easter eggs manufacture. This character is, nevertheless, still more pronounced in connection with materials used in egg tinting and coloring. There is almost no limit to the range of plants, materials, and techniques employed in traditional preparation of various colors and tints, as seen in the brief summary of the materials above. Examined in the terms of the American tradition, the hypothesis of a sustentacular relationship of economy and egg decoration still holds in connection with the frequent use of household implements in egg decoration in the United States. There is, however, a marked tendency to acquire more and more tools commercially and exclusively for egg decoration here. One can observe this trend, for example, in connection with the commercially-acquired specimens of voskovacka (waxing pen) or skrabacka (scraper), and in connection with the homemade oko (lit., "eye") manufactured by Mr. and Mrs. Molchak. On the other hand, a drift against the traditional self-sustaining ch'aracter of egg decoration is visible in the fact that all colors and tints are bought. The household implements and materials used in tinting and coloring, to continue, are often referred to in connection with the history of technology in general, and as such they may be relatively good timing and placing devices in establishing historicity and ethnicity of certain aspects in egg decoration custom. Among devices usable for this kind of study are almost all modern inventions, whether of general or restricted use, such as electric heating plates and the voskovacka (waxing pen in its most modem variant). In this connection, however, it is necessary to point out that only presence of modern implements is of value for an investigation along historical lines. Their absence, whether in pictorial representations or in written documents, is worthless, as one could easily see by a comparison of the photographs taken during the interview with Mrs. Molchak (an electric heating plate used for wax melting) and of Mrs. Pap and Mrs. Korlatovic (burning candles used as sources of melted wax). (27) The aspect o~ ethnicity, touched briefly in connection with the dialectical names of materials used in egg decoration, may be considered as a relatively safe testing device of �SLOVAKIA 45 regional-ethnic provenience of certain terms and materials. As a corollary of technology; the inventiveness was indirectly implied in connection witp. the "beet-made candlestick," (28) with the multifold use of household implements, and with the intelligent handling of materials useJ traditionally for manufacture of colors and tints. In its traditional aspect, this inventiveness was brought about primarily by economic considerations. In its new American setting, it is perhaps, owing more to an "aesthetic" feeling of the folk artist. One can see this in two specific cases, such as the above mentioned oko by means of which my informants tried ''to avoid scratches'' on the freshly batiked eggs, (See Figs. 2,3, and 5) and in the concern of another informant "for the shameful results of her work with yellow color." (29) In the first case, Mr. and Mrs. Molchak made the oko; in the second instance, the informant decided "to search for the roots of trouble in order to heighten the quality of her work.'' However, this economic"aesthetic" difference between European and American tradition is a matter of interpretation. There is not a rigid dichotomy between "aesthetics" and economy either in Europe or in America, and there is no dichotomy between the Old World and New World inventiveness either. In summary, the study of implements and materials used in egg decoration is, at its descriptive level, concerned with technology and etymology. At an analytical level, this study may explain some aspects related to economy, inventiveness, historicity, ethnicity, and ''aesthetics.'' Nevertheless, the most important aspect of this study, I think, is in its investigation into continuity and change. As stated above, there is a partial continuity in the tools used in egg decoration both in Europe and in America. However, there is a complete change between the materials used traditionally in Europe and recently in America. The study of designs in folk art concerns primarily an investigation into the types and motifs. Both the types and motifs of folk art are often interchangeable with each other, as in folk narratives, and as such they resist any ready-made definitions. In general, the type may be thought of as the term denoting resemblances in combinations of symbols, signs, motifs, ornaments, and kinds of craftsmanship over a large area to such an extent that these resemblances cannot be ascribed to polygenesis. The motif, on the other hand, is "a graphically complete representation of a given fundamental form that manifests certain content.'' (30) Designs in decoration of Slavic Easter eggs belong to two fundamental types, the western and the eastern. The western type, comprising Poland, Bohemia and Moravia, the easternmost part of Slovakia, and Slovenia, is generally seen as a phenomenon limited in range of motifs, but possessing an exquisite craftsmanship. (31) This type of egg decoration is characterized, according to A. Vaclavik, "by �46 SLOVAKIA star motifs on both ends of egg(s) and by free setting of motifs on sides of egg.'' (32) The specimens of this type are obtained either by tear-like lines and dots (33) or by embossed ornamentation with wax or other suitable material. (34) The most frequent motifs connected with the western type are chains, sinuous lines, trees and branches, garlands, squares, hearts, birds, and rosettes. (35) The eastern type, on the other hand, is geographically restricted to the Ukraine, western Russia, the Sub-Carpathian Ukraine, and the parts of eastern Moravia and westernmost Slovakia. (36) Rich in color as well as in the number of subtypes, this type is characterized by linear ornamentation running over the egg surface vertically, horizontally, and diagonally. (37) The basic traits of the eastern type are traceable to Byzantine art and related to, and influenced by, the grass weaving, (38) embroidery, (39) and wood carving. (40) Because of this relationship, the eastern type is influenced by materials used. Its most frequent motifs seem to be cross, swastika, triangle, pentagram, hexagram, and various highly schematized ribbonlike motifs of lighting, thorns, ''ant and bee paths,'' "bird path," and fork and comb-like motifs. (41) My study in Cleveland showed that Vaclavik's conclusions concerning geographical distribution of these two basic types (i.e., the western and the eastern) are generally valid also in connection with the Slovak and Ruthenian immigrants in Ohio. Already by a cursory observation of the eggs collected or photographed in Cleveland for this project, one can see a remarkable difference between the eggs decorated by Mrs. Molchak, on the one hand, and Mrs. Pap and Mrs. Korlatovic, on the other. While Mrs. Molchak has an overall predilection for the western tear-like motifs, she is also fond of the embossed subtypes in egg decoration. Mrs. Pap, an adherent of the eastern types, decorates eggs characterized by balanced composition of geometrical elements, and by a wide range of colors. With the exception of an egg showing Christ risen from the dead, there is no egg decorated by Mrs. Pap that would suggest design influence from other ethnic groups in America. Mrs. Korlatovic, as another folk artist working with the eastern typological sphere df egg decoration, is also very conservative in approach to design change. Working to the minutest detail in a geometrical partition of the egg surface, Mrs. Korlatovic has attained what many folk artists would consider ''an ideal of perfection." Because of emphasis on mosaicity, the color aspects of her design are subordinated. Eggs decorated by Mrs. Korlatovic are beautiful seen close up; their colors and designs merge in an indefinite brownish hue when the eggs are seen, say, at a distance of 3 or 4 feet. The other informants are more or less an amorphous group as to their relationship to the western or eastern type of design. This group is primarily represented by Mrs. Jana Mad'ar. Mrs. Tanya Osadca, Miss Petrushka, Dr. Joseph Cincik, Mr. Vladimir Ozabal and three daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Molchak. With the exception of the last �SLOVAKIA 47 mentioned three girls, who show a definite pro-western typological inclination (Note Fig. 6) , the other informants mentioned in this paragraph are " individuals " resisting any general classification as to typology in design. Some hints as to the preferences of this group may be traced from the study of motifs in the works and collection of this group . So, at any rate, sinuous lines are the favored motif of Mrs . Mad'ar both according to her own words as well as in accordance with her decoration (Fig. 10) . The motifs of tulips, hearts , roses , and birds evident in western Slovak wall-paintings are on the favored list of Dr. Cincik, of Mrs . Ozabal, and, to certain extent, also of Miss Petrushka. But both Miss Petrushka and Dr. Cincik prefer in their professional work a somewhat schematized design of '' pastoral culture,'' as does Mrs. Osadca in her hobby-oriented egg decoration . (42) On the whole, this group of folk artists is an excellent example of the mixed influences that characterize Slovak ethnic territory as to typology in egg decoration designs. All members of the group have roots in their native or ancestral cultures. With the exception of Mrs. Osadca , this group draws basically from the Western Slovak " fireplace decorating sub-type." But designs of this group merge to the central Slovak sub-types of wood carving and embroidery which, in tum , already shows some traces of the linear-geometrical character present in the eastern type of egg decoration. With a view to the types and motifs examined briefly above, the general concepts of designs in folk art may be analyzed in connection with the study of form and content elements as well. The corollaries of form and content, symbol, sign, and ornament, are mutually substitutive, according to one's point of view. Thus, let us say, an ornament considered under strictly formal attributes may be simply a decoration or embellishment. In its content evaluation, however, an ornament could have " an ideological meaning (issuing) from aesthetic concept(s) " (43) either as a sign representing a conventional idea or as a symbol expressing a basic (and) striking ... idea." (44) Let us now examine the most frequent and self-evident symbols, the cross, heart, briar, wild rose, thorn crown, rose, and grapevine in connection with sources I was able to consult and with the Slovak and Ruthenian folk artists in Cleveland whom I interviewed. The cross, both the symbol and sign expressing the traditional concepts of Christ's death and resurrection, was the most frequent ornament used in the decoration by my informants. Its twelve variants, (45) representing the full range of cultural and ethnic connotations, were intentionally used by the majority of my informants in order either to express their religious affiliation or to stress their ethnic backgrounds. Thus , the Latin cross was consistently used by the informants of the Roman Catholic religion while the members of the Byzantine Catholic Rite expressed their religious beliefs with the Byzantine Catholic Cross and with the words "Christos Voskres" (i.e., �48 SLOVAKIA "Christ is risen"). The Greek Cross, with its vertical and horizontal beams of equal length , was used very often interchangeably with the crosses of St. Andrew (i.e., an "X" or " Y" cross) "because all three crosses are easy to draw in any direction and combination with other ornaments. " In a like manner, the Cross of St. Anthony (i.e. , a cross in the form of a "T") and the Maltese Cross were employed primarily for their formal-decorative aspects. The so-called Apostolic Cross, represented by a long vertical beam and by two horizontal beams placed in the upper half of the cross, brought about some implications of ethnic-cultural symbology. While this cross is an official religious symbol of the Byzantine Catholic Church, it is at the same time also partly related to the Slovak national emblem (i.e. , an Apostolic Cross upon the " peak" of a threesome " mountain range " ). This, at any rate interesting aspect, presented no problems in connection with my informants of the Byzantine Rite faith and eastern Slovak background. For them, the cross was both " Slovak " and also " Byzantine"; however, for my informants of western Slovak ancestry or origin, the cross was always of " Slovak " connotation. The informants of Ruthenian provenience stressed that ''the cross was an emblem of their religion" and asked me " to state this clearly when I write about 'their Easter eggs'.'' This , on first sight trivial emphasis upon ethnic or cultural aspects, may not be easily understood by citizens of a large country like the United States. Had one, however, studied the history of the Slovaks , Sub-Carpathians , Huculs , Lemkos, and other small ethnic groups of central Europe , he would see why there is a strong emphasis on esoteric elements in the folklore of these groups. The heart, a universal symbol of love, is prominent in central and western Slovakia. Used frequently both in folk art designs and in Christian symbology as well, the symbol and ornament of the heart developed, in my opinion , from two different traditions . The first tradition of heart symbols has roots in the so-called " spiritual love ," while the second tradition is linked with the so-called " erotic love." Spiritual love is represented in Christian symbols either by a heart with a burning flame on its top and a crown of thorns placed about it or by the so-called "Lumen Christi" (i.e ., Paschal candle) with fire burning "upwards" or "spiritually." The second tradition of love symbolism , " erotic love ," is more evident in folk art and customs . The aspect of erotic love permeates several customs of the S~avic and Balkan areas, among them especially the customs of " Kore ," " Kostrubonko," and " Morena" in which, usually , an effigy of straw is set afire and thrown into the river . These customs , in essence animistic equations of Notteuer , represent fire as a male element moving downwards toward water or the female element. (46) In folk art, both "spiritual" and " erotic" fire s are frequently connected with the symbols of "suffering love " (i.e ., the thorn crown in its spiritual aspect; rose-and-briar in the " worldly" aspect of love). (4 7) After an examination of the literary �SLOVAKIA 49 sources with the evidence from Cleveland, I came to the conclusion that the "heart-rose-briar" composition ("heart-tulip " version in Slovakia) symbolizes among the Slovaks only "spiritual love." This interpretation is self-evictent in connection with the wood-carved cemetery crosses in central Slovakia, with the fireplace paintings in western Slovakia, and with the works of some of my informants in Cleveland. An investigation into the relative directions in the "movement" of individual ornaments reveals that the elements of "twisting" and "knots" are symbolically opposing the "branching" or "open structures" in every vertical composition. The verticallyoriented "twisting," especially when terminated with a "love knot," symbolizes in folk tradition a "suffering kind of erotic love" while the "branching" or "open structure" is a sign symbol of parent-to-child love. In an examination of forty illustrative plates in the work Mal'ovane ohnistia v oblasti Malych Karpat (Decorated Fireplaces in the Little Capathian Region) by Rudolf Bednarik I found no single instance of the so-called "twisting" or " knots " in connection with the western Slovak "fireplace sub-culture." In a like manner, only "open branching" is evident on the cemetery crosses in central Slovakia, shown in the book Eudove nahrobniky na Slovensku. (48) The carving upon the crosses, in addition, shows also genetic and historical development in the ornament-to-symbols direction. The date carved directly on the vertical beam of a cross indicates the year of 188(-), with the last digit illegible because of decay. This cross has no symbolic connotation as yet. Its tulips grow up out of a flower pot rather naturally, and as such they are only an ornament. (49) Another cross at the same cemetery, dated 1928, is evidently an advanced version of the older cross in its ornament-symbol relationship. (50) Its symbolism is expressed in the form of tulips branching upwards from a heart . The "spiritual character" of love is here symbolized, in my opinion, by the "open branching" of the tulip, and, I think, the entire arrangement can be interpreted as suggesting the everlasting love of the deceased toward his living relatives. Now, how does this spiritual and wordly love relationship score with the other folk art products in Europe and in America? Is there any evidence of an ornament-to-symbol orientation among folk artists in more recent times? A little wooden shovel, to start with, was decorated by one of my informants in Cleveland. This shovel may be considered as an intermediary stage between the ornaments symbolizing spiritual and erotic love. Representing the so-called ''medovnikove srdce'' (i.e., " marzipan heart") flanked by two schematized roosters, the ornamental arrangement on the little shovel still preserves some traces of spiritual love (i.e. , the two tulips branching from the heart), but the presence of the roosters suggests already "another aspect" of love. This aspect, I think, is stressed even more by the traditional meaning of the marzipan heart in Slovakia since such a heart was given by a boy �50 SLOVAKIA only to the girl whom he intended to marry. In like manner, the egg made by Mrs. J . B. also shows an intermediary character, this time in connection with the genetic flower pot-to-heart development (i.e., from naturalism to symbolism). There is a remarkable likeness between this egg and an egg shown by A. Vaclavik. (51) This likeness suggests that the polygenetic trend in motifs is not restricted to folk narratives only. Two eggs decorated by one of my informants in Cleveland belong also to the intermediary zone between spiritual and wordly love. One of the eggs , a vertical rendition of "twisting" and "open branching," looks almost like a combination of the rose-and-briar motif of AngloAmerican traditional balladry and of tulip-branching of western Slovak wall-painting. The other egg, elaborated horizontally with only one garland of roses and green leaves slightly above the middle of eggshell, already suggests a higher spiritualization, but this is only an impression. It seems that the most recent ornaments whether created by my informants or by folk artists in Slovakia remained only ornaments. With the exception of the most self-evident symbols like the cross, the heart, and the thorn crown, one of my informants did not know why he put together, for example, the horizontally-arranged grapevine motif with wild roses superimposed upon the grapevine branches. Except the swastika and "sun circles," the other ornaments also described in connection with the types and motifs above are taken by the majority of my informants for face value only. So, for example, Mrs. Korlatovic considered the cobweb, the sieve, and the rake only as a cobweb, a sieve, or a rake, and nothing else. The swastika, treated extensively by M. Gavazzi, (52) was for my informants either "an emblem of the Nazis" or "a garden sprinkler" whenever presented in the "round form.'' Only the informants with formal art training were able to recognize the ' 'ancient symbol of a moving sun'' (53) behind the forms of "windmill wings or clover leaves" of the swastika. The "sun circles," (54) used by my informants in one form or another, were recognized by Mrs. Jana Mad'ar "as a Slovak ceiling decoration," but only Dr. Cincik was familiar with the ancient meaning of this ornament. Theory of design in folk art, like its counterpart in fine arts, is a matter of interpretation in the first place. yonsidered with general concepts of art, designs in folk art may be examined in the terms of form and content, as stated above. Linked to the diachronic study, these designs may reveal some social, economic, cultural, or psychological conditions. Folk art, when contrasted with fine arts, shows a high occurrence of borrowing, repetition, use of conventional themes, plagiarism, and disregard for spontaneity and originality. In the past, folk art was thought to be linked to the preservation and reproduction of life by magical and natural means. At present, folk art seems to lose more and more of its magic character. Hand in hand with the new and more realistic approaches to the problems of life, folk art tends today to emphasize stylistic and formal elements, such as or- �SLOVAKIA 51 nament and decoration attained by mere technical means (i.e., relief techniques). Generally, it seems that folk art design moved originally away from naturalism tow~rd schematization. Its present tendency is toward self-explanatory and self-evident symbolism (i.e., a flower pot exchanged by a heart). When, however, certain general symbols were removed out of anunstressed situation, they became localized within a new and stronger situation and acquired a new meaning (i.e., the Apostolic Cross became the Slovak or Eastern Byzantine Cross). According to conventional aesthetics, symbolism giving content to the form should be thought of as a ''higher level'' in the understanding of artistic creations. In folk art, on the contrary, symbolism was more evident in the ancient and relatively more primitive cultures. With the exception of the most self-evident symbols of the cross and heart, symbolism is almost absent from the recent folk creations. Is this a paradox? No, it is only a fact which suggests that sophisticated and folk culture are two different entities, and so also are conventional aesthetics and folk art ''aesthetics.'' Techniques of egg decoration play an important part in the diachronic-synchronic study of folklore transmission. Thought of in the terms of materials and tools used, these techniques are identified as painting, batiking, scratch-carving, embossing, (with related techniques of inlaying, ribboning, and hammering), and tying. (55) Considered in their relationship to the predetermined use of eggs, these techniques are primarily of a conservational character. There are, however, some techniques of preparatory character which are either considered as preliminary steps for proper decoration of eggs or thought of as techniques in their own right. In order to avoid unnecessary repetition, I want first to consider the preparatoryconservational egg decoration · techniques. To start with, painting or coloring of eggs requires "completely clean hands (and) implements." (56) According to Zibrt, the egg must be "at least three days old in order to 'catch' color, (and it should be) slightly heated in order to retain wax. (57) Several informants, quoted by Zibrt and Vaclavik, stress that "lukewarm rain water" (58) is the best for the cleaning of eggs. Then the eggs are either blown out of the eggshells, or cooked in clean water or with any coloring substance whenever they should be decorated later and used as decorative articles at home or as presents for the others. On the other hand, the eggs are either cooked together with onion skin, tea leaves, or other food coloring substances whenever they should be consumed during Easter holidays, or else "scratched-carved" after cooking. These preparatory techniques are gen·e rally known all over the Slavic area. There is, however, a rather restricted technique of a conservational character employed consistently by Mrs. Korlatovic. According to this technique, raw eggs are decorated with batik, and when dry, the eggs are covered with a thin layer of special shellac. This prevents spoilage, adding a bit �52 SLOVAKIA of mirrorlike gloss. Let us now describe and examine the decorative techniques. The first technique of painting is, in essence, the simple application of the technique employed in other forms of folk art, such as wall painting, pottery and ceramics, painting of household implements, and painting on glass. The technique, "gaining momentum recently especially in northern Slovakia," (59) consists of direct application of oil or water paints on eggs. Although mentioned by Zibrt and Vaclavik, this technique is not very important in over all transmission of Easter customs from Europe to America, and only one of my informants in Cleveland used it extensively. Batik technique, on the other hand, is the most important and widespread technique in egg decoration. Mentioned often by several Slavic and non-Slavic authors, (60) this technique is of an ancient origin. Its existence is known all over the Slavic area, and its popularity is unquestioned also among my informants in Cleveland (See Figs. 1,2,3,5, and 6). The technique itself is based fundamentally on a principle similar to offset printing. Decoration by means of this technique is, therefore, attained in such a way that the parts of the eggshell are covered with wax heated in the tiny cup of voskovacka (i.e., waxing pen), and the egg is then immersed and tinted in a light water color. After removal of the egg from the first color, and when the egg is dry enough, the wax is wiped off thoroughly with a warm rag. (61) Then the egg is, again, "painted" with wax, "bathed" in another somewhat darker color, removed, dried and wiped. These steps are repeated until the egg attains the desired design composition (See Fig. 9) Scratch-carving, after batik the most popular technique in Slovakia, is known also among my informants. Related and similar to woodcarving, this technique is generally linked with the eastern type egg design in general and with the so-called "salasnicka kultura" (i.e. pastoral culture) in particular. According to Vaclavik, the drawback of this technique ' 'is hard work, more time-c~nsuming than with wax(batiked) eggs." (62) Only well-seasoned artists are able to work with this technique successfully. As mentioned above, all my informants are familiar with this technique, but only Mrs . Molchak was willing to scratch carve eggs during my stay in Ohio. Folk artists in Europe use for scratch carving "file or awl, knife, (but) most frequently the point of laid-away razor blades." (63) In America, on the contrary, the most popullar implement for this technique is the so-called "skrabacka" (lit., scraper), an awl made of hard steel and having a pencil-like wooden or metallic handle. The egg, decorated in this technique by Mrs. Molchak was made with the skrabacka. Embossing, inlaying, ribboning, hammering, and tying are basically complementary techniques. Linked with each other both in Europe and in America, these techniques are employed in order to �SLOVAKIA 53 variegate the relief of egg's surface by raising the parts of eggshell. In my opinion, however, only embossing and tying are techniques in their own right. Techniques of inlaying, ribboning, and hammering, on the contrary, are mere adaptations of each other as to the material used. Embossing is a technique ih which the egg's surface is raised by permanent application of heavy coat of wax. This technique , in spite of how effective it looks, is not widespread because, in addition to being hard to work the ''relief peels off easily and melts away in warm weather." (64) Traditional specimens with this technique were made with an application of ''red or blue wax'' upon eggshell, or of '' black wax" upon a red-tinted egg. Embossing of eggs is, according to Vaclavik, "known in Moravia, in westernmost Bohemia, and in Bulgaria.'' (65) Only one of my informants in Cleveland (Mrs. Molchak) works with this traditional technique to any great extent. Inlaying, as the first of the three techniques (consisting of inlaying, ribboning, and hammering), is relatively restricted because it depends very much on the skill of a folk artist. In its European version, this technique is represented by two major variants, the so-called "pasted eggs" and "straw eggs." The "pasted eggs," known both in western Slovakia and in Moravia under the names of "birds" and "doves ," are decorated with paper of different colors and shapes . The results of such activity are "birds" with the body made of the egg, and with the head, feet, tail, and wings made of paper. (66) The "straw eggs, '' on the other hand, are manufactured with a technique in which pieces of colored straw are pasted directly upon the eggshell. This mosaic-like work requires great skill and patience. It is fundamentally a variant of a cabinet making technique in which pieces of straw are also used in decoration of furniture'.s frontispieces. (67) Inlaying, of course, can be carried out in a wide range of combination and of materials used. This aspect, however, will be referred to later in connection with the American counterparts of this technique. Ribboning is, according to Vaclavik, "a further (and) more recent variant (of) sitinovani.' ' (68) Widespread in northern Slovakia, ribboning consists of pasting little garlands on both ends of the egg, and tying the ribbons of different colors and widths around the middle. (69) Among my informants, only Miss Petrushka uses this technique in a form described by Vaclavik, while Mrs. Mad'ar uses this technique in its simpler variant of "string-lacing." Hammering, .the last close relative of inlaying and ribboning, is a very old technique. According to Cesky casopis historicky, (70) hammering is documented as early as 1415. Folk artists working with this technique use most "often blown out goose eggs (and embellish) them with metallic rings, flower and animal motifs. (71) With the exception of Miss Petrushka, none of my informants in Cleveland worked with this technique. Tying of eggs, as a technique in its own right, is now restricted to �54 SLOVAKIA the vicinity of Mikulov in Moravia. (72) However, owing to evidence from Cleveland, I will examine this technique in somewhat more detail than the others. According to the data gathered from other studies and from my informants, the egg is decorated with this technique when it is immersed into strong vinegar in order to soften it and then it is tied about the middle in order to acquire a shape of a written number 8. From a practical viewpoint, this technique seems merely to complement the other seven techniques mentioned before. But as mentioned above, tying becomes a technique in its own right for technological and other reasons. First of all, no attempts were made in other techniques to change the chemical composition of the eggshell to such an extent that it would become pliable. Then, in its interpretative aspect, I think that this technique also suggests another important point. As mentioned before, economic factors play a part in the work of folk artists in Europe and in America as well. One can see this in connection with the multifold use of tools both for general household chores and in the use of the terms with which folk artists unequivocally stress how carefully one should work, for example, with razor blade ''in order to prevent breaking of the eggshell." (73) Now, let us consider this project in the situation of which I was an eyewitness during an exposition of the art work of Miss Petrushka. At this exposition, Miss Petrushka startled the attending public when she let fall a jewelled egg as if accidentally, but the egg bounced up without damage. At my question of how this elasticity of the eggshell was attained, Miss Petrushka answered only in part. She told me that she learned this secret from her father, a folk artist also, but otherwise declined to elaborate on or describe the procedure or the chemical reaction by which the elasticity of egg was brought about. I am no chemist, but in view of Vaclavik' s investigation of the "tying egg technique," I think that the process by which Vaclavik's informants brought about the softening of eggs and the process by means of which miss Petrushka was able to induce elasticity to jewelled eggs\are at least partly related to each other. As to the other side of this problem, there is no doubt that her polite refusal to answer my question was motivated by economic reasons, a sort of private patent protection. With respect to the other techniques, I have observed that my informants combine the relief techniques into one. Conversely, embossing in this "modern" version is carried out in connection with inlaying, ribboning, hammering, painting, batiking, and scratch carving. My informants used for this "new technique," in addition to wax, also dough, cultured pearls, wire of various thicknesses, aluminum foil cut in the form of small leaves and flowers, silk and samite, tiny sequins and beads, marzipan, and confetti in baking and regular varieties. This range of materials used is still not a complete one. And this technique, whether considered as one or separately in agreement with its more traditional counterparts, shows that the �SLOVAKIA 55 variety in products manufactured by my Slovak and Ruthenian informants in Cleveland is very wide. At its specific plane, this variety moves from the work of humble folk artists up almost to Faberge's level. (74) The Americanized technique, which includes a number of European traditional techniques , supports the hypothesis of a forwardreverse relationship beh,xeen techniques and implements used in egg decoration . While the number of tools in Europe shrinks , and the implements are frequently interchanged for economic reasons with those in overall household use , the techniques in Europe were held as separate entities in rather restricted areas, again, I believe, mainly to lower cost and to use only locally available materials . In America the situation seems to be reversed. The implements used exclusively for egg decoration here seem to gain ground . The techniques, as seen above , tend to lose individuality and become more and more incorporated into a larger whole. This again, in my opinion , is because of economic reasons . Ame rican folk artists have no difficulty in obtaining locally everything needed for egg decoration. The choice of products in America permits American folk artists to follow their interests to a greater degree than their European counterparts in the past. No matter whether these interests are of an aesthetic nature or whether they are conditioned by profession , economic aspects of buying and selling as well as of the conditions underlying the choice of raw materials and tools are ever present and important. The custom involving Easter eggs consisted in Slovakia of two basic parts: decoration of the eggs carried out in individual families, and use of eggs as presents for the young men performing showers and whippings. Both the showering and whipping as well as the egg decoration were historically documented , according to Cenek Zibrt, as early as the 14th century. (75) The decoration of Easter eggs , as the first part of this custom , has continued for over six hundred years, and no wonder that the Slovak and Ruthenian immigrants brought this custom also to the United States. According to my investigation in Cleveland, it was carried on by the first generation of Slovak immigrants in America. Only single young men used to perform showers and whippings in Slovakia. The first Slovak immigrants in America, to begin with , were in most cases married men who came to the United States to earn money and either to return home or to bring their families here at a later date. The way of life in the United States, to continue, was conditioned by an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and as such it had no ready-made accommodations for such strange customs as whipping and showering. This custom was practiced in Slovakia on Easter Monday and Tuesday , both days being either a religious (i.e., Easter Monday) or traditional (i.e., Easter Tuesday) holiday. Linked together, these three aspects support the thesis that the no-holiday character of these two post-Easter days was the primary cause that brought about disappearance of showering and whipping in the United �56 SLOVAKIA States. The secondary cause for this disappearance was the fact that the Slovak immigrants were unwilling to continue with a custom that might have brought about ridicule from the more sophisticated segments of the American population. (76) The third cause might have been owing to changed environmental conditions. While rural life in Slovakia posed no difficulties to young men performing showers or whipping, urban life in America brought about some restrictions as to where, for example, the custom of showering could have taken place. In Slovakia this custom was usually performed either in the backyard or in the garden. In America, there were in most cases no places to perform the custom without damage to the interior of the house or, if the showering were performed in the street, without interference with law and order. The second part of the custom, involving the Easter eggs as presents in exchange for showering and whipping, had therefore either to disappear completely or to acquire a new meaning. Because of contact with other ethnic and cultural groups, this part of the custom took the road of incorporation within another cultural context. (77) Thus the Roman Catholic Slovak immigrants retained the custom of egg decoration as practiced in Slovakia; however, the second part of this custom involving Easter eggs as presents for the young men performing the whipping and showering either disappeared completely or was adjusted in order to suit the new situation. On the other hand, the Slovaks of the Byzantine Rite, (78) together with the Ruthenians and Ukrainians proper, did not change the first part of the custom (i.e., decoration of eggs) at all. But a slight change took place among them in the exchange of eggs as compared with eastern Slovakia and Ruthenia. While, according to Greek Catholic usage, a simple form of exchange among the relatives and neighbors used to take place in Europe, eastern Slovaks and Ruthenians in America decorate eggs now either for sale or for exchange with the other church members. The sale itself could be of two kinds: a simple sale for personal profit and a sale to fellow church members with the proceeds donated to the church. The second and third generations of thf Slovak Roman Catholic immigrants in Cleveland retained the "new approach" of the first generation regarding the revision of the custom involving Easter showers and whipping. Together with the eastern Slovaks and Ukrainians, the Roman Catholic Slovaks also adopted the changes of basic techniques, tools, terminology, and economy with respect to Easter customs and decorated eggs in particular. But this is, again, a matter concerning the other aspects of egg decoration, and as such it was either treated in connection with the individual aspects of egg decoration or it will be touched upon in the last part of this article. In the final analysis, one could see that change manifested itself in the various aspects of egg decoration more frequently than its corollary or continuity. With the exception of designs and tools of general use �SLOVAKIA 57 (both of which remained almost unaltered), changes occurred in coloring substances, techniques, customs involving decorated eggs, and in the tools used exclusively in egg decoration. However, as shown above in connection with individual aspects of egg decoration, these changes were always of different character and extent, and were brought about for different reasons. Thus, there was, on the one hand, a complete change from the.traditional home-made coloring substances (79) to the commercially available coloring kits in America. (80) There were, on the other hand, less evident, but still important, changes in techniques, customs, and tools of specific character. Placed side by side, both techniques and special tools show trends of adding and subtracting in a folktale-like manner. As in the study of folktales, one could observe that "two or more tales (are stringed) together," (81) the techniques which existed in Slovakia and in the Ukraine as separate entities were brought together by the folk artists in America and incorporated into one general technique. The opposite trend, again as in folktales, was evident in connection with the tools used exclusively in egg decoration when the "adding of detail(s)" occurred in the New World either owing to modernization of older tools or because of the introduction of new implements. The two-fold change took place, according to my observation, in customs involving Easter eggs. As mentioned, the custom of whipping and showering disappeared in America. The custom of giving Easter eggs as presents to the others was, on the contrary, retained, but its complete change was evident among the western and central Slovak immigrants while only a slight change as to its practical application was recorded among the eastern Slovaks and Ruthenians in Cleveland. (82) What were 1:he reasons behind these changes and why were certain aspects of egg decoration more amenable for alteration than others? As mentioned elsewhere in this paper, the motives for changes in various aspects of egg decoration can be attributed to folk "aesthetics," economy, and to the impact of culture contact with the other ethnic groups in America. Since no fingerprint evidence exists as to the cross-influence between "aesthetics," economy, and impact of culture contact, on the one hand, and the aspects of egg decoration, on the other, my interpretation of the motives leading to the changes in egg decoration is only a tentative one. I believe that the formation of concepts concerning ''aesthetics'' in the European version of egg decoration was brought about by the availability of materials and tools, in the first place. Artistic endeavors of European egg decorators were, in my opinion, conditioned by the initial cost of egg decoration. European folk artists, therefore, either manufactured the tools and coloring substances at their homes or used only locally available materials in order to save on transportation costs. American folk artists, on the other hand, seem to be concerned more with the sale of finished products, and make every effort to sell their products either for �58 SLOVAKIA money or for recognition ; hence, in order to do so, they are forced "to make saleable products" and "to protect their inventions." The worries about qualitative expression compel American egg decorators to buy new tools and to adapt traditional techniques to new needs . Even the custom involving decorated eggs, as an aspect of Easter eggs, was influenced to the greatest extent by culture contact with the other ethnic groups , is currently conditioned by economic artistic considerations . (83) Continuity, holding opposite side to the change in transmission, is evident in the use of general household implements and in designs. As to the tools, this rule of continuity is caused by the fact that knives, spoons, and needles, to mention just some of these items, are bought or used in Europe and in America along similar lines. Designs, in my opinion, seem to be stable elements in egg decoration because they have the most striking visual impact and are also formulaically and repetitively-oriented to a high degree. Seen altogether, both change and continuity exist side by side in the aspects of egg decoration as they exist both in folk art and in culture itself. This fact, being undeniable proof that egg decoration represents a part of the overall culture, is also testimony that the decoration of eggs as a form of folk art is governed by the laws governing culture itself. Easter eggs, therefore , like culture, are a unique human phenomenon, socially shared and transmitted, (84) this time by the Slovaks and Ruthenians in Cleveland, Ohio. Reprinted from Journal of Popular Culture (Summer 1970) IV:l, pp. 155-193, with permission of Dr. Ray B. Browne. FOOTNOTES (1) Cf. Cenek Zibrt, Vesele chvile v iivote lidu ceskeho. Prague : Vysehrad, 1950, p. 251. According to Zibrt, the term 'Easter eggs' was known already in the 14th century, but originated long before that time . (2) Cf. Antonin Vaclavik, Vyrocni obyceje a lidove umeni. Prague : Ceskoslovenska akademie ved, 1959, p . 261. Vaclavik's informants in Moravia think that Easter eggs exist "from the very beginning " and several of his informants " maintain that the decoration of eggs started in Slovakia." (p . 262). In Vaclavik ' s opinion , the term " Slovakia" should be applied to the region alongside the Slovak-Moravian border only . (3) Cf. Kazimierz Moszyiiski, Kultura Ludowa Slowian. Cracow, 1939. CF . also Rudolf Bednarik , Duchovna kultura slovenskeho l'udu. Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1941 . (4) Cf. Vaclavik, pp. 259-580 ; cf. Zibrt, passim. (5) Cf. Note No. 6 below. (6) This fi eldwork was carried out by the author between March 18 and April 2, 1969. Thirty informants of Slovak and Ruthenian descent were interviewed. In addition to extensive tape-recordings and note-taking, the author took photographs tracing the individual steps of egg decoration (black and white as well as color slides) . Most of this material, containing also 17 actual eggs, is stored and available for consultation in the Archive of the Center for Comparative Folklore and Mythology at the University of California , Los Angeles. �SLOVAKIA 59 (7) Used as holders of blown-out eggs or as devises for the lengthwise partitioning of , such eggs . (8) Rubber bands may belong to either of the two groups. Used at times only for partitioning of egg surfaces, rubber bands may be stretched lengthwise diagonally, or latitudinally , and reused as any implement of the group one . At other times , rubber bands can be pasted around the eggs in order either to obtain embossing or to hold other items used in egg decoration , such as ribbons , colored sections of straw, or aluminum foil. Used this way, rubber bands belong to group two . For the specimens made either with ~krabai!ka or with sharp-pointed knife, see R. Bednarik, pp. 95-6. A dark-green egg, made by Mrs . Molchak and donated to this collection at U.C .L.A ., was decorated with ~krabai!ka. For an English treatment of eggs made with egg-carving technique, see Alfred L. Shoemaker, Eastertide in Pennsylvania, pp. 50-62. (9) (10) Cf. Zibrt, p. 257. (11) Cf. Vaclavik, pp. 267-8. (12) The most modern specimen of uoskouai!ka is now available commercially. I bought one in the store of Mr. Rudenskij, 5432 State Road, Parma, Ohio, for $1.00. This specimen is now stored in the Archive F.M .G. at U.C.L.A. (13) As to the specific tools used exclusively for egg decoration, it is ahnost certain that some changes may have occurred in the Old World owing to new developments in culture and technology. This aspect, however, cannot be treated here because my evidence is fragmentary about it. (14) Cf. Zibrt, p . 251. (15) Cf. Ibid ., p. 255 . Cf. also Vaclavik, pp . 267-8. (16) Interview with Mrs . Mad'ar (17) Zibrt , p . 253 . (18) Ibid. (19) For description of etching, see Vaclavik , pp . 268, 275 . (20) Interview with Mrs. Molchak . (21) Interview with Mrs. Pap. (22) " Pryzyly " is a sort of reddish substance used for tinting (Cf. Zibrt, p . 252). "Kampeska" is a commercially-acquired " wood chip" coloring (Zibrt, p. 253). (23) Vaclavik, p . 269 . (24) Cf. Ibid. For a description of scratch carving, see Shoemaker, p. 51. (25) Zibrt, p . 255. (26) Vaclavik, p. 267. (27) Note Fig. No . 1, 2, 3, and 5. The photographs mentioned are on file in the Archive of the Center for Comparative Folklore and Mythology, U .C.L.A. (28) Vaclavik, p . 267 . (29) Interview with Mr~. Molchak . (30) Vaclavik, p . 376. (31) Cf. Ibid ., pp . 338-9. For a summary concerning the western type of egg decoration, see Ibid . , p . 523 . (32) Ibid ., p. 338 . (33) Cf. Ibid ., p. 287 and Plate LXXVII (upper part) . (34) Cf. Ibid ., p . 338 and Plate LV . �60 SLOVAKIA (35) Cf. Ibid., p. 338. (36) Cf. Ibid . (37) Cf. Ibid., p. 339. (38) Cf. Bednarik, pp. 206-208. (39) Cf. Ibid., Plate 75. Cf. also Moszyiiski, p. 916. (40) Cf. R. Bednarik, Pastierske rezbarske umenie, passim., but especially Plates No. 55, 79, 142, 149, and 158. (41) Cf. Vaclavik, pp. 389 , 391, 393, and 395. (42) For prominent motifs in wall painting in western Slovakia, see R. Bednarik, Mal'ovane ohnistia v oblasti Malych Karpat, passim. For ''pastoral culture'' in central Slovakia , see Bednarik, Pastierske rezbarske umenie, passim. (43) Vaclavik, p . 376 . (44) Ibid ., 375. (45) R. Bednarik, Eudove nahrobniky na Slovensku, 57. (46) Cf. J. E. Cir lot, A Dictionary of Symbols, passim. (47) Cf. E. Haig, Floral Symbolism of the Great Masters, pp. 127-8. (48) Cf. R. Bednarik, Eudove nahrobniky na Slovensku, p . 73. Cf. also Bednarik, Mal'ovane ohnistia v oblasti Malych Karpat, plates 1-40. (49) Cf. Bednarik, Eudove nahrobniky na Slovensku, p. 91. (50) Cf. Ibid ., p. 73. (51) Cf. Vaclavik, p. 346 (left side) . (52) Cf. M. Gavazzi, "Svastika i njezin ornamentalni razoj na uskrsnim jajima sa Balkana,'' Zbornik za narodni Zivot i obyc:aje juinih Slavena, XXVII, 1-24. (53) Cf. Gavazzi, Op. Cit., passim. (54) Cf. Alan Dundes, ed., The Study of Folklore, p. 387. (55) For a detailed description of these techniques, see Vaclavik, pp. 267-72. (56) Ibid., p. 267. (57) Zibrt, pp. 252-3. (58) Vaclavik, p. 267; also Zibrt, op. cit., passim. (59) Interview with Mrs. Mad'ar. (60) Cf. Vaclavik, p. 268; Zibrt, op. cit., passim., but especially 251 ff. (61) Cf. Vaclavik, p . 267. (62) Vaclavik, p. 269. (63) Vaclavik, p. 269. (64) Ibid. (65) Ibid. (66) Cf. Vaclavik, p . 269, and Plate XLV. (67) Cf. Ibid., pp. 269-70. Modern specimens made with this technique are shown on Plates XLIX and LXXV; furniture, Pl. LXIV. (68) Ibid ., p. 270. Sitinovani is a technique in which the core of Juncus is pasted upon the eggshell. (Juncus is the Latin term for a genus of olderly tree.) (69) Cf. Ibid . , p. 271. For specimens, see Ibid., p. 351. (70) Czech Historical Review , XXXIII, p. 278 . Cf. Vaclavik, pp. 271, 275. (71) Vaclavik, p. 271. �SLOVAKIA 61 (72) Cf. Ibid., pp. 271-2. (73) Ibid., p. 269. (74) For a treatment of Faberge,. work, see Venetia Newall, "Easter Eggs," Journal of American Folklore, LXXX (1967), 17 ff. (75) Cf. Note No. 1 above. (76) In connection with this point, I tried to elicit the opinions of my informants as to their feeling about whipping and showering. Only Mrs. Mad'ar, a recent immigrant from Slovakia, "hopes that her husband and sons will shower her, but with perfume only." Mrs. Molchak, on the other hand, is against any sort of showering in spite of the fact that the "young boys used to shower her in Pennsylvania." The boys, according to Mrs. Molchak, refused to take any eggs as presents for showering; if they did so, the others "would laugh." Mrs. Pap, a Ruthenian by ethnic origin, considered the custom "without any religious significance." (77) Both the showering and whipping are basically western Slovak customs. In eastern Slovakia, these customs were almost unknown because the majority of the Eastern Slovak population is Greek Catholic. (78) Byzantine Rite Slovaks are in the majority in Cleveland, in comparison with the Roman Catholic Slovaks. In Slovakia, the situation is reversed: Roman Catholics form the majority of the population. (79) I.e., cooked spring rye, hay, coffee, clover leaves, parsley, tea, etc. Cf. also Notes 17 and 22 above. (80) According to Mrs. Mad'ar, coloring substances are now also available commercially in Slovakia; however, they are not used frequently, and they are not packed in exclusive egg decoration kits either. (81) According to Stith Thompson, folktales change by "adding a detail (and by) stringing two or more tales together." The Folktale, p. 436. (82) Because of the disappearance of showering and whipping, again as in folktales, ''one change (brings about others) to maintain consistency," Ibid. (83) I.e., eggs are now sold publicly in front of the church while in the past they were given for showering and whipping or in exchange for other eggs. (84) Cf. the works of Ruth Benedict, Franz Boas, and A. L. Kroeber, passim. INFORMANTS MRS. KORLATOVIC, an American of Ukrainian ethnic ancestry, is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Rudenskij, owners and operators of an export-import store in Parma, Ohio. Mrs. Korlatovic, the mother of two children and a teacher in a kindergarten near Parma, decorates Easter eggs mainly for sale in her parent's store; she also decorates ceramics. MRS. JANA MADAR, a recent immigrant to the United States, arrived in Cleveland on November 30, 1968. A native of Ruzomberok, central Slovakia, Mrs. Mad'ar is the mother l)f two sons, ages 21 and 20. Mrs. Mad'ar decorated several eggs for this project in the so-called ''painting'' and ''string-lacing'' techniques. MRS. SOPHIE MOLCHAK, an American of Slovak descent, was born in Regenstown, Pennsylvania. She is married to an American of Ukrainian origin and is the mother of six children. Three of her daughters, ages 18, 12, and 9, took an active part in egg decoration during the interviews. MRS. TANYA OSADCA, an Ukrainian by ethnic descent, immigrated to America after World War II. Living now with her family in Peninsula, Ohio, she started egg decorating and collecting in 1952, and at present she owns over 500 specimens. She also �SLOVAKIA 62 studies and collects material published on Easter eggs. Her husband, a psychiatrist at the Veterans Administration Hospital, is also a collector and folk artist specializing in ceramics and pottery. MRS. ANNA PAP, a Ruthenian by ethnic origin, was born in Roztok near the present CSSR-USSR border. Married to Dr. M. S. Pap and the mother of four children ages 17, 14, 11, and 5, Mrs. Pap arrived in the United States in 1933. In addition to her household duties, she is also director of the choir at the St. Mary' s Ukrainian Catholic Church. MISS PETRUSHKA is an American of Slovak descent and a native of Cleveland. An admirer of Slovak folk traditions and a student of Slovak ethnography, Miss Petrushka is the owner of an art studio on Shaker Boulevard, Cleveland. Her collages, collage boxes, and jewelled eggs are well-known all over the United States. During my stay in Cleveland, she held two successful expositions of her creations. DR. JOSEPH CINClK, 65, a Slovak immigrant, arrived in the United States in 1948. An ex-professor at the University of Bratislava and at present an art bibliographer in Cleveland, Dr. Cincik is the foremost expert on Slovak folk art. MR. VLADIMIR OZABAL, 60 , a native of western Slovakia and an ex-officer of the Slovak Army, immigrated to America after World War II . Now the supervisor of a division of the City Water Department in Cleveland , Mr. Ozabal is still working at various projects related to Slovak folk art . .,• "'~ ~:: '~ ., ' Fig. 1 - A typical arrangement of eggs , implements, and coloring substances used by Mrs. Zofia Molchak, an American-born Slovak folk artist working with batik technique in the western-type design. Note the heating plate used for wax melting, rubber bands employed for partitioning of eggs, and the glasses with coloring substances. �SLOVAKIA ~ .,. 63 .. ~ Mrs. Ann Pap, an American of Ruthenian ancestry, decorates eggs in the eastern-type design. Note: a candle is used as a source of melted wax and the most modern specimen of voskovacka, or kistka (" waxing pen") , is employed by Mrs. Pap in batiking of eggs . Fig. 2 - ( Fig. 3 - Mrs. Korlatovic, an American-born folk artist of Ukrainian ancestry, decorates eggs in the eastern style and batik technique for sale in her parents' store. �64 SLOVAKIA Partition of eggshells is carried out with stretched rubber bands. Note the modified " implements" (i .e., needles and pins pushed lengthwise into large kitchen matches, chopsticks, or wooden pencil handles) used in batiking and embossing. Fig. 4 - Fig. 5 - A candle as a source of wax in the batik technique. �SLOVAKIA 65 Fig. 6 - A typical instance of batik-embossing technique and of western-type design. Note the tear-like dots and lines , and the star motifs on both ends of the egg. Miss Sue Molchak, 18 , shown in this picture, decorates eggs every year together with her mother and two of her sisters. The daughter of Mr. Molchak, an American of Ukrainian descent, and of Mrs. Molchak, an American-born Slovak, Miss Molchak is typical of young folk artists who help old traditions permeate a new environment. �SLOVAKIA 66 Fig. 7 - Immersing of a freshly-batiked egg into coloring substance with the so-called " oko " (" eye" ). Fig. 8 - A spoon used for immersing and removal of eggs. �SLOVAKIA Fig. 9 - A typical egg batiked in the eastern-type design . Fig. 10 - Eggs painted and ' ·string-laced" by Mrs . Mad'ar. 67 �68 SLOVAKIA Miss Petrushka , an American-born Slovak, started egg decorating as a folk artist and continued egg decoration on a professional level. The egg shown in this picture is one of her jewelled creations presented at an exposition in Lakewood, Ohio . Fig. 11 - ... Examples of the so-called "Gesunkenes Kulturgut" in folk art - conventional art relationship. The jewelled eggs, shown in this picture, were decorated by Miss Petrushka who, according to her own words, learned "secrets" of egg decoration from her father, a Slovak folk artist . Fig. 12 - � 40 SLOVAKIA Slovak and Ruthenian Easter Eggs in America: The Impact of Culture Contact on Immigrant Art and Custom ANDREW CINCURA University of California Decoration of Easter eggs, one of the most ancient calendar customs of the general Slavic area, (1) is still alive among the Slavic ethnic groups in Europe and America. Though there have been changes in the decoration of Easter eggs and in customs related to this form of folk art, Easter eggs are even now cherished by these groups as important and unaltered landmarks of the past. (2) The importance of Easter eggs has also been recognized in folkloristics. Although several Slavic and non-Slavic scholars have studied Easter eggs, either in connection with other disciplines, (3) or as part of a study of Slavic culture, (4) to my knowledge no scholar has studied the transmission of Slavic Easter egg decorative traditions from Europe to America. In this article, I want to briefly outline continuity and change of this transmission in connection with the Slavic and Ruthenian Easter eggs. (5) This is a pilot study based upon fieldwork among the Slovaks and Ruthenians in Cleveland, Ohio, (6) and will examine and interpret the data collected in the field in the terms of (a) implements and materials used in decoration of Easter eggs; (b) designs; (c) techniques of Easter egg manufacture; (d) customs involving decorated eggs. To begin with, the study of implements and materials used in egg decoration is concerned with technology and etymology. The implements employed in egg decoration belong basically to three groups. First, there are household implements, such as sharp-pointed knives, tin cooking utensils, dishes, glasses, spoons, glass jars, tin lids, electric heating plates, needles, brushes, pencils, awls, and baskets. Removed temporarily from their everyday use, these implements serve folk artists in egg decoration, usually without any special change as to the appearance and function of the implement in question. The second group of implements are represented by slightly modified household tools as, for example, needles and pins puslied lengthwise into large kitchen matches or into chopsticks (Figs. 1,4), sewing awls with attached thread, or thin wire (7), or rubberbands. (8). The third group consists of items bought or manufactured exclusively for egg decoration. This group is represented by three tools, oko, skrabacka, andpierko. The first of them, oko, (literally, "eye"), is an implement used either for immersion of eggs in, or for their removal out of, jars or glasses filled with water colors. The oko, consisting of two basic parts, �SLOVAKIA 41 ring and handle, is made of one piece of relatively solid wire. The ring, as the first part of the implement, is made by the bending of wire into the form of a circle of a slightly smaller diameter than the maximal width of the egg. The handle, on the other hand, is formed by a sharp bend of wire at the point qf the completed circle and in about 120 degree slant to the plane rep'resented by the ring (Fig. 7). The oko was manufactured by Mr. and Mrs. Molchak in order "to prevent scratches on the surfaces of freshly batiked eggs whenever the eggs were immersed into containers or removed with a spoon.'' The second tool, skrabacka ("scraper"), is either a commercially-acquired or a homemade awl with a thin pencil-like wooden or metallic handle . The skrabacka, being alternately used with sharp-pointed knives, is the most important tool in the so-called "scratch-carving" technique. (9) The third tool used exclusively in egg decoration, pierko ("pen"), is called also brko (''quillpen'') in Slovakia. A modern variant of pierko is the voskovacka (literally, "waxing fountain-pen"). Basically an implement consisting of a pencil-like wooden handle and a tiny funnel-like metallic cup attached diagonally to the end of the handle, the voskovacka is the most important tool in egg decoration both in Europe and in America. Its more or less archaic specimens were described by Cenek Zibrt, (10) while the modern equivalents of voskovacka were briefly treated by A. Vaclavik. (11) With the exception of Mrs. Jane Mad'ar (shown in Fig. 10), all my informants in Cleveland used the most modern variant of voskovacka when decorating with the batik technique. (12) The tools of the first and second groups are used in decoration either without any change or with slight modification, and as such they are mentioned by most of the sources consulted for this paper both in the terms of technology and terminology. In Cleveland I observed that all implements belonging to these two groups are generally used in a fashion similar to their use in Europe. One may say that an extensive give-and-take exchange exists between the uses of these tools for everyday needs in the household and in egg decoration. In view of this, the tools of these two groups may be considered the most evident instances of continuity in transmission of this form of folk art from Europe to America. (13) As to etymology, the implements described in connection with the third group above (i.e., oko, skrabacka, and voskovacka) are important items in the tracing of historic-ethnic proveniences and the links in material aspects of Easter customs. The usefulness of these terms is evident if one accepts the thesis that there is no term in folk art for something that actually does not exist. (14) Thus, if Slovak terms skrabacka, pierko, and voskovacka have equivalents in all other Slavic languages, this is also a proof of antiquity and popularity of this special group of implements. (15) If, on the contrary, the term oko does not exist in its specific meaning, for example, in Slovak, this might suggest �42 SLOVAKIA that the implement itself does not exist materially in the Slovak ethnic territory either. If in spite of this , however, both the term and implement are present among the Slovaks in America, this is either because of borrowing from another ethnic group in America, or because of an individual's invention . Either way, it is rather convincing evidence of change that took place between the points of origin and American use of this tool. Mr. Molchak, an American of Ukrainian ancestry , told me that he had seen a similar implement "somewhere in Cleveland.'' This information, linked together with the fact that Mr. Molchak did not know the Ukrainian name of this tool, hints that the implement is of Ukrainian origin, but Mrs. Molchak, an American of Slovak ancestry, gave it a Slovak name. The household implements mentioned in connection with groups one and two above are , on the contrary, of no value for a study along ethnic-comparative lines. Although also known in all Slavic languages, these implements are of interchangeable use, and as such they may be present in the cultures unfamiliar with egg decoration. Examined in connection with the informants in Cleveland , the tools of all three groups are relevant for the study of Slavic-English aspects concerning their terminology. In general, a shift to favor English terminology was observable among all my informants without regard to ethnic or sex group or age. Persistence in usage of traditional Slavic terms was still visible in connection with the most recent immigrants. The American-born Slovak and Ruthenian informants, on the contrary, have shown a tendency to favor Slavic terms only in the cases when the implements were of frequent use at home and infrequently mentioned at school. For example, the childen of Mr. and Mrs. Molchak were well acquainted with the terms of pentlicka ("ribbon" in Slovak dialectical usage) or kistka ("waxing pen" in Ruthenian and Eastern Slovak usage) while the Anglo-American terms were consistently favored whenever the children spoke about knives, spoons, or canples. In essence, one can say that the Old World terms were dropped whenever their specific equivalents existed in English. On the other' hand, the Slavic terms were retained even by the American-born informants whenever neither objects nor terms were present in American culture. The second aspect of this study concerns the examination of materials used in egg decoration. Closely related to the study of implements, these materials are used for preparation of colors and the materials employed in the so-called ''relief techniques.'' Since the materials used in the relief techniques will be treated extensively later in this article, only the materials used in preparation of colors will be considered at this point. These materials, at any rate, are of utmost importance for the study of transmission of Easter eggs in its corollary aspect of change . Considered at the point of departure from Europe, these materials represent a medley of knowledge and notions · concerning chemistry, botany, and physics, at a folklife level. In America, �SLOVAKIA 43 on the contrary, all coloring substances are commercially acquired in the form of "new coloring kits, easy to use" either in the so-called "Chick-chick plastic bag" or "Paint me" paper box varieties. In order to understand better the nature and extent of this change, let us examine the materials used for coloring and tinting of eggs first in their European form and then in connection with their American counterpart. According to the majority of my informants, "onions and tea leaves cooked together with eggs were used most often for coloring and tinting by our mothers in Europe , but also some 'other things ' may be used for this work." (16) Although unspecific as to the rest of tinting substances, the informants in Cleveland still gave me enough clues in order to continue with the study of this aspect in connection with the written sources. Thus, the "other things" mentioned by informants may have been: the overcooked "Spring rye, hay and coffee; clover leaves (tied to the eggs and cooked in the) extract of ... young grass (and) parsley" (17) for regular tinting, and "the cabbage 'acid' " (18) for 'etching' of parts of eggs not covered by wax. ( 19) In America, as stated, the tinting and coloring kits are bought. These kits, costing ''only a few dollars,'' (20) contain all basic colors in powder form. The coloring fluid is prepared ''by the mixing of the powder with hot water and vinegar," (21) according to specific directions for use. I have not seen any of my informants work with the etching technique; therefore, I mention it here only in order to stress its relative importance in Europe and its absence among my informants in Ohio. The linguistic aspect concerning the materials used for tinting and coloring is, in my opinion, important only in its European version. The terms used in identification of various tinting and coloring substances or materials are either well-known throughout the Slavic area or restricted to some small regions. The widely spread terms are, again like the terms denoting certain tools, an indication of popularity and presence of these materials and substances in the individual Slavic countries. On the other hand, the terms restricted to certain small regions are undeniable proof that the particular material was used only locally or regionally. This conclusion is based upon the fact that these terms are ''tinted'' with dialecticism to such an extent that they cannot be found in average dictionaries nor identified by those of my informants possessing rather advanced formal education in art history or folk art technology. So, for example, neither Dr. Cincik and Miss Petrushka nor Mrs. Osadca were able to give me any information on the terms of pryzyly or kampeska. (22) The commercially acquired American kits are of no value in the study of folk terminology in connection with materials used for tinting and coloring. As products of mass oriented manufacture, these kits reflect primarily an artificial interference with folk tradition. �44 SLOVAKIA What conclusions could be drawn from this short study of implements and materials used in egg decoration? The frequent use of household tools in egg decoration, to start with, suggests that decorated eggs have roots in a self-sustaining economy. Analyzed with respect to the European tradition, this hypothesis is indirectly supported by many statements of the authors consulted for this paper. Thus, according to Vaclavik, "a laid-away razor knife" (23) was frequently reshaped into a pin-pointed tool and used in the scratchcarving technique, (24) and "a pocket knife with a broken point" (25) was employed for the same purpose by Zibrt's informants. However, "an old spoon (with handle) thrust into the side of a beet-made candlestick" (26) is, perhaps, the most characteristic example of the selfsustaining character of tools in Easter eggs manufacture. This character is, nevertheless, still more pronounced in connection with materials used in egg tinting and coloring. There is almost no limit to the range of plants, materials, and techniques employed in traditional preparation of various colors and tints, as seen in the brief summary of the materials above. Examined in the terms of the American tradition, the hypothesis of a sustentacular relationship of economy and egg decoration still holds in connection with the frequent use of household implements in egg decoration in the United States. There is, however, a marked tendency to acquire more and more tools commercially and exclusively for egg decoration here. One can observe this trend, for example, in connection with the commercially-acquired specimens of voskovacka (waxing pen) or skrabacka (scraper), and in connection with the homemade oko (lit., "eye") manufactured by Mr. and Mrs. Molchak. On the other hand, a drift against the traditional self-sustaining ch'aracter of egg decoration is visible in the fact that all colors and tints are bought. The household implements and materials used in tinting and coloring, to continue, are often referred to in connection with the history of technology in general, and as such they may be relatively good timing and placing devices in establishing historicity and ethnicity of certain aspects in egg decoration custom. Among devices usable for this kind of study are almost all modern inventions, whether of general or restricted use, such as electric heating plates and the voskovacka (waxing pen in its most modem variant). In this connection, however, it is necessary to point out that only presence of modern implements is of value for an investigation along historical lines. Their absence, whether in pictorial representations or in written documents, is worthless, as one could easily see by a comparison of the photographs taken during the interview with Mrs. Molchak (an electric heating plate used for wax melting) and of Mrs. Pap and Mrs. Korlatovic (burning candles used as sources of melted wax). (27) The aspect o~ ethnicity, touched briefly in connection with the dialectical names of materials used in egg decoration, may be considered as a relatively safe testing device of �SLOVAKIA 45 regional-ethnic provenience of certain terms and materials. As a corollary of technology; the inventiveness was indirectly implied in connection witp. the "beet-made candlestick," (28) with the multifold use of household implements, and with the intelligent handling of materials useJ traditionally for manufacture of colors and tints. In its traditional aspect, this inventiveness was brought about primarily by economic considerations. In its new American setting, it is perhaps, owing more to an "aesthetic" feeling of the folk artist. One can see this in two specific cases, such as the above mentioned oko by means of which my informants tried ''to avoid scratches'' on the freshly batiked eggs, (See Figs. 2,3, and 5) and in the concern of another informant "for the shameful results of her work with yellow color." (29) In the first case, Mr. and Mrs. Molchak made the oko; in the second instance, the informant decided "to search for the roots of trouble in order to heighten the quality of her work.'' However, this economic"aesthetic" difference between European and American tradition is a matter of interpretation. There is not a rigid dichotomy between "aesthetics" and economy either in Europe or in America, and there is no dichotomy between the Old World and New World inventiveness either. In summary, the study of implements and materials used in egg decoration is, at its descriptive level, concerned with technology and etymology. At an analytical level, this study may explain some aspects related to economy, inventiveness, historicity, ethnicity, and ''aesthetics.'' Nevertheless, the most important aspect of this study, I think, is in its investigation into continuity and change. As stated above, there is a partial continuity in the tools used in egg decoration both in Europe and in America. However, there is a complete change between the materials used traditionally in Europe and recently in America. The study of designs in folk art concerns primarily an investigation into the types and motifs. Both the types and motifs of folk art are often interchangeable with each other, as in folk narratives, and as such they resist any ready-made definitions. In general, the type may be thought of as the term denoting resemblances in combinations of symbols, signs, motifs, ornaments, and kinds of craftsmanship over a large area to such an extent that these resemblances cannot be ascribed to polygenesis. The motif, on the other hand, is "a graphically complete representation of a given fundamental form that manifests certain content.'' (30) Designs in decoration of Slavic Easter eggs belong to two fundamental types, the western and the eastern. The western type, comprising Poland, Bohemia and Moravia, the easternmost part of Slovakia, and Slovenia, is generally seen as a phenomenon limited in range of motifs, but possessing an exquisite craftsmanship. (31) This type of egg decoration is characterized, according to A. Vaclavik, "by �46 SLOVAKIA star motifs on both ends of egg(s) and by free setting of motifs on sides of egg.'' (32) The specimens of this type are obtained either by tear-like lines and dots (33) or by embossed ornamentation with wax or other suitable material. (34) The most frequent motifs connected with the western type are chains, sinuous lines, trees and branches, garlands, squares, hearts, birds, and rosettes. (35) The eastern type, on the other hand, is geographically restricted to the Ukraine, western Russia, the Sub-Carpathian Ukraine, and the parts of eastern Moravia and westernmost Slovakia. (36) Rich in color as well as in the number of subtypes, this type is characterized by linear ornamentation running over the egg surface vertically, horizontally, and diagonally. (37) The basic traits of the eastern type are traceable to Byzantine art and related to, and influenced by, the grass weaving, (38) embroidery, (39) and wood carving. (40) Because of this relationship, the eastern type is influenced by materials used. Its most frequent motifs seem to be cross, swastika, triangle, pentagram, hexagram, and various highly schematized ribbonlike motifs of lighting, thorns, ''ant and bee paths,'' "bird path," and fork and comb-like motifs. (41) My study in Cleveland showed that Vaclavik's conclusions concerning geographical distribution of these two basic types (i.e., the western and the eastern) are generally valid also in connection with the Slovak and Ruthenian immigrants in Ohio. Already by a cursory observation of the eggs collected or photographed in Cleveland for this project, one can see a remarkable difference between the eggs decorated by Mrs. Molchak, on the one hand, and Mrs. Pap and Mrs. Korlatovic, on the other. While Mrs. Molchak has an overall predilection for the western tear-like motifs, she is also fond of the embossed subtypes in egg decoration. Mrs. Pap, an adherent of the eastern types, decorates eggs characterized by balanced composition of geometrical elements, and by a wide range of colors. With the exception of an egg showing Christ risen from the dead, there is no egg decorated by Mrs. Pap that would suggest design influence from other ethnic groups in America. Mrs. Korlatovic, as another folk artist working with the eastern typological sphere df egg decoration, is also very conservative in approach to design change. Working to the minutest detail in a geometrical partition of the egg surface, Mrs. Korlatovic has attained what many folk artists would consider ''an ideal of perfection." Because of emphasis on mosaicity, the color aspects of her design are subordinated. Eggs decorated by Mrs. Korlatovic are beautiful seen close up; their colors and designs merge in an indefinite brownish hue when the eggs are seen, say, at a distance of 3 or 4 feet. The other informants are more or less an amorphous group as to their relationship to the western or eastern type of design. This group is primarily represented by Mrs. Jana Mad'ar. Mrs. Tanya Osadca, Miss Petrushka, Dr. Joseph Cincik, Mr. Vladimir Ozabal and three daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Molchak. With the exception of the last �SLOVAKIA 47 mentioned three girls, who show a definite pro-western typological inclination (Note Fig. 6) , the other informants mentioned in this paragraph are " individuals " resisting any general classification as to typology in design. Some hints as to the preferences of this group may be traced from the study of motifs in the works and collection of this group . So, at any rate, sinuous lines are the favored motif of Mrs . Mad'ar both according to her own words as well as in accordance with her decoration (Fig. 10) . The motifs of tulips, hearts , roses , and birds evident in western Slovak wall-paintings are on the favored list of Dr. Cincik, of Mrs . Ozabal, and, to certain extent, also of Miss Petrushka. But both Miss Petrushka and Dr. Cincik prefer in their professional work a somewhat schematized design of '' pastoral culture,'' as does Mrs. Osadca in her hobby-oriented egg decoration . (42) On the whole, this group of folk artists is an excellent example of the mixed influences that characterize Slovak ethnic territory as to typology in egg decoration designs. All members of the group have roots in their native or ancestral cultures. With the exception of Mrs. Osadca , this group draws basically from the Western Slovak " fireplace decorating sub-type." But designs of this group merge to the central Slovak sub-types of wood carving and embroidery which, in tum , already shows some traces of the linear-geometrical character present in the eastern type of egg decoration. With a view to the types and motifs examined briefly above, the general concepts of designs in folk art may be analyzed in connection with the study of form and content elements as well. The corollaries of form and content, symbol, sign, and ornament, are mutually substitutive, according to one's point of view. Thus, let us say, an ornament considered under strictly formal attributes may be simply a decoration or embellishment. In its content evaluation, however, an ornament could have " an ideological meaning (issuing) from aesthetic concept(s) " (43) either as a sign representing a conventional idea or as a symbol expressing a basic (and) striking ... idea." (44) Let us now examine the most frequent and self-evident symbols, the cross, heart, briar, wild rose, thorn crown, rose, and grapevine in connection with sources I was able to consult and with the Slovak and Ruthenian folk artists in Cleveland whom I interviewed. The cross, both the symbol and sign expressing the traditional concepts of Christ's death and resurrection, was the most frequent ornament used in the decoration by my informants. Its twelve variants, (45) representing the full range of cultural and ethnic connotations, were intentionally used by the majority of my informants in order either to express their religious affiliation or to stress their ethnic backgrounds. Thus , the Latin cross was consistently used by the informants of the Roman Catholic religion while the members of the Byzantine Catholic Rite expressed their religious beliefs with the Byzantine Catholic Cross and with the words "Christos Voskres" (i.e., �48 SLOVAKIA "Christ is risen"). The Greek Cross, with its vertical and horizontal beams of equal length , was used very often interchangeably with the crosses of St. Andrew (i.e., an "X" or " Y" cross) "because all three crosses are easy to draw in any direction and combination with other ornaments. " In a like manner, the Cross of St. Anthony (i.e. , a cross in the form of a "T") and the Maltese Cross were employed primarily for their formal-decorative aspects. The so-called Apostolic Cross, represented by a long vertical beam and by two horizontal beams placed in the upper half of the cross, brought about some implications of ethnic-cultural symbology. While this cross is an official religious symbol of the Byzantine Catholic Church, it is at the same time also partly related to the Slovak national emblem (i.e. , an Apostolic Cross upon the " peak" of a threesome " mountain range " ). This, at any rate interesting aspect, presented no problems in connection with my informants of the Byzantine Rite faith and eastern Slovak background. For them, the cross was both " Slovak " and also " Byzantine"; however, for my informants of western Slovak ancestry or origin, the cross was always of " Slovak " connotation. The informants of Ruthenian provenience stressed that ''the cross was an emblem of their religion" and asked me " to state this clearly when I write about 'their Easter eggs'.'' This , on first sight trivial emphasis upon ethnic or cultural aspects, may not be easily understood by citizens of a large country like the United States. Had one, however, studied the history of the Slovaks , Sub-Carpathians , Huculs , Lemkos, and other small ethnic groups of central Europe , he would see why there is a strong emphasis on esoteric elements in the folklore of these groups. The heart, a universal symbol of love, is prominent in central and western Slovakia. Used frequently both in folk art designs and in Christian symbology as well, the symbol and ornament of the heart developed, in my opinion , from two different traditions . The first tradition of heart symbols has roots in the so-called " spiritual love ," while the second tradition is linked with the so-called " erotic love." Spiritual love is represented in Christian symbols either by a heart with a burning flame on its top and a crown of thorns placed about it or by the so-called "Lumen Christi" (i.e ., Paschal candle) with fire burning "upwards" or "spiritually." The second tradition of love symbolism , " erotic love ," is more evident in folk art and customs . The aspect of erotic love permeates several customs of the S~avic and Balkan areas, among them especially the customs of " Kore ," " Kostrubonko," and " Morena" in which, usually , an effigy of straw is set afire and thrown into the river . These customs , in essence animistic equations of Notteuer , represent fire as a male element moving downwards toward water or the female element. (46) In folk art, both "spiritual" and " erotic" fire s are frequently connected with the symbols of "suffering love " (i.e ., the thorn crown in its spiritual aspect; rose-and-briar in the " worldly" aspect of love). (4 7) After an examination of the literary �SLOVAKIA 49 sources with the evidence from Cleveland, I came to the conclusion that the "heart-rose-briar" composition ("heart-tulip " version in Slovakia) symbolizes among the Slovaks only "spiritual love." This interpretation is self-evictent in connection with the wood-carved cemetery crosses in central Slovakia, with the fireplace paintings in western Slovakia, and with the works of some of my informants in Cleveland. An investigation into the relative directions in the "movement" of individual ornaments reveals that the elements of "twisting" and "knots" are symbolically opposing the "branching" or "open structures" in every vertical composition. The verticallyoriented "twisting," especially when terminated with a "love knot," symbolizes in folk tradition a "suffering kind of erotic love" while the "branching" or "open structure" is a sign symbol of parent-to-child love. In an examination of forty illustrative plates in the work Mal'ovane ohnistia v oblasti Malych Karpat (Decorated Fireplaces in the Little Capathian Region) by Rudolf Bednarik I found no single instance of the so-called "twisting" or " knots " in connection with the western Slovak "fireplace sub-culture." In a like manner, only "open branching" is evident on the cemetery crosses in central Slovakia, shown in the book Eudove nahrobniky na Slovensku. (48) The carving upon the crosses, in addition, shows also genetic and historical development in the ornament-to-symbols direction. The date carved directly on the vertical beam of a cross indicates the year of 188(-), with the last digit illegible because of decay. This cross has no symbolic connotation as yet. Its tulips grow up out of a flower pot rather naturally, and as such they are only an ornament. (49) Another cross at the same cemetery, dated 1928, is evidently an advanced version of the older cross in its ornament-symbol relationship. (50) Its symbolism is expressed in the form of tulips branching upwards from a heart . The "spiritual character" of love is here symbolized, in my opinion, by the "open branching" of the tulip, and, I think, the entire arrangement can be interpreted as suggesting the everlasting love of the deceased toward his living relatives. Now, how does this spiritual and wordly love relationship score with the other folk art products in Europe and in America? Is there any evidence of an ornament-to-symbol orientation among folk artists in more recent times? A little wooden shovel, to start with, was decorated by one of my informants in Cleveland. This shovel may be considered as an intermediary stage between the ornaments symbolizing spiritual and erotic love. Representing the so-called ''medovnikove srdce'' (i.e., " marzipan heart") flanked by two schematized roosters, the ornamental arrangement on the little shovel still preserves some traces of spiritual love (i.e. , the two tulips branching from the heart), but the presence of the roosters suggests already "another aspect" of love. This aspect, I think, is stressed even more by the traditional meaning of the marzipan heart in Slovakia since such a heart was given by a boy �50 SLOVAKIA only to the girl whom he intended to marry. In like manner, the egg made by Mrs. J . B. also shows an intermediary character, this time in connection with the genetic flower pot-to-heart development (i.e., from naturalism to symbolism). There is a remarkable likeness between this egg and an egg shown by A. Vaclavik. (51) This likeness suggests that the polygenetic trend in motifs is not restricted to folk narratives only. Two eggs decorated by one of my informants in Cleveland belong also to the intermediary zone between spiritual and wordly love. One of the eggs , a vertical rendition of "twisting" and "open branching," looks almost like a combination of the rose-and-briar motif of AngloAmerican traditional balladry and of tulip-branching of western Slovak wall-painting. The other egg, elaborated horizontally with only one garland of roses and green leaves slightly above the middle of eggshell, already suggests a higher spiritualization, but this is only an impression. It seems that the most recent ornaments whether created by my informants or by folk artists in Slovakia remained only ornaments. With the exception of the most self-evident symbols like the cross, the heart, and the thorn crown, one of my informants did not know why he put together, for example, the horizontally-arranged grapevine motif with wild roses superimposed upon the grapevine branches. Except the swastika and "sun circles," the other ornaments also described in connection with the types and motifs above are taken by the majority of my informants for face value only. So, for example, Mrs. Korlatovic considered the cobweb, the sieve, and the rake only as a cobweb, a sieve, or a rake, and nothing else. The swastika, treated extensively by M. Gavazzi, (52) was for my informants either "an emblem of the Nazis" or "a garden sprinkler" whenever presented in the "round form.'' Only the informants with formal art training were able to recognize the ' 'ancient symbol of a moving sun'' (53) behind the forms of "windmill wings or clover leaves" of the swastika. The "sun circles," (54) used by my informants in one form or another, were recognized by Mrs. Jana Mad'ar "as a Slovak ceiling decoration," but only Dr. Cincik was familiar with the ancient meaning of this ornament. Theory of design in folk art, like its counterpart in fine arts, is a matter of interpretation in the first place. yonsidered with general concepts of art, designs in folk art may be examined in the terms of form and content, as stated above. Linked to the diachronic study, these designs may reveal some social, economic, cultural, or psychological conditions. Folk art, when contrasted with fine arts, shows a high occurrence of borrowing, repetition, use of conventional themes, plagiarism, and disregard for spontaneity and originality. In the past, folk art was thought to be linked to the preservation and reproduction of life by magical and natural means. At present, folk art seems to lose more and more of its magic character. Hand in hand with the new and more realistic approaches to the problems of life, folk art tends today to emphasize stylistic and formal elements, such as or- �SLOVAKIA 51 nament and decoration attained by mere technical means (i.e., relief techniques). Generally, it seems that folk art design moved originally away from naturalism tow~rd schematization. Its present tendency is toward self-explanatory and self-evident symbolism (i.e., a flower pot exchanged by a heart). When, however, certain general symbols were removed out of anunstressed situation, they became localized within a new and stronger situation and acquired a new meaning (i.e., the Apostolic Cross became the Slovak or Eastern Byzantine Cross). According to conventional aesthetics, symbolism giving content to the form should be thought of as a ''higher level'' in the understanding of artistic creations. In folk art, on the contrary, symbolism was more evident in the ancient and relatively more primitive cultures. With the exception of the most self-evident symbols of the cross and heart, symbolism is almost absent from the recent folk creations. Is this a paradox? No, it is only a fact which suggests that sophisticated and folk culture are two different entities, and so also are conventional aesthetics and folk art ''aesthetics.'' Techniques of egg decoration play an important part in the diachronic-synchronic study of folklore transmission. Thought of in the terms of materials and tools used, these techniques are identified as painting, batiking, scratch-carving, embossing, (with related techniques of inlaying, ribboning, and hammering), and tying. (55) Considered in their relationship to the predetermined use of eggs, these techniques are primarily of a conservational character. There are, however, some techniques of preparatory character which are either considered as preliminary steps for proper decoration of eggs or thought of as techniques in their own right. In order to avoid unnecessary repetition, I want first to consider the preparatoryconservational egg decoration · techniques. To start with, painting or coloring of eggs requires "completely clean hands (and) implements." (56) According to Zibrt, the egg must be "at least three days old in order to 'catch' color, (and it should be) slightly heated in order to retain wax. (57) Several informants, quoted by Zibrt and Vaclavik, stress that "lukewarm rain water" (58) is the best for the cleaning of eggs. Then the eggs are either blown out of the eggshells, or cooked in clean water or with any coloring substance whenever they should be decorated later and used as decorative articles at home or as presents for the others. On the other hand, the eggs are either cooked together with onion skin, tea leaves, or other food coloring substances whenever they should be consumed during Easter holidays, or else "scratched-carved" after cooking. These preparatory techniques are gen·e rally known all over the Slavic area. There is, however, a rather restricted technique of a conservational character employed consistently by Mrs. Korlatovic. According to this technique, raw eggs are decorated with batik, and when dry, the eggs are covered with a thin layer of special shellac. This prevents spoilage, adding a bit �52 SLOVAKIA of mirrorlike gloss. Let us now describe and examine the decorative techniques. The first technique of painting is, in essence, the simple application of the technique employed in other forms of folk art, such as wall painting, pottery and ceramics, painting of household implements, and painting on glass. The technique, "gaining momentum recently especially in northern Slovakia," (59) consists of direct application of oil or water paints on eggs. Although mentioned by Zibrt and Vaclavik, this technique is not very important in over all transmission of Easter customs from Europe to America, and only one of my informants in Cleveland used it extensively. Batik technique, on the other hand, is the most important and widespread technique in egg decoration. Mentioned often by several Slavic and non-Slavic authors, (60) this technique is of an ancient origin. Its existence is known all over the Slavic area, and its popularity is unquestioned also among my informants in Cleveland (See Figs. 1,2,3,5, and 6). The technique itself is based fundamentally on a principle similar to offset printing. Decoration by means of this technique is, therefore, attained in such a way that the parts of the eggshell are covered with wax heated in the tiny cup of voskovacka (i.e., waxing pen), and the egg is then immersed and tinted in a light water color. After removal of the egg from the first color, and when the egg is dry enough, the wax is wiped off thoroughly with a warm rag. (61) Then the egg is, again, "painted" with wax, "bathed" in another somewhat darker color, removed, dried and wiped. These steps are repeated until the egg attains the desired design composition (See Fig. 9) Scratch-carving, after batik the most popular technique in Slovakia, is known also among my informants. Related and similar to woodcarving, this technique is generally linked with the eastern type egg design in general and with the so-called "salasnicka kultura" (i.e. pastoral culture) in particular. According to Vaclavik, the drawback of this technique ' 'is hard work, more time-c~nsuming than with wax(batiked) eggs." (62) Only well-seasoned artists are able to work with this technique successfully. As mentioned above, all my informants are familiar with this technique, but only Mrs . Molchak was willing to scratch carve eggs during my stay in Ohio. Folk artists in Europe use for scratch carving "file or awl, knife, (but) most frequently the point of laid-away razor blades." (63) In America, on the contrary, the most popullar implement for this technique is the so-called "skrabacka" (lit., scraper), an awl made of hard steel and having a pencil-like wooden or metallic handle. The egg, decorated in this technique by Mrs. Molchak was made with the skrabacka. Embossing, inlaying, ribboning, hammering, and tying are basically complementary techniques. Linked with each other both in Europe and in America, these techniques are employed in order to �SLOVAKIA 53 variegate the relief of egg's surface by raising the parts of eggshell. In my opinion, however, only embossing and tying are techniques in their own right. Techniques of inlaying, ribboning, and hammering, on the contrary, are mere adaptations of each other as to the material used. Embossing is a technique ih which the egg's surface is raised by permanent application of heavy coat of wax. This technique , in spite of how effective it looks, is not widespread because, in addition to being hard to work the ''relief peels off easily and melts away in warm weather." (64) Traditional specimens with this technique were made with an application of ''red or blue wax'' upon eggshell, or of '' black wax" upon a red-tinted egg. Embossing of eggs is, according to Vaclavik, "known in Moravia, in westernmost Bohemia, and in Bulgaria.'' (65) Only one of my informants in Cleveland (Mrs. Molchak) works with this traditional technique to any great extent. Inlaying, as the first of the three techniques (consisting of inlaying, ribboning, and hammering), is relatively restricted because it depends very much on the skill of a folk artist. In its European version, this technique is represented by two major variants, the so-called "pasted eggs" and "straw eggs." The "pasted eggs," known both in western Slovakia and in Moravia under the names of "birds" and "doves ," are decorated with paper of different colors and shapes . The results of such activity are "birds" with the body made of the egg, and with the head, feet, tail, and wings made of paper. (66) The "straw eggs, '' on the other hand, are manufactured with a technique in which pieces of colored straw are pasted directly upon the eggshell. This mosaic-like work requires great skill and patience. It is fundamentally a variant of a cabinet making technique in which pieces of straw are also used in decoration of furniture'.s frontispieces. (67) Inlaying, of course, can be carried out in a wide range of combination and of materials used. This aspect, however, will be referred to later in connection with the American counterparts of this technique. Ribboning is, according to Vaclavik, "a further (and) more recent variant (of) sitinovani.' ' (68) Widespread in northern Slovakia, ribboning consists of pasting little garlands on both ends of the egg, and tying the ribbons of different colors and widths around the middle. (69) Among my informants, only Miss Petrushka uses this technique in a form described by Vaclavik, while Mrs. Mad'ar uses this technique in its simpler variant of "string-lacing." Hammering, .the last close relative of inlaying and ribboning, is a very old technique. According to Cesky casopis historicky, (70) hammering is documented as early as 1415. Folk artists working with this technique use most "often blown out goose eggs (and embellish) them with metallic rings, flower and animal motifs. (71) With the exception of Miss Petrushka, none of my informants in Cleveland worked with this technique. Tying of eggs, as a technique in its own right, is now restricted to �54 SLOVAKIA the vicinity of Mikulov in Moravia. (72) However, owing to evidence from Cleveland, I will examine this technique in somewhat more detail than the others. According to the data gathered from other studies and from my informants, the egg is decorated with this technique when it is immersed into strong vinegar in order to soften it and then it is tied about the middle in order to acquire a shape of a written number 8. From a practical viewpoint, this technique seems merely to complement the other seven techniques mentioned before. But as mentioned above, tying becomes a technique in its own right for technological and other reasons. First of all, no attempts were made in other techniques to change the chemical composition of the eggshell to such an extent that it would become pliable. Then, in its interpretative aspect, I think that this technique also suggests another important point. As mentioned before, economic factors play a part in the work of folk artists in Europe and in America as well. One can see this in connection with the multifold use of tools both for general household chores and in the use of the terms with which folk artists unequivocally stress how carefully one should work, for example, with razor blade ''in order to prevent breaking of the eggshell." (73) Now, let us consider this project in the situation of which I was an eyewitness during an exposition of the art work of Miss Petrushka. At this exposition, Miss Petrushka startled the attending public when she let fall a jewelled egg as if accidentally, but the egg bounced up without damage. At my question of how this elasticity of the eggshell was attained, Miss Petrushka answered only in part. She told me that she learned this secret from her father, a folk artist also, but otherwise declined to elaborate on or describe the procedure or the chemical reaction by which the elasticity of egg was brought about. I am no chemist, but in view of Vaclavik' s investigation of the "tying egg technique," I think that the process by which Vaclavik's informants brought about the softening of eggs and the process by means of which miss Petrushka was able to induce elasticity to jewelled eggs\are at least partly related to each other. As to the other side of this problem, there is no doubt that her polite refusal to answer my question was motivated by economic reasons, a sort of private patent protection. With respect to the other techniques, I have observed that my informants combine the relief techniques into one. Conversely, embossing in this "modern" version is carried out in connection with inlaying, ribboning, hammering, painting, batiking, and scratch carving. My informants used for this "new technique," in addition to wax, also dough, cultured pearls, wire of various thicknesses, aluminum foil cut in the form of small leaves and flowers, silk and samite, tiny sequins and beads, marzipan, and confetti in baking and regular varieties. This range of materials used is still not a complete one. And this technique, whether considered as one or separately in agreement with its more traditional counterparts, shows that the �SLOVAKIA 55 variety in products manufactured by my Slovak and Ruthenian informants in Cleveland is very wide. At its specific plane, this variety moves from the work of humble folk artists up almost to Faberge's level. (74) The Americanized technique, which includes a number of European traditional techniques , supports the hypothesis of a forwardreverse relationship beh,xeen techniques and implements used in egg decoration . While the number of tools in Europe shrinks , and the implements are frequently interchanged for economic reasons with those in overall household use , the techniques in Europe were held as separate entities in rather restricted areas, again, I believe, mainly to lower cost and to use only locally available materials . In America the situation seems to be reversed. The implements used exclusively for egg decoration here seem to gain ground . The techniques, as seen above , tend to lose individuality and become more and more incorporated into a larger whole. This again, in my opinion , is because of economic reasons . Ame rican folk artists have no difficulty in obtaining locally everything needed for egg decoration. The choice of products in America permits American folk artists to follow their interests to a greater degree than their European counterparts in the past. No matter whether these interests are of an aesthetic nature or whether they are conditioned by profession , economic aspects of buying and selling as well as of the conditions underlying the choice of raw materials and tools are ever present and important. The custom involving Easter eggs consisted in Slovakia of two basic parts: decoration of the eggs carried out in individual families, and use of eggs as presents for the young men performing showers and whippings. Both the showering and whipping as well as the egg decoration were historically documented , according to Cenek Zibrt, as early as the 14th century. (75) The decoration of Easter eggs , as the first part of this custom , has continued for over six hundred years, and no wonder that the Slovak and Ruthenian immigrants brought this custom also to the United States. According to my investigation in Cleveland, it was carried on by the first generation of Slovak immigrants in America. Only single young men used to perform showers and whippings in Slovakia. The first Slovak immigrants in America, to begin with , were in most cases married men who came to the United States to earn money and either to return home or to bring their families here at a later date. The way of life in the United States, to continue, was conditioned by an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and as such it had no ready-made accommodations for such strange customs as whipping and showering. This custom was practiced in Slovakia on Easter Monday and Tuesday , both days being either a religious (i.e., Easter Monday) or traditional (i.e., Easter Tuesday) holiday. Linked together, these three aspects support the thesis that the no-holiday character of these two post-Easter days was the primary cause that brought about disappearance of showering and whipping in the United �56 SLOVAKIA States. The secondary cause for this disappearance was the fact that the Slovak immigrants were unwilling to continue with a custom that might have brought about ridicule from the more sophisticated segments of the American population. (76) The third cause might have been owing to changed environmental conditions. While rural life in Slovakia posed no difficulties to young men performing showers or whipping, urban life in America brought about some restrictions as to where, for example, the custom of showering could have taken place. In Slovakia this custom was usually performed either in the backyard or in the garden. In America, there were in most cases no places to perform the custom without damage to the interior of the house or, if the showering were performed in the street, without interference with law and order. The second part of the custom, involving the Easter eggs as presents in exchange for showering and whipping, had therefore either to disappear completely or to acquire a new meaning. Because of contact with other ethnic and cultural groups, this part of the custom took the road of incorporation within another cultural context. (77) Thus the Roman Catholic Slovak immigrants retained the custom of egg decoration as practiced in Slovakia; however, the second part of this custom involving Easter eggs as presents for the young men performing the whipping and showering either disappeared completely or was adjusted in order to suit the new situation. On the other hand, the Slovaks of the Byzantine Rite, (78) together with the Ruthenians and Ukrainians proper, did not change the first part of the custom (i.e., decoration of eggs) at all. But a slight change took place among them in the exchange of eggs as compared with eastern Slovakia and Ruthenia. While, according to Greek Catholic usage, a simple form of exchange among the relatives and neighbors used to take place in Europe, eastern Slovaks and Ruthenians in America decorate eggs now either for sale or for exchange with the other church members. The sale itself could be of two kinds: a simple sale for personal profit and a sale to fellow church members with the proceeds donated to the church. The second and third generations of thf Slovak Roman Catholic immigrants in Cleveland retained the "new approach" of the first generation regarding the revision of the custom involving Easter showers and whipping. Together with the eastern Slovaks and Ukrainians, the Roman Catholic Slovaks also adopted the changes of basic techniques, tools, terminology, and economy with respect to Easter customs and decorated eggs in particular. But this is, again, a matter concerning the other aspects of egg decoration, and as such it was either treated in connection with the individual aspects of egg decoration or it will be touched upon in the last part of this article. In the final analysis, one could see that change manifested itself in the various aspects of egg decoration more frequently than its corollary or continuity. With the exception of designs and tools of general use �SLOVAKIA 57 (both of which remained almost unaltered), changes occurred in coloring substances, techniques, customs involving decorated eggs, and in the tools used exclusively in egg decoration. However, as shown above in connection with individual aspects of egg decoration, these changes were always of different character and extent, and were brought about for different reasons. Thus, there was, on the one hand, a complete change from the.traditional home-made coloring substances (79) to the commercially available coloring kits in America. (80) There were, on the other hand, less evident, but still important, changes in techniques, customs, and tools of specific character. Placed side by side, both techniques and special tools show trends of adding and subtracting in a folktale-like manner. As in the study of folktales, one could observe that "two or more tales (are stringed) together," (81) the techniques which existed in Slovakia and in the Ukraine as separate entities were brought together by the folk artists in America and incorporated into one general technique. The opposite trend, again as in folktales, was evident in connection with the tools used exclusively in egg decoration when the "adding of detail(s)" occurred in the New World either owing to modernization of older tools or because of the introduction of new implements. The two-fold change took place, according to my observation, in customs involving Easter eggs. As mentioned, the custom of whipping and showering disappeared in America. The custom of giving Easter eggs as presents to the others was, on the contrary, retained, but its complete change was evident among the western and central Slovak immigrants while only a slight change as to its practical application was recorded among the eastern Slovaks and Ruthenians in Cleveland. (82) What were 1:he reasons behind these changes and why were certain aspects of egg decoration more amenable for alteration than others? As mentioned elsewhere in this paper, the motives for changes in various aspects of egg decoration can be attributed to folk "aesthetics," economy, and to the impact of culture contact with the other ethnic groups in America. Since no fingerprint evidence exists as to the cross-influence between "aesthetics," economy, and impact of culture contact, on the one hand, and the aspects of egg decoration, on the other, my interpretation of the motives leading to the changes in egg decoration is only a tentative one. I believe that the formation of concepts concerning ''aesthetics'' in the European version of egg decoration was brought about by the availability of materials and tools, in the first place. Artistic endeavors of European egg decorators were, in my opinion, conditioned by the initial cost of egg decoration. European folk artists, therefore, either manufactured the tools and coloring substances at their homes or used only locally available materials in order to save on transportation costs. American folk artists, on the other hand, seem to be concerned more with the sale of finished products, and make every effort to sell their products either for �58 SLOVAKIA money or for recognition ; hence, in order to do so, they are forced "to make saleable products" and "to protect their inventions." The worries about qualitative expression compel American egg decorators to buy new tools and to adapt traditional techniques to new needs . Even the custom involving decorated eggs, as an aspect of Easter eggs, was influenced to the greatest extent by culture contact with the other ethnic groups , is currently conditioned by economic artistic considerations . (83) Continuity, holding opposite side to the change in transmission, is evident in the use of general household implements and in designs. As to the tools, this rule of continuity is caused by the fact that knives, spoons, and needles, to mention just some of these items, are bought or used in Europe and in America along similar lines. Designs, in my opinion, seem to be stable elements in egg decoration because they have the most striking visual impact and are also formulaically and repetitively-oriented to a high degree. Seen altogether, both change and continuity exist side by side in the aspects of egg decoration as they exist both in folk art and in culture itself. This fact, being undeniable proof that egg decoration represents a part of the overall culture, is also testimony that the decoration of eggs as a form of folk art is governed by the laws governing culture itself. Easter eggs, therefore , like culture, are a unique human phenomenon, socially shared and transmitted, (84) this time by the Slovaks and Ruthenians in Cleveland, Ohio. Reprinted from Journal of Popular Culture (Summer 1970) IV:l, pp. 155-193, with permission of Dr. Ray B. Browne. FOOTNOTES (1) Cf. Cenek Zibrt, Vesele chvile v iivote lidu ceskeho. Prague : Vysehrad, 1950, p. 251. According to Zibrt, the term 'Easter eggs' was known already in the 14th century, but originated long before that time . (2) Cf. Antonin Vaclavik, Vyrocni obyceje a lidove umeni. Prague : Ceskoslovenska akademie ved, 1959, p . 261. Vaclavik's informants in Moravia think that Easter eggs exist "from the very beginning " and several of his informants " maintain that the decoration of eggs started in Slovakia." (p . 262). In Vaclavik ' s opinion , the term " Slovakia" should be applied to the region alongside the Slovak-Moravian border only . (3) Cf. Kazimierz Moszyiiski, Kultura Ludowa Slowian. Cracow, 1939. CF . also Rudolf Bednarik , Duchovna kultura slovenskeho l'udu. Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1941 . (4) Cf. Vaclavik, pp. 259-580 ; cf. Zibrt, passim. (5) Cf. Note No. 6 below. (6) This fi eldwork was carried out by the author between March 18 and April 2, 1969. Thirty informants of Slovak and Ruthenian descent were interviewed. In addition to extensive tape-recordings and note-taking, the author took photographs tracing the individual steps of egg decoration (black and white as well as color slides) . Most of this material, containing also 17 actual eggs, is stored and available for consultation in the Archive of the Center for Comparative Folklore and Mythology at the University of California , Los Angeles. �SLOVAKIA 59 (7) Used as holders of blown-out eggs or as devises for the lengthwise partitioning of , such eggs . (8) Rubber bands may belong to either of the two groups. Used at times only for partitioning of egg surfaces, rubber bands may be stretched lengthwise diagonally, or latitudinally , and reused as any implement of the group one . At other times , rubber bands can be pasted around the eggs in order either to obtain embossing or to hold other items used in egg decoration , such as ribbons , colored sections of straw, or aluminum foil. Used this way, rubber bands belong to group two . For the specimens made either with ~krabai!ka or with sharp-pointed knife, see R. Bednarik, pp. 95-6. A dark-green egg, made by Mrs . Molchak and donated to this collection at U.C .L.A ., was decorated with ~krabai!ka. For an English treatment of eggs made with egg-carving technique, see Alfred L. Shoemaker, Eastertide in Pennsylvania, pp. 50-62. (9) (10) Cf. Zibrt, p. 257. (11) Cf. Vaclavik, pp. 267-8. (12) The most modern specimen of uoskouai!ka is now available commercially. I bought one in the store of Mr. Rudenskij, 5432 State Road, Parma, Ohio, for $1.00. This specimen is now stored in the Archive F.M .G. at U.C.L.A. (13) As to the specific tools used exclusively for egg decoration, it is ahnost certain that some changes may have occurred in the Old World owing to new developments in culture and technology. This aspect, however, cannot be treated here because my evidence is fragmentary about it. (14) Cf. Zibrt, p . 251. (15) Cf. Ibid ., p. 255 . Cf. also Vaclavik, pp . 267-8. (16) Interview with Mrs . Mad'ar (17) Zibrt , p . 253 . (18) Ibid. (19) For description of etching, see Vaclavik , pp . 268, 275 . (20) Interview with Mrs. Molchak . (21) Interview with Mrs. Pap. (22) " Pryzyly " is a sort of reddish substance used for tinting (Cf. Zibrt, p . 252). "Kampeska" is a commercially-acquired " wood chip" coloring (Zibrt, p. 253). (23) Vaclavik, p . 269 . (24) Cf. Ibid. For a description of scratch carving, see Shoemaker, p. 51. (25) Zibrt, p . 255. (26) Vaclavik, p. 267. (27) Note Fig. No . 1, 2, 3, and 5. The photographs mentioned are on file in the Archive of the Center for Comparative Folklore and Mythology, U .C.L.A. (28) Vaclavik, p . 267 . (29) Interview with Mr~. Molchak . (30) Vaclavik, p . 376. (31) Cf. Ibid ., pp . 338-9. For a summary concerning the western type of egg decoration, see Ibid . , p . 523 . (32) Ibid ., p. 338 . (33) Cf. Ibid ., p. 287 and Plate LXXVII (upper part) . (34) Cf. Ibid ., p . 338 and Plate LV . �60 SLOVAKIA (35) Cf. Ibid., p. 338. (36) Cf. Ibid . (37) Cf. Ibid., p. 339. (38) Cf. Bednarik, pp. 206-208. (39) Cf. Ibid., Plate 75. Cf. also Moszyiiski, p. 916. (40) Cf. R. Bednarik, Pastierske rezbarske umenie, passim., but especially Plates No. 55, 79, 142, 149, and 158. (41) Cf. Vaclavik, pp. 389 , 391, 393, and 395. (42) For prominent motifs in wall painting in western Slovakia, see R. Bednarik, Mal'ovane ohnistia v oblasti Malych Karpat, passim. For ''pastoral culture'' in central Slovakia , see Bednarik, Pastierske rezbarske umenie, passim. (43) Vaclavik, p . 376 . (44) Ibid ., 375. (45) R. Bednarik, Eudove nahrobniky na Slovensku, 57. (46) Cf. J. E. Cir lot, A Dictionary of Symbols, passim. (47) Cf. E. Haig, Floral Symbolism of the Great Masters, pp. 127-8. (48) Cf. R. Bednarik, Eudove nahrobniky na Slovensku, p . 73. Cf. also Bednarik, Mal'ovane ohnistia v oblasti Malych Karpat, plates 1-40. (49) Cf. Bednarik, Eudove nahrobniky na Slovensku, p. 91. (50) Cf. Ibid ., p. 73. (51) Cf. Vaclavik, p. 346 (left side) . (52) Cf. M. Gavazzi, "Svastika i njezin ornamentalni razoj na uskrsnim jajima sa Balkana,'' Zbornik za narodni Zivot i obyc:aje juinih Slavena, XXVII, 1-24. (53) Cf. Gavazzi, Op. Cit., passim. (54) Cf. Alan Dundes, ed., The Study of Folklore, p. 387. (55) For a detailed description of these techniques, see Vaclavik, pp. 267-72. (56) Ibid., p. 267. (57) Zibrt, pp. 252-3. (58) Vaclavik, p. 267; also Zibrt, op. cit., passim. (59) Interview with Mrs. Mad'ar. (60) Cf. Vaclavik, p. 268; Zibrt, op. cit., passim., but especially 251 ff. (61) Cf. Vaclavik, p . 267. (62) Vaclavik, p. 269. (63) Vaclavik, p. 269. (64) Ibid. (65) Ibid. (66) Cf. Vaclavik, p . 269, and Plate XLV. (67) Cf. Ibid., pp. 269-70. Modern specimens made with this technique are shown on Plates XLIX and LXXV; furniture, Pl. LXIV. (68) Ibid ., p. 270. Sitinovani is a technique in which the core of Juncus is pasted upon the eggshell. (Juncus is the Latin term for a genus of olderly tree.) (69) Cf. Ibid . , p. 271. For specimens, see Ibid., p. 351. (70) Czech Historical Review , XXXIII, p. 278 . Cf. Vaclavik, pp. 271, 275. (71) Vaclavik, p. 271. �SLOVAKIA 61 (72) Cf. Ibid., pp. 271-2. (73) Ibid., p. 269. (74) For a treatment of Faberge,. work, see Venetia Newall, "Easter Eggs," Journal of American Folklore, LXXX (1967), 17 ff. (75) Cf. Note No. 1 above. (76) In connection with this point, I tried to elicit the opinions of my informants as to their feeling about whipping and showering. Only Mrs. Mad'ar, a recent immigrant from Slovakia, "hopes that her husband and sons will shower her, but with perfume only." Mrs. Molchak, on the other hand, is against any sort of showering in spite of the fact that the "young boys used to shower her in Pennsylvania." The boys, according to Mrs. Molchak, refused to take any eggs as presents for showering; if they did so, the others "would laugh." Mrs. Pap, a Ruthenian by ethnic origin, considered the custom "without any religious significance." (77) Both the showering and whipping are basically western Slovak customs. In eastern Slovakia, these customs were almost unknown because the majority of the Eastern Slovak population is Greek Catholic. (78) Byzantine Rite Slovaks are in the majority in Cleveland, in comparison with the Roman Catholic Slovaks. In Slovakia, the situation is reversed: Roman Catholics form the majority of the population. (79) I.e., cooked spring rye, hay, coffee, clover leaves, parsley, tea, etc. Cf. also Notes 17 and 22 above. (80) According to Mrs. Mad'ar, coloring substances are now also available commercially in Slovakia; however, they are not used frequently, and they are not packed in exclusive egg decoration kits either. (81) According to Stith Thompson, folktales change by "adding a detail (and by) stringing two or more tales together." The Folktale, p. 436. (82) Because of the disappearance of showering and whipping, again as in folktales, ''one change (brings about others) to maintain consistency," Ibid. (83) I.e., eggs are now sold publicly in front of the church while in the past they were given for showering and whipping or in exchange for other eggs. (84) Cf. the works of Ruth Benedict, Franz Boas, and A. L. Kroeber, passim. INFORMANTS MRS. KORLATOVIC, an American of Ukrainian ethnic ancestry, is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Rudenskij, owners and operators of an export-import store in Parma, Ohio. Mrs. Korlatovic, the mother of two children and a teacher in a kindergarten near Parma, decorates Easter eggs mainly for sale in her parent's store; she also decorates ceramics. MRS. JANA MADAR, a recent immigrant to the United States, arrived in Cleveland on November 30, 1968. A native of Ruzomberok, central Slovakia, Mrs. Mad'ar is the mother l)f two sons, ages 21 and 20. Mrs. Mad'ar decorated several eggs for this project in the so-called ''painting'' and ''string-lacing'' techniques. MRS. SOPHIE MOLCHAK, an American of Slovak descent, was born in Regenstown, Pennsylvania. She is married to an American of Ukrainian origin and is the mother of six children. Three of her daughters, ages 18, 12, and 9, took an active part in egg decoration during the interviews. MRS. TANYA OSADCA, an Ukrainian by ethnic descent, immigrated to America after World War II. Living now with her family in Peninsula, Ohio, she started egg decorating and collecting in 1952, and at present she owns over 500 specimens. She also �SLOVAKIA 62 studies and collects material published on Easter eggs. Her husband, a psychiatrist at the Veterans Administration Hospital, is also a collector and folk artist specializing in ceramics and pottery. MRS. ANNA PAP, a Ruthenian by ethnic origin, was born in Roztok near the present CSSR-USSR border. Married to Dr. M. S. Pap and the mother of four children ages 17, 14, 11, and 5, Mrs. Pap arrived in the United States in 1933. In addition to her household duties, she is also director of the choir at the St. Mary' s Ukrainian Catholic Church. MISS PETRUSHKA is an American of Slovak descent and a native of Cleveland. An admirer of Slovak folk traditions and a student of Slovak ethnography, Miss Petrushka is the owner of an art studio on Shaker Boulevard, Cleveland. Her collages, collage boxes, and jewelled eggs are well-known all over the United States. During my stay in Cleveland, she held two successful expositions of her creations. DR. JOSEPH CINClK, 65, a Slovak immigrant, arrived in the United States in 1948. An ex-professor at the University of Bratislava and at present an art bibliographer in Cleveland, Dr. Cincik is the foremost expert on Slovak folk art. MR. VLADIMIR OZABAL, 60 , a native of western Slovakia and an ex-officer of the Slovak Army, immigrated to America after World War II . Now the supervisor of a division of the City Water Department in Cleveland , Mr. Ozabal is still working at various projects related to Slovak folk art . .,• "'~ ~:: '~ ., ' Fig. 1 - A typical arrangement of eggs , implements, and coloring substances used by Mrs. Zofia Molchak, an American-born Slovak folk artist working with batik technique in the western-type design. Note the heating plate used for wax melting, rubber bands employed for partitioning of eggs, and the glasses with coloring substances. �SLOVAKIA ~ .,. 63 .. ~ Mrs. Ann Pap, an American of Ruthenian ancestry, decorates eggs in the eastern-type design. Note: a candle is used as a source of melted wax and the most modern specimen of voskovacka, or kistka (" waxing pen") , is employed by Mrs. Pap in batiking of eggs . Fig. 2 - ( Fig. 3 - Mrs. Korlatovic, an American-born folk artist of Ukrainian ancestry, decorates eggs in the eastern style and batik technique for sale in her parents' store. �64 SLOVAKIA Partition of eggshells is carried out with stretched rubber bands. Note the modified " implements" (i .e., needles and pins pushed lengthwise into large kitchen matches, chopsticks, or wooden pencil handles) used in batiking and embossing. Fig. 4 - Fig. 5 - A candle as a source of wax in the batik technique. �SLOVAKIA 65 Fig. 6 - A typical instance of batik-embossing technique and of western-type design. Note the tear-like dots and lines , and the star motifs on both ends of the egg. Miss Sue Molchak, 18 , shown in this picture, decorates eggs every year together with her mother and two of her sisters. The daughter of Mr. Molchak, an American of Ukrainian descent, and of Mrs. Molchak, an American-born Slovak, Miss Molchak is typical of young folk artists who help old traditions permeate a new environment. �SLOVAKIA 66 Fig. 7 - Immersing of a freshly-batiked egg into coloring substance with the so-called " oko " (" eye" ). Fig. 8 - A spoon used for immersing and removal of eggs. �SLOVAKIA Fig. 9 - A typical egg batiked in the eastern-type design . Fig. 10 - Eggs painted and ' ·string-laced" by Mrs . Mad'ar. 67 �68 SLOVAKIA Miss Petrushka , an American-born Slovak, started egg decorating as a folk artist and continued egg decoration on a professional level. The egg shown in this picture is one of her jewelled creations presented at an exposition in Lakewood, Ohio . Fig. 11 - ... Examples of the so-called "Gesunkenes Kulturgut" in folk art - conventional art relationship. The jewelled eggs, shown in this picture, were decorated by Miss Petrushka who, according to her own words, learned "secrets" of egg decoration from her father, a Slovak folk artist . Fig. 12 - � 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 40 SLOVAKIA Slovak and Ruthenian Easter Eggs in America: The Impact of Culture Contact on Immigrant Art and Custom ANDREW CINCURA University of California Decoration of Easter eggs, one of the most ancient calendar customs of the general Slavic area, (1) is still alive among the Slavic ethnic groups in Europe and America. Though there have been changes in the decoration of Easter eggs and in customs related to this form of folk art, Easter eggs are even now cherished by these groups as important and unaltered landmarks of the past. (2) The importance of Easter eggs has also been recognized in folkloristics. Although several Slavic and non-Slavic scholars have studied Easter eggs, either in connection with other disciplines, (3) or as part of a study of Slavic culture, (4) to my knowledge no scholar has studied the transmission of Slavic Easter egg decorative traditions from Europe to America. In this article, I want to briefly outline continuity and change of this transmission in connection with the Slavic and Ruthenian Easter eggs. (5) This is a pilot study based upon fieldwork among the Slovaks and Ruthenians in Cleveland, Ohio, (6) and will examine and interpret the data collected in the field in the terms of (a) implements and materials used in decoration of Easter eggs; (b) designs; (c) techniques of Easter egg manufacture; (d) customs involving decorated eggs. To begin with, the study of implements and materials used in egg decoration is concerned with technology and etymology. The implements employed in egg decoration belong basically to three groups. First, there are household implements, such as sharp-pointed knives, tin cooking utensils, dishes, glasses, spoons, glass jars, tin lids, electric heating plates, needles, brushes, pencils, awls, and baskets. Removed temporarily from their everyday use, these implements serve folk artists in egg decoration, usually without any special change as to the appearance and function of the implement in question. The second group of implements are represented by slightly modified household tools as, for example, needles and pins puslied lengthwise into large kitchen matches or into chopsticks (Figs. 1,4), sewing awls with attached thread, or thin wire (7), or rubberbands. (8). The third group consists of items bought or manufactured exclusively for egg decoration. This group is represented by three tools, oko, skrabacka, andpierko. The first of them, oko, (literally, "eye"), is an implement used either for immersion of eggs in, or for their removal out of, jars or glasses filled with water colors. The oko, consisting of two basic parts, SLOVAKIA 41 ring and handle, is made of one piece of relatively solid wire. The ring, as the first part of the implement, is made by the bending of wire into the form of a circle of a slightly smaller diameter than the maximal width of the egg. The handle, on the other hand, is formed by a sharp bend of wire at the point qf the completed circle and in about 120 degree slant to the plane rep'resented by the ring (Fig. 7). The oko was manufactured by Mr. and Mrs. Molchak in order "to prevent scratches on the surfaces of freshly batiked eggs whenever the eggs were immersed into containers or removed with a spoon.'' The second tool, skrabacka ("scraper"), is either a commercially-acquired or a homemade awl with a thin pencil-like wooden or metallic handle . The skrabacka, being alternately used with sharp-pointed knives, is the most important tool in the so-called "scratch-carving" technique. (9) The third tool used exclusively in egg decoration, pierko ("pen"), is called also brko (''quillpen'') in Slovakia. A modern variant of pierko is the voskovacka (literally, "waxing fountain-pen"). Basically an implement consisting of a pencil-like wooden handle and a tiny funnel-like metallic cup attached diagonally to the end of the handle, the voskovacka is the most important tool in egg decoration both in Europe and in America. Its more or less archaic specimens were described by Cenek Zibrt, (10) while the modern equivalents of voskovacka were briefly treated by A. Vaclavik. (11) With the exception of Mrs. Jane Mad'ar (shown in Fig. 10), all my informants in Cleveland used the most modern variant of voskovacka when decorating with the batik technique. (12) The tools of the first and second groups are used in decoration either without any change or with slight modification, and as such they are mentioned by most of the sources consulted for this paper both in the terms of technology and terminology. In Cleveland I observed that all implements belonging to these two groups are generally used in a fashion similar to their use in Europe. One may say that an extensive give-and-take exchange exists between the uses of these tools for everyday needs in the household and in egg decoration. In view of this, the tools of these two groups may be considered the most evident instances of continuity in transmission of this form of folk art from Europe to America. (13) As to etymology, the implements described in connection with the third group above (i.e., oko, skrabacka, and voskovacka) are important items in the tracing of historic-ethnic proveniences and the links in material aspects of Easter customs. The usefulness of these terms is evident if one accepts the thesis that there is no term in folk art for something that actually does not exist. (14) Thus, if Slovak terms skrabacka, pierko, and voskovacka have equivalents in all other Slavic languages, this is also a proof of antiquity and popularity of this special group of implements. (15) If, on the contrary, the term oko does not exist in its specific meaning, for example, in Slovak, this might suggest 42 SLOVAKIA that the implement itself does not exist materially in the Slovak ethnic territory either. If in spite of this , however, both the term and implement are present among the Slovaks in America, this is either because of borrowing from another ethnic group in America, or because of an individual's invention . Either way, it is rather convincing evidence of change that took place between the points of origin and American use of this tool. Mr. Molchak, an American of Ukrainian ancestry , told me that he had seen a similar implement "somewhere in Cleveland.'' This information, linked together with the fact that Mr. Molchak did not know the Ukrainian name of this tool, hints that the implement is of Ukrainian origin, but Mrs. Molchak, an American of Slovak ancestry, gave it a Slovak name. The household implements mentioned in connection with groups one and two above are , on the contrary, of no value for a study along ethnic-comparative lines. Although also known in all Slavic languages, these implements are of interchangeable use, and as such they may be present in the cultures unfamiliar with egg decoration. Examined in connection with the informants in Cleveland , the tools of all three groups are relevant for the study of Slavic-English aspects concerning their terminology. In general, a shift to favor English terminology was observable among all my informants without regard to ethnic or sex group or age. Persistence in usage of traditional Slavic terms was still visible in connection with the most recent immigrants. The American-born Slovak and Ruthenian informants, on the contrary, have shown a tendency to favor Slavic terms only in the cases when the implements were of frequent use at home and infrequently mentioned at school. For example, the childen of Mr. and Mrs. Molchak were well acquainted with the terms of pentlicka ("ribbon" in Slovak dialectical usage) or kistka ("waxing pen" in Ruthenian and Eastern Slovak usage) while the Anglo-American terms were consistently favored whenever the children spoke about knives, spoons, or canples. In essence, one can say that the Old World terms were dropped whenever their specific equivalents existed in English. On the other' hand, the Slavic terms were retained even by the American-born informants whenever neither objects nor terms were present in American culture. The second aspect of this study concerns the examination of materials used in egg decoration. Closely related to the study of implements, these materials are used for preparation of colors and the materials employed in the so-called ''relief techniques.'' Since the materials used in the relief techniques will be treated extensively later in this article, only the materials used in preparation of colors will be considered at this point. These materials, at any rate, are of utmost importance for the study of transmission of Easter eggs in its corollary aspect of change . Considered at the point of departure from Europe, these materials represent a medley of knowledge and notions · concerning chemistry, botany, and physics, at a folklife level. In America, SLOVAKIA 43 on the contrary, all coloring substances are commercially acquired in the form of "new coloring kits, easy to use" either in the so-called "Chick-chick plastic bag" or "Paint me" paper box varieties. In order to understand better the nature and extent of this change, let us examine the materials used for coloring and tinting of eggs first in their European form and then in connection with their American counterpart. According to the majority of my informants, "onions and tea leaves cooked together with eggs were used most often for coloring and tinting by our mothers in Europe , but also some 'other things ' may be used for this work." (16) Although unspecific as to the rest of tinting substances, the informants in Cleveland still gave me enough clues in order to continue with the study of this aspect in connection with the written sources. Thus, the "other things" mentioned by informants may have been: the overcooked "Spring rye, hay and coffee; clover leaves (tied to the eggs and cooked in the) extract of ... young grass (and) parsley" (17) for regular tinting, and "the cabbage 'acid' " (18) for 'etching' of parts of eggs not covered by wax. ( 19) In America, as stated, the tinting and coloring kits are bought. These kits, costing ''only a few dollars,'' (20) contain all basic colors in powder form. The coloring fluid is prepared ''by the mixing of the powder with hot water and vinegar," (21) according to specific directions for use. I have not seen any of my informants work with the etching technique; therefore, I mention it here only in order to stress its relative importance in Europe and its absence among my informants in Ohio. The linguistic aspect concerning the materials used for tinting and coloring is, in my opinion, important only in its European version. The terms used in identification of various tinting and coloring substances or materials are either well-known throughout the Slavic area or restricted to some small regions. The widely spread terms are, again like the terms denoting certain tools, an indication of popularity and presence of these materials and substances in the individual Slavic countries. On the other hand, the terms restricted to certain small regions are undeniable proof that the particular material was used only locally or regionally. This conclusion is based upon the fact that these terms are ''tinted'' with dialecticism to such an extent that they cannot be found in average dictionaries nor identified by those of my informants possessing rather advanced formal education in art history or folk art technology. So, for example, neither Dr. Cincik and Miss Petrushka nor Mrs. Osadca were able to give me any information on the terms of pryzyly or kampeska. (22) The commercially acquired American kits are of no value in the study of folk terminology in connection with materials used for tinting and coloring. As products of mass oriented manufacture, these kits reflect primarily an artificial interference with folk tradition. 44 SLOVAKIA What conclusions could be drawn from this short study of implements and materials used in egg decoration? The frequent use of household tools in egg decoration, to start with, suggests that decorated eggs have roots in a self-sustaining economy. Analyzed with respect to the European tradition, this hypothesis is indirectly supported by many statements of the authors consulted for this paper. Thus, according to Vaclavik, "a laid-away razor knife" (23) was frequently reshaped into a pin-pointed tool and used in the scratchcarving technique, (24) and "a pocket knife with a broken point" (25) was employed for the same purpose by Zibrt's informants. However, "an old spoon (with handle) thrust into the side of a beet-made candlestick" (26) is, perhaps, the most characteristic example of the selfsustaining character of tools in Easter eggs manufacture. This character is, nevertheless, still more pronounced in connection with materials used in egg tinting and coloring. There is almost no limit to the range of plants, materials, and techniques employed in traditional preparation of various colors and tints, as seen in the brief summary of the materials above. Examined in the terms of the American tradition, the hypothesis of a sustentacular relationship of economy and egg decoration still holds in connection with the frequent use of household implements in egg decoration in the United States. There is, however, a marked tendency to acquire more and more tools commercially and exclusively for egg decoration here. One can observe this trend, for example, in connection with the commercially-acquired specimens of voskovacka (waxing pen) or skrabacka (scraper), and in connection with the homemade oko (lit., "eye") manufactured by Mr. and Mrs. Molchak. On the other hand, a drift against the traditional self-sustaining ch'aracter of egg decoration is visible in the fact that all colors and tints are bought. The household implements and materials used in tinting and coloring, to continue, are often referred to in connection with the history of technology in general, and as such they may be relatively good timing and placing devices in establishing historicity and ethnicity of certain aspects in egg decoration custom. Among devices usable for this kind of study are almost all modern inventions, whether of general or restricted use, such as electric heating plates and the voskovacka (waxing pen in its most modem variant). In this connection, however, it is necessary to point out that only presence of modern implements is of value for an investigation along historical lines. Their absence, whether in pictorial representations or in written documents, is worthless, as one could easily see by a comparison of the photographs taken during the interview with Mrs. Molchak (an electric heating plate used for wax melting) and of Mrs. Pap and Mrs. Korlatovic (burning candles used as sources of melted wax). (27) The aspect o~ ethnicity, touched briefly in connection with the dialectical names of materials used in egg decoration, may be considered as a relatively safe testing device of SLOVAKIA 45 regional-ethnic provenience of certain terms and materials. As a corollary of technology; the inventiveness was indirectly implied in connection witp. the "beet-made candlestick," (28) with the multifold use of household implements, and with the intelligent handling of materials useJ traditionally for manufacture of colors and tints. In its traditional aspect, this inventiveness was brought about primarily by economic considerations. In its new American setting, it is perhaps, owing more to an "aesthetic" feeling of the folk artist. One can see this in two specific cases, such as the above mentioned oko by means of which my informants tried ''to avoid scratches'' on the freshly batiked eggs, (See Figs. 2,3, and 5) and in the concern of another informant "for the shameful results of her work with yellow color." (29) In the first case, Mr. and Mrs. Molchak made the oko; in the second instance, the informant decided "to search for the roots of trouble in order to heighten the quality of her work.'' However, this economic"aesthetic" difference between European and American tradition is a matter of interpretation. There is not a rigid dichotomy between "aesthetics" and economy either in Europe or in America, and there is no dichotomy between the Old World and New World inventiveness either. In summary, the study of implements and materials used in egg decoration is, at its descriptive level, concerned with technology and etymology. At an analytical level, this study may explain some aspects related to economy, inventiveness, historicity, ethnicity, and ''aesthetics.'' Nevertheless, the most important aspect of this study, I think, is in its investigation into continuity and change. As stated above, there is a partial continuity in the tools used in egg decoration both in Europe and in America. However, there is a complete change between the materials used traditionally in Europe and recently in America. The study of designs in folk art concerns primarily an investigation into the types and motifs. Both the types and motifs of folk art are often interchangeable with each other, as in folk narratives, and as such they resist any ready-made definitions. In general, the type may be thought of as the term denoting resemblances in combinations of symbols, signs, motifs, ornaments, and kinds of craftsmanship over a large area to such an extent that these resemblances cannot be ascribed to polygenesis. The motif, on the other hand, is "a graphically complete representation of a given fundamental form that manifests certain content.'' (30) Designs in decoration of Slavic Easter eggs belong to two fundamental types, the western and the eastern. The western type, comprising Poland, Bohemia and Moravia, the easternmost part of Slovakia, and Slovenia, is generally seen as a phenomenon limited in range of motifs, but possessing an exquisite craftsmanship. (31) This type of egg decoration is characterized, according to A. Vaclavik, "by 46 SLOVAKIA star motifs on both ends of egg(s) and by free setting of motifs on sides of egg.'' (32) The specimens of this type are obtained either by tear-like lines and dots (33) or by embossed ornamentation with wax or other suitable material. (34) The most frequent motifs connected with the western type are chains, sinuous lines, trees and branches, garlands, squares, hearts, birds, and rosettes. (35) The eastern type, on the other hand, is geographically restricted to the Ukraine, western Russia, the Sub-Carpathian Ukraine, and the parts of eastern Moravia and westernmost Slovakia. (36) Rich in color as well as in the number of subtypes, this type is characterized by linear ornamentation running over the egg surface vertically, horizontally, and diagonally. (37) The basic traits of the eastern type are traceable to Byzantine art and related to, and influenced by, the grass weaving, (38) embroidery, (39) and wood carving. (40) Because of this relationship, the eastern type is influenced by materials used. Its most frequent motifs seem to be cross, swastika, triangle, pentagram, hexagram, and various highly schematized ribbonlike motifs of lighting, thorns, ''ant and bee paths,'' "bird path," and fork and comb-like motifs. (41) My study in Cleveland showed that Vaclavik's conclusions concerning geographical distribution of these two basic types (i.e., the western and the eastern) are generally valid also in connection with the Slovak and Ruthenian immigrants in Ohio. Already by a cursory observation of the eggs collected or photographed in Cleveland for this project, one can see a remarkable difference between the eggs decorated by Mrs. Molchak, on the one hand, and Mrs. Pap and Mrs. Korlatovic, on the other. While Mrs. Molchak has an overall predilection for the western tear-like motifs, she is also fond of the embossed subtypes in egg decoration. Mrs. Pap, an adherent of the eastern types, decorates eggs characterized by balanced composition of geometrical elements, and by a wide range of colors. With the exception of an egg showing Christ risen from the dead, there is no egg decorated by Mrs. Pap that would suggest design influence from other ethnic groups in America. Mrs. Korlatovic, as another folk artist working with the eastern typological sphere df egg decoration, is also very conservative in approach to design change. Working to the minutest detail in a geometrical partition of the egg surface, Mrs. Korlatovic has attained what many folk artists would consider ''an ideal of perfection." Because of emphasis on mosaicity, the color aspects of her design are subordinated. Eggs decorated by Mrs. Korlatovic are beautiful seen close up; their colors and designs merge in an indefinite brownish hue when the eggs are seen, say, at a distance of 3 or 4 feet. The other informants are more or less an amorphous group as to their relationship to the western or eastern type of design. This group is primarily represented by Mrs. Jana Mad'ar. Mrs. Tanya Osadca, Miss Petrushka, Dr. Joseph Cincik, Mr. Vladimir Ozabal and three daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Molchak. With the exception of the last SLOVAKIA 47 mentioned three girls, who show a definite pro-western typological inclination (Note Fig. 6) , the other informants mentioned in this paragraph are " individuals " resisting any general classification as to typology in design. Some hints as to the preferences of this group may be traced from the study of motifs in the works and collection of this group . So, at any rate, sinuous lines are the favored motif of Mrs . Mad'ar both according to her own words as well as in accordance with her decoration (Fig. 10) . The motifs of tulips, hearts , roses , and birds evident in western Slovak wall-paintings are on the favored list of Dr. Cincik, of Mrs . Ozabal, and, to certain extent, also of Miss Petrushka. But both Miss Petrushka and Dr. Cincik prefer in their professional work a somewhat schematized design of '' pastoral culture,'' as does Mrs. Osadca in her hobby-oriented egg decoration . (42) On the whole, this group of folk artists is an excellent example of the mixed influences that characterize Slovak ethnic territory as to typology in egg decoration designs. All members of the group have roots in their native or ancestral cultures. With the exception of Mrs. Osadca , this group draws basically from the Western Slovak " fireplace decorating sub-type." But designs of this group merge to the central Slovak sub-types of wood carving and embroidery which, in tum , already shows some traces of the linear-geometrical character present in the eastern type of egg decoration. With a view to the types and motifs examined briefly above, the general concepts of designs in folk art may be analyzed in connection with the study of form and content elements as well. The corollaries of form and content, symbol, sign, and ornament, are mutually substitutive, according to one's point of view. Thus, let us say, an ornament considered under strictly formal attributes may be simply a decoration or embellishment. In its content evaluation, however, an ornament could have " an ideological meaning (issuing) from aesthetic concept(s) " (43) either as a sign representing a conventional idea or as a symbol expressing a basic (and) striking ... idea." (44) Let us now examine the most frequent and self-evident symbols, the cross, heart, briar, wild rose, thorn crown, rose, and grapevine in connection with sources I was able to consult and with the Slovak and Ruthenian folk artists in Cleveland whom I interviewed. The cross, both the symbol and sign expressing the traditional concepts of Christ's death and resurrection, was the most frequent ornament used in the decoration by my informants. Its twelve variants, (45) representing the full range of cultural and ethnic connotations, were intentionally used by the majority of my informants in order either to express their religious affiliation or to stress their ethnic backgrounds. Thus , the Latin cross was consistently used by the informants of the Roman Catholic religion while the members of the Byzantine Catholic Rite expressed their religious beliefs with the Byzantine Catholic Cross and with the words "Christos Voskres" (i.e., 48 SLOVAKIA "Christ is risen"). The Greek Cross, with its vertical and horizontal beams of equal length , was used very often interchangeably with the crosses of St. Andrew (i.e., an "X" or " Y" cross) "because all three crosses are easy to draw in any direction and combination with other ornaments. " In a like manner, the Cross of St. Anthony (i.e. , a cross in the form of a "T") and the Maltese Cross were employed primarily for their formal-decorative aspects. The so-called Apostolic Cross, represented by a long vertical beam and by two horizontal beams placed in the upper half of the cross, brought about some implications of ethnic-cultural symbology. While this cross is an official religious symbol of the Byzantine Catholic Church, it is at the same time also partly related to the Slovak national emblem (i.e. , an Apostolic Cross upon the " peak" of a threesome " mountain range " ). This, at any rate interesting aspect, presented no problems in connection with my informants of the Byzantine Rite faith and eastern Slovak background. For them, the cross was both " Slovak " and also " Byzantine"; however, for my informants of western Slovak ancestry or origin, the cross was always of " Slovak " connotation. The informants of Ruthenian provenience stressed that ''the cross was an emblem of their religion" and asked me " to state this clearly when I write about 'their Easter eggs'.'' This , on first sight trivial emphasis upon ethnic or cultural aspects, may not be easily understood by citizens of a large country like the United States. Had one, however, studied the history of the Slovaks , Sub-Carpathians , Huculs , Lemkos, and other small ethnic groups of central Europe , he would see why there is a strong emphasis on esoteric elements in the folklore of these groups. The heart, a universal symbol of love, is prominent in central and western Slovakia. Used frequently both in folk art designs and in Christian symbology as well, the symbol and ornament of the heart developed, in my opinion , from two different traditions . The first tradition of heart symbols has roots in the so-called " spiritual love ," while the second tradition is linked with the so-called " erotic love." Spiritual love is represented in Christian symbols either by a heart with a burning flame on its top and a crown of thorns placed about it or by the so-called "Lumen Christi" (i.e ., Paschal candle) with fire burning "upwards" or "spiritually." The second tradition of love symbolism , " erotic love ," is more evident in folk art and customs . The aspect of erotic love permeates several customs of the S~avic and Balkan areas, among them especially the customs of " Kore ," " Kostrubonko," and " Morena" in which, usually , an effigy of straw is set afire and thrown into the river . These customs , in essence animistic equations of Notteuer , represent fire as a male element moving downwards toward water or the female element. (46) In folk art, both "spiritual" and " erotic" fire s are frequently connected with the symbols of "suffering love " (i.e ., the thorn crown in its spiritual aspect; rose-and-briar in the " worldly" aspect of love). (4 7) After an examination of the literary SLOVAKIA 49 sources with the evidence from Cleveland, I came to the conclusion that the "heart-rose-briar" composition ("heart-tulip " version in Slovakia) symbolizes among the Slovaks only "spiritual love." This interpretation is self-evictent in connection with the wood-carved cemetery crosses in central Slovakia, with the fireplace paintings in western Slovakia, and with the works of some of my informants in Cleveland. An investigation into the relative directions in the "movement" of individual ornaments reveals that the elements of "twisting" and "knots" are symbolically opposing the "branching" or "open structures" in every vertical composition. The verticallyoriented "twisting," especially when terminated with a "love knot," symbolizes in folk tradition a "suffering kind of erotic love" while the "branching" or "open structure" is a sign symbol of parent-to-child love. In an examination of forty illustrative plates in the work Mal'ovane ohnistia v oblasti Malych Karpat (Decorated Fireplaces in the Little Capathian Region) by Rudolf Bednarik I found no single instance of the so-called "twisting" or " knots " in connection with the western Slovak "fireplace sub-culture." In a like manner, only "open branching" is evident on the cemetery crosses in central Slovakia, shown in the book Eudove nahrobniky na Slovensku. (48) The carving upon the crosses, in addition, shows also genetic and historical development in the ornament-to-symbols direction. The date carved directly on the vertical beam of a cross indicates the year of 188(-), with the last digit illegible because of decay. This cross has no symbolic connotation as yet. Its tulips grow up out of a flower pot rather naturally, and as such they are only an ornament. (49) Another cross at the same cemetery, dated 1928, is evidently an advanced version of the older cross in its ornament-symbol relationship. (50) Its symbolism is expressed in the form of tulips branching upwards from a heart . The "spiritual character" of love is here symbolized, in my opinion, by the "open branching" of the tulip, and, I think, the entire arrangement can be interpreted as suggesting the everlasting love of the deceased toward his living relatives. Now, how does this spiritual and wordly love relationship score with the other folk art products in Europe and in America? Is there any evidence of an ornament-to-symbol orientation among folk artists in more recent times? A little wooden shovel, to start with, was decorated by one of my informants in Cleveland. This shovel may be considered as an intermediary stage between the ornaments symbolizing spiritual and erotic love. Representing the so-called ''medovnikove srdce'' (i.e., " marzipan heart") flanked by two schematized roosters, the ornamental arrangement on the little shovel still preserves some traces of spiritual love (i.e. , the two tulips branching from the heart), but the presence of the roosters suggests already "another aspect" of love. This aspect, I think, is stressed even more by the traditional meaning of the marzipan heart in Slovakia since such a heart was given by a boy 50 SLOVAKIA only to the girl whom he intended to marry. In like manner, the egg made by Mrs. J . B. also shows an intermediary character, this time in connection with the genetic flower pot-to-heart development (i.e., from naturalism to symbolism). There is a remarkable likeness between this egg and an egg shown by A. Vaclavik. (51) This likeness suggests that the polygenetic trend in motifs is not restricted to folk narratives only. Two eggs decorated by one of my informants in Cleveland belong also to the intermediary zone between spiritual and wordly love. One of the eggs , a vertical rendition of "twisting" and "open branching," looks almost like a combination of the rose-and-briar motif of AngloAmerican traditional balladry and of tulip-branching of western Slovak wall-painting. The other egg, elaborated horizontally with only one garland of roses and green leaves slightly above the middle of eggshell, already suggests a higher spiritualization, but this is only an impression. It seems that the most recent ornaments whether created by my informants or by folk artists in Slovakia remained only ornaments. With the exception of the most self-evident symbols like the cross, the heart, and the thorn crown, one of my informants did not know why he put together, for example, the horizontally-arranged grapevine motif with wild roses superimposed upon the grapevine branches. Except the swastika and "sun circles," the other ornaments also described in connection with the types and motifs above are taken by the majority of my informants for face value only. So, for example, Mrs. Korlatovic considered the cobweb, the sieve, and the rake only as a cobweb, a sieve, or a rake, and nothing else. The swastika, treated extensively by M. Gavazzi, (52) was for my informants either "an emblem of the Nazis" or "a garden sprinkler" whenever presented in the "round form.'' Only the informants with formal art training were able to recognize the ' 'ancient symbol of a moving sun'' (53) behind the forms of "windmill wings or clover leaves" of the swastika. The "sun circles," (54) used by my informants in one form or another, were recognized by Mrs. Jana Mad'ar "as a Slovak ceiling decoration," but only Dr. Cincik was familiar with the ancient meaning of this ornament. Theory of design in folk art, like its counterpart in fine arts, is a matter of interpretation in the first place. yonsidered with general concepts of art, designs in folk art may be examined in the terms of form and content, as stated above. Linked to the diachronic study, these designs may reveal some social, economic, cultural, or psychological conditions. Folk art, when contrasted with fine arts, shows a high occurrence of borrowing, repetition, use of conventional themes, plagiarism, and disregard for spontaneity and originality. In the past, folk art was thought to be linked to the preservation and reproduction of life by magical and natural means. At present, folk art seems to lose more and more of its magic character. Hand in hand with the new and more realistic approaches to the problems of life, folk art tends today to emphasize stylistic and formal elements, such as or- SLOVAKIA 51 nament and decoration attained by mere technical means (i.e., relief techniques). Generally, it seems that folk art design moved originally away from naturalism tow~rd schematization. Its present tendency is toward self-explanatory and self-evident symbolism (i.e., a flower pot exchanged by a heart). When, however, certain general symbols were removed out of anunstressed situation, they became localized within a new and stronger situation and acquired a new meaning (i.e., the Apostolic Cross became the Slovak or Eastern Byzantine Cross). According to conventional aesthetics, symbolism giving content to the form should be thought of as a ''higher level'' in the understanding of artistic creations. In folk art, on the contrary, symbolism was more evident in the ancient and relatively more primitive cultures. With the exception of the most self-evident symbols of the cross and heart, symbolism is almost absent from the recent folk creations. Is this a paradox? No, it is only a fact which suggests that sophisticated and folk culture are two different entities, and so also are conventional aesthetics and folk art ''aesthetics.'' Techniques of egg decoration play an important part in the diachronic-synchronic study of folklore transmission. Thought of in the terms of materials and tools used, these techniques are identified as painting, batiking, scratch-carving, embossing, (with related techniques of inlaying, ribboning, and hammering), and tying. (55) Considered in their relationship to the predetermined use of eggs, these techniques are primarily of a conservational character. There are, however, some techniques of preparatory character which are either considered as preliminary steps for proper decoration of eggs or thought of as techniques in their own right. In order to avoid unnecessary repetition, I want first to consider the preparatoryconservational egg decoration · techniques. To start with, painting or coloring of eggs requires "completely clean hands (and) implements." (56) According to Zibrt, the egg must be "at least three days old in order to 'catch' color, (and it should be) slightly heated in order to retain wax. (57) Several informants, quoted by Zibrt and Vaclavik, stress that "lukewarm rain water" (58) is the best for the cleaning of eggs. Then the eggs are either blown out of the eggshells, or cooked in clean water or with any coloring substance whenever they should be decorated later and used as decorative articles at home or as presents for the others. On the other hand, the eggs are either cooked together with onion skin, tea leaves, or other food coloring substances whenever they should be consumed during Easter holidays, or else "scratched-carved" after cooking. These preparatory techniques are gen·e rally known all over the Slavic area. There is, however, a rather restricted technique of a conservational character employed consistently by Mrs. Korlatovic. According to this technique, raw eggs are decorated with batik, and when dry, the eggs are covered with a thin layer of special shellac. This prevents spoilage, adding a bit 52 SLOVAKIA of mirrorlike gloss. Let us now describe and examine the decorative techniques. The first technique of painting is, in essence, the simple application of the technique employed in other forms of folk art, such as wall painting, pottery and ceramics, painting of household implements, and painting on glass. The technique, "gaining momentum recently especially in northern Slovakia," (59) consists of direct application of oil or water paints on eggs. Although mentioned by Zibrt and Vaclavik, this technique is not very important in over all transmission of Easter customs from Europe to America, and only one of my informants in Cleveland used it extensively. Batik technique, on the other hand, is the most important and widespread technique in egg decoration. Mentioned often by several Slavic and non-Slavic authors, (60) this technique is of an ancient origin. Its existence is known all over the Slavic area, and its popularity is unquestioned also among my informants in Cleveland (See Figs. 1,2,3,5, and 6). The technique itself is based fundamentally on a principle similar to offset printing. Decoration by means of this technique is, therefore, attained in such a way that the parts of the eggshell are covered with wax heated in the tiny cup of voskovacka (i.e., waxing pen), and the egg is then immersed and tinted in a light water color. After removal of the egg from the first color, and when the egg is dry enough, the wax is wiped off thoroughly with a warm rag. (61) Then the egg is, again, "painted" with wax, "bathed" in another somewhat darker color, removed, dried and wiped. These steps are repeated until the egg attains the desired design composition (See Fig. 9) Scratch-carving, after batik the most popular technique in Slovakia, is known also among my informants. Related and similar to woodcarving, this technique is generally linked with the eastern type egg design in general and with the so-called "salasnicka kultura" (i.e. pastoral culture) in particular. According to Vaclavik, the drawback of this technique ' 'is hard work, more time-c~nsuming than with wax(batiked) eggs." (62) Only well-seasoned artists are able to work with this technique successfully. As mentioned above, all my informants are familiar with this technique, but only Mrs . Molchak was willing to scratch carve eggs during my stay in Ohio. Folk artists in Europe use for scratch carving "file or awl, knife, (but) most frequently the point of laid-away razor blades." (63) In America, on the contrary, the most popullar implement for this technique is the so-called "skrabacka" (lit., scraper), an awl made of hard steel and having a pencil-like wooden or metallic handle. The egg, decorated in this technique by Mrs. Molchak was made with the skrabacka. Embossing, inlaying, ribboning, hammering, and tying are basically complementary techniques. Linked with each other both in Europe and in America, these techniques are employed in order to SLOVAKIA 53 variegate the relief of egg's surface by raising the parts of eggshell. In my opinion, however, only embossing and tying are techniques in their own right. Techniques of inlaying, ribboning, and hammering, on the contrary, are mere adaptations of each other as to the material used. Embossing is a technique ih which the egg's surface is raised by permanent application of heavy coat of wax. This technique , in spite of how effective it looks, is not widespread because, in addition to being hard to work the ''relief peels off easily and melts away in warm weather." (64) Traditional specimens with this technique were made with an application of ''red or blue wax'' upon eggshell, or of '' black wax" upon a red-tinted egg. Embossing of eggs is, according to Vaclavik, "known in Moravia, in westernmost Bohemia, and in Bulgaria.'' (65) Only one of my informants in Cleveland (Mrs. Molchak) works with this traditional technique to any great extent. Inlaying, as the first of the three techniques (consisting of inlaying, ribboning, and hammering), is relatively restricted because it depends very much on the skill of a folk artist. In its European version, this technique is represented by two major variants, the so-called "pasted eggs" and "straw eggs." The "pasted eggs," known both in western Slovakia and in Moravia under the names of "birds" and "doves ," are decorated with paper of different colors and shapes . The results of such activity are "birds" with the body made of the egg, and with the head, feet, tail, and wings made of paper. (66) The "straw eggs, '' on the other hand, are manufactured with a technique in which pieces of colored straw are pasted directly upon the eggshell. This mosaic-like work requires great skill and patience. It is fundamentally a variant of a cabinet making technique in which pieces of straw are also used in decoration of furniture'.s frontispieces. (67) Inlaying, of course, can be carried out in a wide range of combination and of materials used. This aspect, however, will be referred to later in connection with the American counterparts of this technique. Ribboning is, according to Vaclavik, "a further (and) more recent variant (of) sitinovani.' ' (68) Widespread in northern Slovakia, ribboning consists of pasting little garlands on both ends of the egg, and tying the ribbons of different colors and widths around the middle. (69) Among my informants, only Miss Petrushka uses this technique in a form described by Vaclavik, while Mrs. Mad'ar uses this technique in its simpler variant of "string-lacing." Hammering, .the last close relative of inlaying and ribboning, is a very old technique. According to Cesky casopis historicky, (70) hammering is documented as early as 1415. Folk artists working with this technique use most "often blown out goose eggs (and embellish) them with metallic rings, flower and animal motifs. (71) With the exception of Miss Petrushka, none of my informants in Cleveland worked with this technique. Tying of eggs, as a technique in its own right, is now restricted to 54 SLOVAKIA the vicinity of Mikulov in Moravia. (72) However, owing to evidence from Cleveland, I will examine this technique in somewhat more detail than the others. According to the data gathered from other studies and from my informants, the egg is decorated with this technique when it is immersed into strong vinegar in order to soften it and then it is tied about the middle in order to acquire a shape of a written number 8. From a practical viewpoint, this technique seems merely to complement the other seven techniques mentioned before. But as mentioned above, tying becomes a technique in its own right for technological and other reasons. First of all, no attempts were made in other techniques to change the chemical composition of the eggshell to such an extent that it would become pliable. Then, in its interpretative aspect, I think that this technique also suggests another important point. As mentioned before, economic factors play a part in the work of folk artists in Europe and in America as well. One can see this in connection with the multifold use of tools both for general household chores and in the use of the terms with which folk artists unequivocally stress how carefully one should work, for example, with razor blade ''in order to prevent breaking of the eggshell." (73) Now, let us consider this project in the situation of which I was an eyewitness during an exposition of the art work of Miss Petrushka. At this exposition, Miss Petrushka startled the attending public when she let fall a jewelled egg as if accidentally, but the egg bounced up without damage. At my question of how this elasticity of the eggshell was attained, Miss Petrushka answered only in part. She told me that she learned this secret from her father, a folk artist also, but otherwise declined to elaborate on or describe the procedure or the chemical reaction by which the elasticity of egg was brought about. I am no chemist, but in view of Vaclavik' s investigation of the "tying egg technique," I think that the process by which Vaclavik's informants brought about the softening of eggs and the process by means of which miss Petrushka was able to induce elasticity to jewelled eggs\are at least partly related to each other. As to the other side of this problem, there is no doubt that her polite refusal to answer my question was motivated by economic reasons, a sort of private patent protection. With respect to the other techniques, I have observed that my informants combine the relief techniques into one. Conversely, embossing in this "modern" version is carried out in connection with inlaying, ribboning, hammering, painting, batiking, and scratch carving. My informants used for this "new technique," in addition to wax, also dough, cultured pearls, wire of various thicknesses, aluminum foil cut in the form of small leaves and flowers, silk and samite, tiny sequins and beads, marzipan, and confetti in baking and regular varieties. This range of materials used is still not a complete one. And this technique, whether considered as one or separately in agreement with its more traditional counterparts, shows that the SLOVAKIA 55 variety in products manufactured by my Slovak and Ruthenian informants in Cleveland is very wide. At its specific plane, this variety moves from the work of humble folk artists up almost to Faberge's level. (74) The Americanized technique, which includes a number of European traditional techniques , supports the hypothesis of a forwardreverse relationship beh,xeen techniques and implements used in egg decoration . While the number of tools in Europe shrinks , and the implements are frequently interchanged for economic reasons with those in overall household use , the techniques in Europe were held as separate entities in rather restricted areas, again, I believe, mainly to lower cost and to use only locally available materials . In America the situation seems to be reversed. The implements used exclusively for egg decoration here seem to gain ground . The techniques, as seen above , tend to lose individuality and become more and more incorporated into a larger whole. This again, in my opinion , is because of economic reasons . Ame rican folk artists have no difficulty in obtaining locally everything needed for egg decoration. The choice of products in America permits American folk artists to follow their interests to a greater degree than their European counterparts in the past. No matter whether these interests are of an aesthetic nature or whether they are conditioned by profession , economic aspects of buying and selling as well as of the conditions underlying the choice of raw materials and tools are ever present and important. The custom involving Easter eggs consisted in Slovakia of two basic parts: decoration of the eggs carried out in individual families, and use of eggs as presents for the young men performing showers and whippings. Both the showering and whipping as well as the egg decoration were historically documented , according to Cenek Zibrt, as early as the 14th century. (75) The decoration of Easter eggs , as the first part of this custom , has continued for over six hundred years, and no wonder that the Slovak and Ruthenian immigrants brought this custom also to the United States. According to my investigation in Cleveland, it was carried on by the first generation of Slovak immigrants in America. Only single young men used to perform showers and whippings in Slovakia. The first Slovak immigrants in America, to begin with , were in most cases married men who came to the United States to earn money and either to return home or to bring their families here at a later date. The way of life in the United States, to continue, was conditioned by an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and as such it had no ready-made accommodations for such strange customs as whipping and showering. This custom was practiced in Slovakia on Easter Monday and Tuesday , both days being either a religious (i.e., Easter Monday) or traditional (i.e., Easter Tuesday) holiday. Linked together, these three aspects support the thesis that the no-holiday character of these two post-Easter days was the primary cause that brought about disappearance of showering and whipping in the United 56 SLOVAKIA States. The secondary cause for this disappearance was the fact that the Slovak immigrants were unwilling to continue with a custom that might have brought about ridicule from the more sophisticated segments of the American population. (76) The third cause might have been owing to changed environmental conditions. While rural life in Slovakia posed no difficulties to young men performing showers or whipping, urban life in America brought about some restrictions as to where, for example, the custom of showering could have taken place. In Slovakia this custom was usually performed either in the backyard or in the garden. In America, there were in most cases no places to perform the custom without damage to the interior of the house or, if the showering were performed in the street, without interference with law and order. The second part of the custom, involving the Easter eggs as presents in exchange for showering and whipping, had therefore either to disappear completely or to acquire a new meaning. Because of contact with other ethnic and cultural groups, this part of the custom took the road of incorporation within another cultural context. (77) Thus the Roman Catholic Slovak immigrants retained the custom of egg decoration as practiced in Slovakia; however, the second part of this custom involving Easter eggs as presents for the young men performing the whipping and showering either disappeared completely or was adjusted in order to suit the new situation. On the other hand, the Slovaks of the Byzantine Rite, (78) together with the Ruthenians and Ukrainians proper, did not change the first part of the custom (i.e., decoration of eggs) at all. But a slight change took place among them in the exchange of eggs as compared with eastern Slovakia and Ruthenia. While, according to Greek Catholic usage, a simple form of exchange among the relatives and neighbors used to take place in Europe, eastern Slovaks and Ruthenians in America decorate eggs now either for sale or for exchange with the other church members. The sale itself could be of two kinds: a simple sale for personal profit and a sale to fellow church members with the proceeds donated to the church. The second and third generations of thf Slovak Roman Catholic immigrants in Cleveland retained the "new approach" of the first generation regarding the revision of the custom involving Easter showers and whipping. Together with the eastern Slovaks and Ukrainians, the Roman Catholic Slovaks also adopted the changes of basic techniques, tools, terminology, and economy with respect to Easter customs and decorated eggs in particular. But this is, again, a matter concerning the other aspects of egg decoration, and as such it was either treated in connection with the individual aspects of egg decoration or it will be touched upon in the last part of this article. In the final analysis, one could see that change manifested itself in the various aspects of egg decoration more frequently than its corollary or continuity. With the exception of designs and tools of general use SLOVAKIA 57 (both of which remained almost unaltered), changes occurred in coloring substances, techniques, customs involving decorated eggs, and in the tools used exclusively in egg decoration. However, as shown above in connection with individual aspects of egg decoration, these changes were always of different character and extent, and were brought about for different reasons. Thus, there was, on the one hand, a complete change from the.traditional home-made coloring substances (79) to the commercially available coloring kits in America. (80) There were, on the other hand, less evident, but still important, changes in techniques, customs, and tools of specific character. Placed side by side, both techniques and special tools show trends of adding and subtracting in a folktale-like manner. As in the study of folktales, one could observe that "two or more tales (are stringed) together," (81) the techniques which existed in Slovakia and in the Ukraine as separate entities were brought together by the folk artists in America and incorporated into one general technique. The opposite trend, again as in folktales, was evident in connection with the tools used exclusively in egg decoration when the "adding of detail(s)" occurred in the New World either owing to modernization of older tools or because of the introduction of new implements. The two-fold change took place, according to my observation, in customs involving Easter eggs. As mentioned, the custom of whipping and showering disappeared in America. The custom of giving Easter eggs as presents to the others was, on the contrary, retained, but its complete change was evident among the western and central Slovak immigrants while only a slight change as to its practical application was recorded among the eastern Slovaks and Ruthenians in Cleveland. (82) What were 1:he reasons behind these changes and why were certain aspects of egg decoration more amenable for alteration than others? As mentioned elsewhere in this paper, the motives for changes in various aspects of egg decoration can be attributed to folk "aesthetics," economy, and to the impact of culture contact with the other ethnic groups in America. Since no fingerprint evidence exists as to the cross-influence between "aesthetics," economy, and impact of culture contact, on the one hand, and the aspects of egg decoration, on the other, my interpretation of the motives leading to the changes in egg decoration is only a tentative one. I believe that the formation of concepts concerning ''aesthetics'' in the European version of egg decoration was brought about by the availability of materials and tools, in the first place. Artistic endeavors of European egg decorators were, in my opinion, conditioned by the initial cost of egg decoration. European folk artists, therefore, either manufactured the tools and coloring substances at their homes or used only locally available materials in order to save on transportation costs. American folk artists, on the other hand, seem to be concerned more with the sale of finished products, and make every effort to sell their products either for 58 SLOVAKIA money or for recognition ; hence, in order to do so, they are forced "to make saleable products" and "to protect their inventions." The worries about qualitative expression compel American egg decorators to buy new tools and to adapt traditional techniques to new needs . Even the custom involving decorated eggs, as an aspect of Easter eggs, was influenced to the greatest extent by culture contact with the other ethnic groups , is currently conditioned by economic artistic considerations . (83) Continuity, holding opposite side to the change in transmission, is evident in the use of general household implements and in designs. As to the tools, this rule of continuity is caused by the fact that knives, spoons, and needles, to mention just some of these items, are bought or used in Europe and in America along similar lines. Designs, in my opinion, seem to be stable elements in egg decoration because they have the most striking visual impact and are also formulaically and repetitively-oriented to a high degree. Seen altogether, both change and continuity exist side by side in the aspects of egg decoration as they exist both in folk art and in culture itself. This fact, being undeniable proof that egg decoration represents a part of the overall culture, is also testimony that the decoration of eggs as a form of folk art is governed by the laws governing culture itself. Easter eggs, therefore , like culture, are a unique human phenomenon, socially shared and transmitted, (84) this time by the Slovaks and Ruthenians in Cleveland, Ohio. Reprinted from Journal of Popular Culture (Summer 1970) IV:l, pp. 155-193, with permission of Dr. Ray B. Browne. FOOTNOTES (1) Cf. Cenek Zibrt, Vesele chvile v iivote lidu ceskeho. Prague : Vysehrad, 1950, p. 251. According to Zibrt, the term 'Easter eggs' was known already in the 14th century, but originated long before that time . (2) Cf. Antonin Vaclavik, Vyrocni obyceje a lidove umeni. Prague : Ceskoslovenska akademie ved, 1959, p . 261. Vaclavik's informants in Moravia think that Easter eggs exist "from the very beginning " and several of his informants " maintain that the decoration of eggs started in Slovakia." (p . 262). In Vaclavik ' s opinion , the term " Slovakia" should be applied to the region alongside the Slovak-Moravian border only . (3) Cf. Kazimierz Moszyiiski, Kultura Ludowa Slowian. Cracow, 1939. CF . also Rudolf Bednarik , Duchovna kultura slovenskeho l'udu. Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1941 . (4) Cf. Vaclavik, pp. 259-580 ; cf. Zibrt, passim. (5) Cf. Note No. 6 below. (6) This fi eldwork was carried out by the author between March 18 and April 2, 1969. Thirty informants of Slovak and Ruthenian descent were interviewed. In addition to extensive tape-recordings and note-taking, the author took photographs tracing the individual steps of egg decoration (black and white as well as color slides) . Most of this material, containing also 17 actual eggs, is stored and available for consultation in the Archive of the Center for Comparative Folklore and Mythology at the University of California , Los Angeles. SLOVAKIA 59 (7) Used as holders of blown-out eggs or as devises for the lengthwise partitioning of , such eggs . (8) Rubber bands may belong to either of the two groups. Used at times only for partitioning of egg surfaces, rubber bands may be stretched lengthwise diagonally, or latitudinally , and reused as any implement of the group one . At other times , rubber bands can be pasted around the eggs in order either to obtain embossing or to hold other items used in egg decoration , such as ribbons , colored sections of straw, or aluminum foil. Used this way, rubber bands belong to group two . For the specimens made either with ~krabai!ka or with sharp-pointed knife, see R. Bednarik, pp. 95-6. A dark-green egg, made by Mrs . Molchak and donated to this collection at U.C .L.A ., was decorated with ~krabai!ka. For an English treatment of eggs made with egg-carving technique, see Alfred L. Shoemaker, Eastertide in Pennsylvania, pp. 50-62. (9) (10) Cf. Zibrt, p. 257. (11) Cf. Vaclavik, pp. 267-8. (12) The most modern specimen of uoskouai!ka is now available commercially. I bought one in the store of Mr. Rudenskij, 5432 State Road, Parma, Ohio, for $1.00. This specimen is now stored in the Archive F.M .G. at U.C.L.A. (13) As to the specific tools used exclusively for egg decoration, it is ahnost certain that some changes may have occurred in the Old World owing to new developments in culture and technology. This aspect, however, cannot be treated here because my evidence is fragmentary about it. (14) Cf. Zibrt, p . 251. (15) Cf. Ibid ., p. 255 . Cf. also Vaclavik, pp . 267-8. (16) Interview with Mrs . Mad'ar (17) Zibrt , p . 253 . (18) Ibid. (19) For description of etching, see Vaclavik , pp . 268, 275 . (20) Interview with Mrs. Molchak . (21) Interview with Mrs. Pap. (22) " Pryzyly " is a sort of reddish substance used for tinting (Cf. Zibrt, p . 252). "Kampeska" is a commercially-acquired " wood chip" coloring (Zibrt, p. 253). (23) Vaclavik, p . 269 . (24) Cf. Ibid. For a description of scratch carving, see Shoemaker, p. 51. (25) Zibrt, p . 255. (26) Vaclavik, p. 267. (27) Note Fig. No . 1, 2, 3, and 5. The photographs mentioned are on file in the Archive of the Center for Comparative Folklore and Mythology, U .C.L.A. (28) Vaclavik, p . 267 . (29) Interview with Mr~. Molchak . (30) Vaclavik, p . 376. (31) Cf. Ibid ., pp . 338-9. For a summary concerning the western type of egg decoration, see Ibid . , p . 523 . (32) Ibid ., p. 338 . (33) Cf. Ibid ., p. 287 and Plate LXXVII (upper part) . (34) Cf. Ibid ., p . 338 and Plate LV . 60 SLOVAKIA (35) Cf. Ibid., p. 338. (36) Cf. Ibid . (37) Cf. Ibid., p. 339. (38) Cf. Bednarik, pp. 206-208. (39) Cf. Ibid., Plate 75. Cf. also Moszyiiski, p. 916. (40) Cf. R. Bednarik, Pastierske rezbarske umenie, passim., but especially Plates No. 55, 79, 142, 149, and 158. (41) Cf. Vaclavik, pp. 389 , 391, 393, and 395. (42) For prominent motifs in wall painting in western Slovakia, see R. Bednarik, Mal'ovane ohnistia v oblasti Malych Karpat, passim. For ''pastoral culture'' in central Slovakia , see Bednarik, Pastierske rezbarske umenie, passim. (43) Vaclavik, p . 376 . (44) Ibid ., 375. (45) R. Bednarik, Eudove nahrobniky na Slovensku, 57. (46) Cf. J. E. Cir lot, A Dictionary of Symbols, passim. (47) Cf. E. Haig, Floral Symbolism of the Great Masters, pp. 127-8. (48) Cf. R. Bednarik, Eudove nahrobniky na Slovensku, p . 73. Cf. also Bednarik, Mal'ovane ohnistia v oblasti Malych Karpat, plates 1-40. (49) Cf. Bednarik, Eudove nahrobniky na Slovensku, p. 91. (50) Cf. Ibid ., p. 73. (51) Cf. Vaclavik, p. 346 (left side) . (52) Cf. M. Gavazzi, "Svastika i njezin ornamentalni razoj na uskrsnim jajima sa Balkana,'' Zbornik za narodni Zivot i obyc:aje juinih Slavena, XXVII, 1-24. (53) Cf. Gavazzi, Op. Cit., passim. (54) Cf. Alan Dundes, ed., The Study of Folklore, p. 387. (55) For a detailed description of these techniques, see Vaclavik, pp. 267-72. (56) Ibid., p. 267. (57) Zibrt, pp. 252-3. (58) Vaclavik, p. 267; also Zibrt, op. cit., passim. (59) Interview with Mrs. Mad'ar. (60) Cf. Vaclavik, p. 268; Zibrt, op. cit., passim., but especially 251 ff. (61) Cf. Vaclavik, p . 267. (62) Vaclavik, p. 269. (63) Vaclavik, p. 269. (64) Ibid. (65) Ibid. (66) Cf. Vaclavik, p . 269, and Plate XLV. (67) Cf. Ibid., pp. 269-70. Modern specimens made with this technique are shown on Plates XLIX and LXXV; furniture, Pl. LXIV. (68) Ibid ., p. 270. Sitinovani is a technique in which the core of Juncus is pasted upon the eggshell. (Juncus is the Latin term for a genus of olderly tree.) (69) Cf. Ibid . , p. 271. For specimens, see Ibid., p. 351. (70) Czech Historical Review , XXXIII, p. 278 . Cf. Vaclavik, pp. 271, 275. (71) Vaclavik, p. 271. SLOVAKIA 61 (72) Cf. Ibid., pp. 271-2. (73) Ibid., p. 269. (74) For a treatment of Faberge,. work, see Venetia Newall, "Easter Eggs," Journal of American Folklore, LXXX (1967), 17 ff. (75) Cf. Note No. 1 above. (76) In connection with this point, I tried to elicit the opinions of my informants as to their feeling about whipping and showering. Only Mrs. Mad'ar, a recent immigrant from Slovakia, "hopes that her husband and sons will shower her, but with perfume only." Mrs. Molchak, on the other hand, is against any sort of showering in spite of the fact that the "young boys used to shower her in Pennsylvania." The boys, according to Mrs. Molchak, refused to take any eggs as presents for showering; if they did so, the others "would laugh." Mrs. Pap, a Ruthenian by ethnic origin, considered the custom "without any religious significance." (77) Both the showering and whipping are basically western Slovak customs. In eastern Slovakia, these customs were almost unknown because the majority of the Eastern Slovak population is Greek Catholic. (78) Byzantine Rite Slovaks are in the majority in Cleveland, in comparison with the Roman Catholic Slovaks. In Slovakia, the situation is reversed: Roman Catholics form the majority of the population. (79) I.e., cooked spring rye, hay, coffee, clover leaves, parsley, tea, etc. Cf. also Notes 17 and 22 above. (80) According to Mrs. Mad'ar, coloring substances are now also available commercially in Slovakia; however, they are not used frequently, and they are not packed in exclusive egg decoration kits either. (81) According to Stith Thompson, folktales change by "adding a detail (and by) stringing two or more tales together." The Folktale, p. 436. (82) Because of the disappearance of showering and whipping, again as in folktales, ''one change (brings about others) to maintain consistency," Ibid. (83) I.e., eggs are now sold publicly in front of the church while in the past they were given for showering and whipping or in exchange for other eggs. (84) Cf. the works of Ruth Benedict, Franz Boas, and A. L. Kroeber, passim. INFORMANTS MRS. KORLATOVIC, an American of Ukrainian ethnic ancestry, is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Rudenskij, owners and operators of an export-import store in Parma, Ohio. Mrs. Korlatovic, the mother of two children and a teacher in a kindergarten near Parma, decorates Easter eggs mainly for sale in her parent's store; she also decorates ceramics. MRS. JANA MADAR, a recent immigrant to the United States, arrived in Cleveland on November 30, 1968. A native of Ruzomberok, central Slovakia, Mrs. Mad'ar is the mother l)f two sons, ages 21 and 20. Mrs. Mad'ar decorated several eggs for this project in the so-called ''painting'' and ''string-lacing'' techniques. MRS. SOPHIE MOLCHAK, an American of Slovak descent, was born in Regenstown, Pennsylvania. She is married to an American of Ukrainian origin and is the mother of six children. Three of her daughters, ages 18, 12, and 9, took an active part in egg decoration during the interviews. MRS. TANYA OSADCA, an Ukrainian by ethnic descent, immigrated to America after World War II. Living now with her family in Peninsula, Ohio, she started egg decorating and collecting in 1952, and at present she owns over 500 specimens. She also SLOVAKIA 62 studies and collects material published on Easter eggs. Her husband, a psychiatrist at the Veterans Administration Hospital, is also a collector and folk artist specializing in ceramics and pottery. MRS. ANNA PAP, a Ruthenian by ethnic origin, was born in Roztok near the present CSSR-USSR border. Married to Dr. M. S. Pap and the mother of four children ages 17, 14, 11, and 5, Mrs. Pap arrived in the United States in 1933. In addition to her household duties, she is also director of the choir at the St. Mary' s Ukrainian Catholic Church. MISS PETRUSHKA is an American of Slovak descent and a native of Cleveland. An admirer of Slovak folk traditions and a student of Slovak ethnography, Miss Petrushka is the owner of an art studio on Shaker Boulevard, Cleveland. Her collages, collage boxes, and jewelled eggs are well-known all over the United States. During my stay in Cleveland, she held two successful expositions of her creations. DR. JOSEPH CINClK, 65, a Slovak immigrant, arrived in the United States in 1948. An ex-professor at the University of Bratislava and at present an art bibliographer in Cleveland, Dr. Cincik is the foremost expert on Slovak folk art. MR. VLADIMIR OZABAL, 60 , a native of western Slovakia and an ex-officer of the Slovak Army, immigrated to America after World War II . Now the supervisor of a division of the City Water Department in Cleveland , Mr. Ozabal is still working at various projects related to Slovak folk art . .,• "'~ ~:: '~ ., ' Fig. 1 - A typical arrangement of eggs , implements, and coloring substances used by Mrs. Zofia Molchak, an American-born Slovak folk artist working with batik technique in the western-type design. Note the heating plate used for wax melting, rubber bands employed for partitioning of eggs, and the glasses with coloring substances. SLOVAKIA ~ .,. 63 .. ~ Mrs. Ann Pap, an American of Ruthenian ancestry, decorates eggs in the eastern-type design. Note: a candle is used as a source of melted wax and the most modern specimen of voskovacka, or kistka (" waxing pen") , is employed by Mrs. Pap in batiking of eggs . Fig. 2 - ( Fig. 3 - Mrs. Korlatovic, an American-born folk artist of Ukrainian ancestry, decorates eggs in the eastern style and batik technique for sale in her parents' store. 64 SLOVAKIA Partition of eggshells is carried out with stretched rubber bands. Note the modified " implements" (i .e., needles and pins pushed lengthwise into large kitchen matches, chopsticks, or wooden pencil handles) used in batiking and embossing. Fig. 4 - Fig. 5 - A candle as a source of wax in the batik technique. SLOVAKIA 65 Fig. 6 - A typical instance of batik-embossing technique and of western-type design. Note the tear-like dots and lines , and the star motifs on both ends of the egg. Miss Sue Molchak, 18 , shown in this picture, decorates eggs every year together with her mother and two of her sisters. The daughter of Mr. Molchak, an American of Ukrainian descent, and of Mrs. Molchak, an American-born Slovak, Miss Molchak is typical of young folk artists who help old traditions permeate a new environment. SLOVAKIA 66 Fig. 7 - Immersing of a freshly-batiked egg into coloring substance with the so-called " oko " (" eye" ). Fig. 8 - A spoon used for immersing and removal of eggs. SLOVAKIA Fig. 9 - A typical egg batiked in the eastern-type design . Fig. 10 - Eggs painted and ' ·string-laced" by Mrs . Mad'ar. 67 68 SLOVAKIA Miss Petrushka , an American-born Slovak, started egg decorating as a folk artist and continued egg decoration on a professional level. The egg shown in this picture is one of her jewelled creations presented at an exposition in Lakewood, Ohio . Fig. 11 - ... Examples of the so-called "Gesunkenes Kulturgut" in folk art - conventional art relationship. The jewelled eggs, shown in this picture, were decorated by Miss Petrushka who, according to her own words, learned "secrets" of egg decoration from her father, a Slovak folk artist . Fig. 12 -  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 and Ruthenian Easter Eggs in America: The Impact of Culture Contact on Immigrant Art and Custom Description An account of the resource Andrew Cincura Slovakia, Vol. 26 (No. 49), 1976 pp. 40-68 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cincura, Andrew, 1917- 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/515b0e4ac86bbf6f0063a375becb5f25.pdf 9f300ab3cdcf65f756d206de1ede1137 PDF Text Text 162 SLOVAKIA WINNING ESSAYS Slovak League of America Scholarship Program I. SLOVAK BACKGROUND OF EVENTS THROUGH THE SOVIET TAKEOVER IN 1968 By Jane N o o n a n Prior to World War I and the formation of the CzechoSlovak State, the Czech lands and Slovakia were contiguous but separate and geographically situated in the heart of central Europe, at the crossroads of the continent, between the Carpathian Mountains on the north and the Danube and Tisza Rivers on the south. Its inhabitants are known as Slovaks and Czechs and with the Poles of Poland belong to the group of Western Slavs. Since early in the Middle Ages, these and other Slavic peoples have been involved in the great European struggles. During World War I, the spirit of nationalism was greatly stimulated within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This spirit was reflected by increasing demands for outright independence for the different nations within that empire. In the course of that war, Czech political leaders established a secret committee which directed the activities of the Czech nationalists at home and abroad. Thomas G. Masaryk, as the leader of this movement, toured Europe and the United States where he received encouragement and support. Meanwhile, a movement arose among the large number of Americans of Slovak descent promoting Slovakia's separation from Hungary. Three different solutions of the Slovak problem were imagined-Slovakia as a new state, as a partner of a Czecho-Slovak Federation, and as a territory forming a political union with the prospective Polish Republic. �SLOVAKIA 163 The Slovak League of America entered into contact with the Americans of Czech descent and in 1915 signed with their organization the Cleveland Agreement, and in 1918 the Pittsburgh Pact, both of which aimed at the creation of a Czecho-Slovak federal state. In these documents, the Slovak organization stipulated that Slovakia should be an equal member with the Czech lands and have complete legislative, executive, judicial, and cultural independence in strictly national matters, while matters of common interest, such as foreign affairs and defense, should be within the competence of a common parliament. History shows that Masaryk did not live up to the commitments of the Pittsburgh Pact even though he was one of its signers. Redistributio n of land was an urgent problem facing the new government and a Land Reform Act, therefore, was one of the first measures passed by the Czecho-Slovak Parliament. This act entitled the state to take over, after compensation , all land from the great estates in excess of a fixed maximum, and to permit land purchases by those who needed it most. Thus, the agrarian reform program greatly improved the material conditions of the rural population and averted disturbances. The cultural level of the Slovaks and Czechs was high and their passion for education prompted the new republic t o establish additional free schools and by improving existing schools. The Czecho-Slovak State also forged ahead in the field of social improvement . All groups and interests possessed the right of organization and thus organized labor had its trade unions, farmers their societies, and white-collar workers and businessmen their associations. Health and other types of social insurance were either provided for or encouraged by the State and provision was made for State assistance to housing and co-ops. As to the religious situation, 80 % of the population was Roman Catholic, but the Protestant element played a role far beyond its numerical strength. Many prominent political leaders, Thomas G. Masaryk among them, belonged to the Protestant faith . Economically and financially, Czecho-Slovakia was a sound state in central Europe. As an exporting country it was severly hit by the world economic depression of the �164 SLOVAKIA early thirties, but, by timely adjustments to new price and exchange levels, it was one of the first European countries to weather the crisis. Before Hitler came to power in 1933, Czecho-Slovakia was an enthusiastic supporter of the League of Nations and collaborated whole-heartedly in the negotiations which brought Germany and the Soviet Union into the League. However, when Hitler came to power, Czecho-Slovakia's foreign relations entered into a critical phase. Desperately anxious to avert a new war, France and Great Britain proposed in 1938 to Czecho-Slovakia that she not oppose the leaders of the Sudeten German movement, and further cede to Germany all areas with a German majority. When Czecho-Slovakia demurred, she was informed that she must accept the proposal or bear the consequences alone. The result was that Czecho-Slovakia gave in and the country was divided on the lines dictated by Hitler. After Munich'~' , Czecho-Slovakia tried to adjust itself to the new situation. President Benes resigned and left the country - and the transition to Hitler's New Order was swift. The administration was purged, the press put under rigorous control and anti-democratic measures were enacted. According to the Nuremberg documents, Hitler at that time had already decided to destroy Czecho-Slovakia. But there was apparently no definite decision on Slovakia as to whether to place it under German occupation or to have it occupied by Hungary. On March 14, 1939, the government of Dr. Jozef Tiso of Slovakia proclaimed Slovakia as an independent republic. Dr. Tiso was a Monsignor in the Roman Catholic Church and Vice-President of the People's Party of Slovakia. The Slovak people considered the act was the result of the Prague regime's violations of agreements that had been signed between Prague ( the Czech capital) and Bratislava (the capital of Slovakia) and which agreements had been incorporated in their Constitution. Public demonstrations spread throughout Slovakia. Hitler then suggested, in order to prevent Hungary possibly taking over Slovakia, that there be a declaration of Slovakia's independence. Even though the Slovak State was largely the result of a tense international situation, it nevertheless corresponded to the aspirations of the Slovak people for freedom �SLOVAKIA 165 and the principle of self-determination and self-government. The Slovak state was far from being a perfect democracy in the traditional sense. It, however, reflected a compromise between the past and present, between an old tradition and a temporarily determined political dynamism in Central Europe. But, in general, it was an expression of the selfpreservation instinct of the Slovak nation. In 1941, the Slovak Government found it necessary, because of circumstances, to join Germany in the war against the Soviet Union. However, the Slovak forces, during the Second World War, did not engage in combat against any of the Western Powers. In 1944, an uprising, improvised by Russian Communists as well as Slovak communists, took place and of course the Germans intervened. It took the Nazis exactly two months to crush this rebellion and in the meantime the Red Army laying the ground work for its invasion, held up for more than three months on the Carpathian Mountains, watching this national tragedy quietly. Around 30,000 Slovaks of all political shades were killed in this uprising. Once the uprising had been liquidated, the Soviet Army began to advance and finally occupied Slovakia's territory by mid-April, 1945. Meanwhile, Dr. Benes and most of the Cabinet flew to Moscow where the new Czecho-Slovak Government was to be formed. Dr. Benes and his political entourage believed, or at least hoped, that collaboration between democracy and communism was possible and that co-existence could be achieved without the loss of freedom. They fostered the illusion that the Czech and Slovak Communists were different from other Reds and that their methods would turn out to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Thus, the Communist seizure of power in 1948 may be traced back to the 1945 Moscow meeting, and so it was that in April of 1945, Benes proclaimed the so-called 'Kosice Program' for the new Government of re-established CzechoSlovakia. The 'Kosice Program' was in effect a death sentence for the past. In July, 1947, an important event illustrated the new course of Czecho-Slovakia's foreign relations when the Czecho-Slovak Government had unanimously accepted the invitation to a conference of the Marshall Plan, which was �166 SLOVAKIA to be held in Paris. But Moscow reacted vehemently, asserting that Czecho-Slovakia, by accepting the Marshall Plan, would be participating in a political scheme directed against the Soviet Union and demanded that the Government reverse its decision. The Government complied. This was just the beginning of open interference by the Soviets in Czecho-Slovakia's foreign affairs. Then, with the Communist undermining the February, 1948 elections in Czecho-Slovakia, and Benes because of the Communistic pressure accepting the resignations of the 12 Democratic Minister, the Iron Curtain descended on the Czecho-Slovak frontier. Since 1948, Czechs and Slovaks had no independent foreign policy of their own, while internally both the Slovaks and Czechs have been forced to accept systematically 'introduced Soviet institutions which were designed to submerge their national and ethnic consciousness. Furthermore, the Russians have recklessly fostered heavy industry in Slovakia to serve Soviet military and economic needs, while wishes and well-being of the local people go almost totally unheeded. Hence, the Russians enjoy scant confidence and support from the bulk of the Slovak people who look upon them not as "socialist brothers" but instead as tyrans. The government of Czecho-Slovakia is communist, although people qualified to estimate have guessed that no more than 12 to 15 % are Party members or are unqualified supporters of communism. Thus, the peoples of Czecho-Slovakia were pitifully robbed of their economic, spiritual, and intellectual will under the terror of Stalin. This continued for approximately two decades. By the latter part of 1967, Party Chief Novotny of Czecho-Slovakia found himself enmeshed in a political crisis of major proportions; he had alienated the country's educated factions, the economy was in a mess and no one trusted or approved of his efforts to improve the situation, and finally, the Slovaks, led by Alexander Dubcek were daily gaining power towards the goal of getting more of their own people in high government office. Eventually, on February 18, 1968, Novotny lost his job as Party Chief to Alexander Dubcek. The inevitable pressure of circumstances caused Dubcek, a proud Slovak, to transform Czecho-Slovakia into the most liberal state east of the Iron Curtain. �SLOVAKIA 167 Literary and press censorship was abolished, many victims of the Stalinist terror trials were publicly rehabilitated, freedom of minority opinion was guaranteed, travel and trade restrictions with the West were eased, the first strike of Czecho-Slovakia workers under communism was allowed, the police were required to wear numbered badges for identification, the church was partially freed of restraints, and finally the National Assembly was allowed to develop real legislative powers. Mr. Dubcek wanted the government to reflect the will of the people and to respect their traditions. On April 15, 1968, Dubcek unveiled his plans for the future as he published his "Action Program" in which he outlined his plans for even more freedom of the press, rights of assembly, and even larger increase of trade with the rest of Europe, especially with West Germany. Hence, in early 1968, Alexander Dubcek, who began as a leader of the aggrieved Slovaks, ended up as a national symbol for the entire nation. This event, however, created a situation that was both unique and dangerous to continued Russian domination of Eastern Europe. The reforms contemplated for Czecho-Slovakia went far beyond anything attempted before in the Soviet Bloc. Furthermore, there was a clearly pronounced anti-Soviet character to the popular responses to the planned liberalization reforms. Dubcek, although an ardent socialist, attempted to apply the principle that practicing socialism must respect the traditions of the country. All of the foregoing consequently alarmed the Russians, who publicly sought, at every opportunity available, to confer with Dubcek and privately to undermine his support and popularity in every way possible. And so on the night of August 21, 1968,' great hordes of Russian-led tanks and troops crossed into Czecho-Slovakia from neighboring Iron Curtain countries to end the most valiant and extensive attempt to liberalize a communist dominated land. This protest movement, although initiated to a large degree by Slovaks and led by a Slovak Dubcek, had nevertheless succeeded in rallying all segments of the country to seek a freer, more democratic way of life. The Soviets dared not let the noble experiment last, and therefore, in contradiction to all moral and international treaty �168 SLOVAKIA law, they intimidated the Slovaks and Czechs into partial submission by massed military might. Dubcek pleaded with his fellow countrymen that the only way to keep the nation from being literally destroyed by the Russians was to maintain strict discipline and order, as the withdrawal of Russian military force depended on the order in the country. However, the dislike for the invaders was so strong that the Slovaks and Czechs did protest and cursed and spat upon the troops, and some futile attempts at armed resistance was made by courageous young Slovaks who hurled gasoline bombs on tanks, thereby setting them ablaze and their crews scurrying. On August 21, 1968, Russian tanks ended a period of approximately 71/2 months of comparative freedom for the Slovaks and Czechs, and in one brutal week's work, the U.S.S.R. with its "rape of Czecho-Slovakia" made it crystalclear that even a little freedom is more than Soviet communism can tolerate. In conclusion, one must remember it has been said that the longest journey always starts with a single step, and possibly this can be applied to the efforts of the Slovak people to free themselves from the heavy burden of Russian oppression. Hopefully someday in the near future, they will be able to take more, even broader strides towards their freedom. In any case, it does not seem probable that the Slovaks will be forced to step back again. No other nation has suffered so much nor been more misunderstood as had been Slovakia and yet still possesses a fire of determination for its freedom and self-determination. Slovakia did emerge but unfortunately was stifled; yet she will again someday rise up to stand among the free and independent peoples of the earth as mistress of her own household. So be it! an agreement signed in Munich, Germany on September 30, 1938 forcing Czecho-Slovakia to give up the Sudetenland, part of its territory, to Nazi Germany. • Munich - (First place - College) BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS Freidin, Seymour, The Forgotten P eople, 1962, Charles Scribner & Soru. Kavka, Frantisek, A n Outline of Czecho-Slovak History, Prague, Orbis, 1963. �SLOVAKIA 169 Kirschbaum, Joseph M., "Twenty Years of Czech and Communist Rule in Slovakia," SLovakia, 1965. Levine, Isaac D., Intervention, 1969, Van Rees Press. Oddo, Gilbert L., Slovakia and its People, 1960, Robert Speller and Sons. Pauco, Joseph (ed.), Slovakia, 1966, 1968, 1969, Slovak League of America. Roberts, Adam and Windsor, Philip, Czechoslovakia 1968, 1969, Columbia University Press. Schwartz, Harry, Prague's 200 Days, 1969, Frederick A. Praeger, Inc. Zubek, T. J ., O.F.M., Church of Silence in Slovakia, 1969, J. J . Lach. MAGAZINES Newsweek, Prague Defies the Kremlin, July 29, 1968. Reader's Digest, The Rape of Czechoslovakia, November, 1968. Time, Self-Determination for Czechoslovakia, April 5, 1968; Czechoslovakia-Approaching Total Eclipse, April 6, 1970; Alexander Dubcek's AU Too Human Face, May 18, 1970. PAMPHLETS AND PAPERS Committee on Un-American Activities, Soviet Total War, 1956. Embassy of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, Background Notes Department of State, Socialist Republic Background Notes. New York Times, February 10, 1970, Students in Prague Now Know Their Beautiful Dream is Over, by Alvin Shuster. Hrobak, Philip A., Who Betrayed Slovakia to the Reds. THE SLOVAK ARTS IN PERSPECTIVE Marlene B a rt o s It is \from the vantage point of a multi-ethnic democracy such as the United States that Slovak cultural history can best be placed in true perspective. This paper is an attempt to do so. Because Slovak cultural history has so many ramifications that reach deeply in the histories of neighboring nations, this presentation considers only the theatrical and musical arts, and then only in historical delineation. Analyses and evaluations must remain for the future. The earliest recorded report of a theatrical presentation in Slovakia is the performance of a Christmas play in Bratislava in 1439. By the mid-1500's, plays seem to have been regularly presented. The year 1544 to 1545, for example, records the performances of two plays in German; the one entitled Judith, the other, The Five Wise and Unwise Maidens. Similar reports record activity in Bardejov and Kremnica. (Dejiny slovenskej literatury, 1960. History of Slovak Literature.) � 162 SLOVAKIA WINNING ESSAYS Slovak League of America Scholarship Program I. SLOVAK BACKGROUND OF EVENTS THROUGH THE SOVIET TAKEOVER IN 1968 By Jane N o o n a n Prior to World War I and the formation of the CzechoSlovak State, the Czech lands and Slovakia were contiguous but separate and geographically situated in the heart of central Europe, at the crossroads of the continent, between the Carpathian Mountains on the north and the Danube and Tisza Rivers on the south. Its inhabitants are known as Slovaks and Czechs and with the Poles of Poland belong to the group of Western Slavs. Since early in the Middle Ages, these and other Slavic peoples have been involved in the great European struggles. During World War I, the spirit of nationalism was greatly stimulated within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This spirit was reflected by increasing demands for outright independence for the different nations within that empire. In the course of that war, Czech political leaders established a secret committee which directed the activities of the Czech nationalists at home and abroad. Thomas G. Masaryk, as the leader of this movement, toured Europe and the United States where he received encouragement and support. Meanwhile, a movement arose among the large number of Americans of Slovak descent promoting Slovakia's separation from Hungary. Three different solutions of the Slovak problem were imagined-Slovakia as a new state, as a partner of a Czecho-Slovak Federation, and as a territory forming a political union with the prospective Polish Republic. �SLOVAKIA 163 The Slovak League of America entered into contact with the Americans of Czech descent and in 1915 signed with their organization the Cleveland Agreement, and in 1918 the Pittsburgh Pact, both of which aimed at the creation of a Czecho-Slovak federal state. In these documents, the Slovak organization stipulated that Slovakia should be an equal member with the Czech lands and have complete legislative, executive, judicial, and cultural independence in strictly national matters, while matters of common interest, such as foreign affairs and defense, should be within the competence of a common parliament. History shows that Masaryk did not live up to the commitments of the Pittsburgh Pact even though he was one of its signers. Redistributio n of land was an urgent problem facing the new government and a Land Reform Act, therefore, was one of the first measures passed by the Czecho-Slovak Parliament. This act entitled the state to take over, after compensation , all land from the great estates in excess of a fixed maximum, and to permit land purchases by those who needed it most. Thus, the agrarian reform program greatly improved the material conditions of the rural population and averted disturbances. The cultural level of the Slovaks and Czechs was high and their passion for education prompted the new republic t o establish additional free schools and by improving existing schools. The Czecho-Slovak State also forged ahead in the field of social improvement . All groups and interests possessed the right of organization and thus organized labor had its trade unions, farmers their societies, and white-collar workers and businessmen their associations. Health and other types of social insurance were either provided for or encouraged by the State and provision was made for State assistance to housing and co-ops. As to the religious situation, 80 % of the population was Roman Catholic, but the Protestant element played a role far beyond its numerical strength. Many prominent political leaders, Thomas G. Masaryk among them, belonged to the Protestant faith . Economically and financially, Czecho-Slovakia was a sound state in central Europe. As an exporting country it was severly hit by the world economic depression of the �164 SLOVAKIA early thirties, but, by timely adjustments to new price and exchange levels, it was one of the first European countries to weather the crisis. Before Hitler came to power in 1933, Czecho-Slovakia was an enthusiastic supporter of the League of Nations and collaborated whole-heartedly in the negotiations which brought Germany and the Soviet Union into the League. However, when Hitler came to power, Czecho-Slovakia's foreign relations entered into a critical phase. Desperately anxious to avert a new war, France and Great Britain proposed in 1938 to Czecho-Slovakia that she not oppose the leaders of the Sudeten German movement, and further cede to Germany all areas with a German majority. When Czecho-Slovakia demurred, she was informed that she must accept the proposal or bear the consequences alone. The result was that Czecho-Slovakia gave in and the country was divided on the lines dictated by Hitler. After Munich'~' , Czecho-Slovakia tried to adjust itself to the new situation. President Benes resigned and left the country - and the transition to Hitler's New Order was swift. The administration was purged, the press put under rigorous control and anti-democratic measures were enacted. According to the Nuremberg documents, Hitler at that time had already decided to destroy Czecho-Slovakia. But there was apparently no definite decision on Slovakia as to whether to place it under German occupation or to have it occupied by Hungary. On March 14, 1939, the government of Dr. Jozef Tiso of Slovakia proclaimed Slovakia as an independent republic. Dr. Tiso was a Monsignor in the Roman Catholic Church and Vice-President of the People's Party of Slovakia. The Slovak people considered the act was the result of the Prague regime's violations of agreements that had been signed between Prague ( the Czech capital) and Bratislava (the capital of Slovakia) and which agreements had been incorporated in their Constitution. Public demonstrations spread throughout Slovakia. Hitler then suggested, in order to prevent Hungary possibly taking over Slovakia, that there be a declaration of Slovakia's independence. Even though the Slovak State was largely the result of a tense international situation, it nevertheless corresponded to the aspirations of the Slovak people for freedom �SLOVAKIA 165 and the principle of self-determination and self-government. The Slovak state was far from being a perfect democracy in the traditional sense. It, however, reflected a compromise between the past and present, between an old tradition and a temporarily determined political dynamism in Central Europe. But, in general, it was an expression of the selfpreservation instinct of the Slovak nation. In 1941, the Slovak Government found it necessary, because of circumstances, to join Germany in the war against the Soviet Union. However, the Slovak forces, during the Second World War, did not engage in combat against any of the Western Powers. In 1944, an uprising, improvised by Russian Communists as well as Slovak communists, took place and of course the Germans intervened. It took the Nazis exactly two months to crush this rebellion and in the meantime the Red Army laying the ground work for its invasion, held up for more than three months on the Carpathian Mountains, watching this national tragedy quietly. Around 30,000 Slovaks of all political shades were killed in this uprising. Once the uprising had been liquidated, the Soviet Army began to advance and finally occupied Slovakia's territory by mid-April, 1945. Meanwhile, Dr. Benes and most of the Cabinet flew to Moscow where the new Czecho-Slovak Government was to be formed. Dr. Benes and his political entourage believed, or at least hoped, that collaboration between democracy and communism was possible and that co-existence could be achieved without the loss of freedom. They fostered the illusion that the Czech and Slovak Communists were different from other Reds and that their methods would turn out to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Thus, the Communist seizure of power in 1948 may be traced back to the 1945 Moscow meeting, and so it was that in April of 1945, Benes proclaimed the so-called 'Kosice Program' for the new Government of re-established CzechoSlovakia. The 'Kosice Program' was in effect a death sentence for the past. In July, 1947, an important event illustrated the new course of Czecho-Slovakia's foreign relations when the Czecho-Slovak Government had unanimously accepted the invitation to a conference of the Marshall Plan, which was �166 SLOVAKIA to be held in Paris. But Moscow reacted vehemently, asserting that Czecho-Slovakia, by accepting the Marshall Plan, would be participating in a political scheme directed against the Soviet Union and demanded that the Government reverse its decision. The Government complied. This was just the beginning of open interference by the Soviets in Czecho-Slovakia's foreign affairs. Then, with the Communist undermining the February, 1948 elections in Czecho-Slovakia, and Benes because of the Communistic pressure accepting the resignations of the 12 Democratic Minister, the Iron Curtain descended on the Czecho-Slovak frontier. Since 1948, Czechs and Slovaks had no independent foreign policy of their own, while internally both the Slovaks and Czechs have been forced to accept systematically 'introduced Soviet institutions which were designed to submerge their national and ethnic consciousness. Furthermore, the Russians have recklessly fostered heavy industry in Slovakia to serve Soviet military and economic needs, while wishes and well-being of the local people go almost totally unheeded. Hence, the Russians enjoy scant confidence and support from the bulk of the Slovak people who look upon them not as "socialist brothers" but instead as tyrans. The government of Czecho-Slovakia is communist, although people qualified to estimate have guessed that no more than 12 to 15 % are Party members or are unqualified supporters of communism. Thus, the peoples of Czecho-Slovakia were pitifully robbed of their economic, spiritual, and intellectual will under the terror of Stalin. This continued for approximately two decades. By the latter part of 1967, Party Chief Novotny of Czecho-Slovakia found himself enmeshed in a political crisis of major proportions; he had alienated the country's educated factions, the economy was in a mess and no one trusted or approved of his efforts to improve the situation, and finally, the Slovaks, led by Alexander Dubcek were daily gaining power towards the goal of getting more of their own people in high government office. Eventually, on February 18, 1968, Novotny lost his job as Party Chief to Alexander Dubcek. The inevitable pressure of circumstances caused Dubcek, a proud Slovak, to transform Czecho-Slovakia into the most liberal state east of the Iron Curtain. �SLOVAKIA 167 Literary and press censorship was abolished, many victims of the Stalinist terror trials were publicly rehabilitated, freedom of minority opinion was guaranteed, travel and trade restrictions with the West were eased, the first strike of Czecho-Slovakia workers under communism was allowed, the police were required to wear numbered badges for identification, the church was partially freed of restraints, and finally the National Assembly was allowed to develop real legislative powers. Mr. Dubcek wanted the government to reflect the will of the people and to respect their traditions. On April 15, 1968, Dubcek unveiled his plans for the future as he published his "Action Program" in which he outlined his plans for even more freedom of the press, rights of assembly, and even larger increase of trade with the rest of Europe, especially with West Germany. Hence, in early 1968, Alexander Dubcek, who began as a leader of the aggrieved Slovaks, ended up as a national symbol for the entire nation. This event, however, created a situation that was both unique and dangerous to continued Russian domination of Eastern Europe. The reforms contemplated for Czecho-Slovakia went far beyond anything attempted before in the Soviet Bloc. Furthermore, there was a clearly pronounced anti-Soviet character to the popular responses to the planned liberalization reforms. Dubcek, although an ardent socialist, attempted to apply the principle that practicing socialism must respect the traditions of the country. All of the foregoing consequently alarmed the Russians, who publicly sought, at every opportunity available, to confer with Dubcek and privately to undermine his support and popularity in every way possible. And so on the night of August 21, 1968,' great hordes of Russian-led tanks and troops crossed into Czecho-Slovakia from neighboring Iron Curtain countries to end the most valiant and extensive attempt to liberalize a communist dominated land. This protest movement, although initiated to a large degree by Slovaks and led by a Slovak Dubcek, had nevertheless succeeded in rallying all segments of the country to seek a freer, more democratic way of life. The Soviets dared not let the noble experiment last, and therefore, in contradiction to all moral and international treaty �168 SLOVAKIA law, they intimidated the Slovaks and Czechs into partial submission by massed military might. Dubcek pleaded with his fellow countrymen that the only way to keep the nation from being literally destroyed by the Russians was to maintain strict discipline and order, as the withdrawal of Russian military force depended on the order in the country. However, the dislike for the invaders was so strong that the Slovaks and Czechs did protest and cursed and spat upon the troops, and some futile attempts at armed resistance was made by courageous young Slovaks who hurled gasoline bombs on tanks, thereby setting them ablaze and their crews scurrying. On August 21, 1968, Russian tanks ended a period of approximately 71/2 months of comparative freedom for the Slovaks and Czechs, and in one brutal week's work, the U.S.S.R. with its "rape of Czecho-Slovakia" made it crystalclear that even a little freedom is more than Soviet communism can tolerate. In conclusion, one must remember it has been said that the longest journey always starts with a single step, and possibly this can be applied to the efforts of the Slovak people to free themselves from the heavy burden of Russian oppression. Hopefully someday in the near future, they will be able to take more, even broader strides towards their freedom. In any case, it does not seem probable that the Slovaks will be forced to step back again. No other nation has suffered so much nor been more misunderstood as had been Slovakia and yet still possesses a fire of determination for its freedom and self-determination. Slovakia did emerge but unfortunately was stifled; yet she will again someday rise up to stand among the free and independent peoples of the earth as mistress of her own household. So be it! an agreement signed in Munich, Germany on September 30, 1938 forcing Czecho-Slovakia to give up the Sudetenland, part of its territory, to Nazi Germany. • Munich - (First place - College) BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS Freidin, Seymour, The Forgotten P eople, 1962, Charles Scribner & Soru. Kavka, Frantisek, A n Outline of Czecho-Slovak History, Prague, Orbis, 1963. �SLOVAKIA 169 Kirschbaum, Joseph M., "Twenty Years of Czech and Communist Rule in Slovakia," SLovakia, 1965. Levine, Isaac D., Intervention, 1969, Van Rees Press. Oddo, Gilbert L., Slovakia and its People, 1960, Robert Speller and Sons. Pauco, Joseph (ed.), Slovakia, 1966, 1968, 1969, Slovak League of America. Roberts, Adam and Windsor, Philip, Czechoslovakia 1968, 1969, Columbia University Press. Schwartz, Harry, Prague's 200 Days, 1969, Frederick A. Praeger, Inc. Zubek, T. J ., O.F.M., Church of Silence in Slovakia, 1969, J. J . Lach. MAGAZINES Newsweek, Prague Defies the Kremlin, July 29, 1968. Reader's Digest, The Rape of Czechoslovakia, November, 1968. Time, Self-Determination for Czechoslovakia, April 5, 1968; Czechoslovakia-Approaching Total Eclipse, April 6, 1970; Alexander Dubcek's AU Too Human Face, May 18, 1970. PAMPHLETS AND PAPERS Committee on Un-American Activities, Soviet Total War, 1956. Embassy of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, Background Notes Department of State, Socialist Republic Background Notes. New York Times, February 10, 1970, Students in Prague Now Know Their Beautiful Dream is Over, by Alvin Shuster. Hrobak, Philip A., Who Betrayed Slovakia to the Reds. THE SLOVAK ARTS IN PERSPECTIVE Marlene B a rt o s It is \from the vantage point of a multi-ethnic democracy such as the United States that Slovak cultural history can best be placed in true perspective. This paper is an attempt to do so. Because Slovak cultural history has so many ramifications that reach deeply in the histories of neighboring nations, this presentation considers only the theatrical and musical arts, and then only in historical delineation. Analyses and evaluations must remain for the future. The earliest recorded report of a theatrical presentation in Slovakia is the performance of a Christmas play in Bratislava in 1439. By the mid-1500's, plays seem to have been regularly presented. The year 1544 to 1545, for example, records the performances of two plays in German; the one entitled Judith, the other, The Five Wise and Unwise Maidens. Similar reports record activity in Bardejov and Kremnica. (Dejiny slovenskej literatury, 1960. History of Slovak Literature.) � 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 162 SLOVAKIA WINNING ESSAYS Slovak League of America Scholarship Program I. SLOVAK BACKGROUND OF EVENTS THROUGH THE SOVIET TAKEOVER IN 1968 By Jane N o o n a n Prior to World War I and the formation of the CzechoSlovak State, the Czech lands and Slovakia were contiguous but separate and geographically situated in the heart of central Europe, at the crossroads of the continent, between the Carpathian Mountains on the north and the Danube and Tisza Rivers on the south. Its inhabitants are known as Slovaks and Czechs and with the Poles of Poland belong to the group of Western Slavs. Since early in the Middle Ages, these and other Slavic peoples have been involved in the great European struggles. During World War I, the spirit of nationalism was greatly stimulated within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This spirit was reflected by increasing demands for outright independence for the different nations within that empire. In the course of that war, Czech political leaders established a secret committee which directed the activities of the Czech nationalists at home and abroad. Thomas G. Masaryk, as the leader of this movement, toured Europe and the United States where he received encouragement and support. Meanwhile, a movement arose among the large number of Americans of Slovak descent promoting Slovakia's separation from Hungary. Three different solutions of the Slovak problem were imagined-Slovakia as a new state, as a partner of a Czecho-Slovak Federation, and as a territory forming a political union with the prospective Polish Republic. SLOVAKIA 163 The Slovak League of America entered into contact with the Americans of Czech descent and in 1915 signed with their organization the Cleveland Agreement, and in 1918 the Pittsburgh Pact, both of which aimed at the creation of a Czecho-Slovak federal state. In these documents, the Slovak organization stipulated that Slovakia should be an equal member with the Czech lands and have complete legislative, executive, judicial, and cultural independence in strictly national matters, while matters of common interest, such as foreign affairs and defense, should be within the competence of a common parliament. History shows that Masaryk did not live up to the commitments of the Pittsburgh Pact even though he was one of its signers. Redistributio n of land was an urgent problem facing the new government and a Land Reform Act, therefore, was one of the first measures passed by the Czecho-Slovak Parliament. This act entitled the state to take over, after compensation , all land from the great estates in excess of a fixed maximum, and to permit land purchases by those who needed it most. Thus, the agrarian reform program greatly improved the material conditions of the rural population and averted disturbances. The cultural level of the Slovaks and Czechs was high and their passion for education prompted the new republic t o establish additional free schools and by improving existing schools. The Czecho-Slovak State also forged ahead in the field of social improvement . All groups and interests possessed the right of organization and thus organized labor had its trade unions, farmers their societies, and white-collar workers and businessmen their associations. Health and other types of social insurance were either provided for or encouraged by the State and provision was made for State assistance to housing and co-ops. As to the religious situation, 80 % of the population was Roman Catholic, but the Protestant element played a role far beyond its numerical strength. Many prominent political leaders, Thomas G. Masaryk among them, belonged to the Protestant faith . Economically and financially, Czecho-Slovakia was a sound state in central Europe. As an exporting country it was severly hit by the world economic depression of the 164 SLOVAKIA early thirties, but, by timely adjustments to new price and exchange levels, it was one of the first European countries to weather the crisis. Before Hitler came to power in 1933, Czecho-Slovakia was an enthusiastic supporter of the League of Nations and collaborated whole-heartedly in the negotiations which brought Germany and the Soviet Union into the League. However, when Hitler came to power, Czecho-Slovakia's foreign relations entered into a critical phase. Desperately anxious to avert a new war, France and Great Britain proposed in 1938 to Czecho-Slovakia that she not oppose the leaders of the Sudeten German movement, and further cede to Germany all areas with a German majority. When Czecho-Slovakia demurred, she was informed that she must accept the proposal or bear the consequences alone. The result was that Czecho-Slovakia gave in and the country was divided on the lines dictated by Hitler. After Munich'~' , Czecho-Slovakia tried to adjust itself to the new situation. President Benes resigned and left the country - and the transition to Hitler's New Order was swift. The administration was purged, the press put under rigorous control and anti-democratic measures were enacted. According to the Nuremberg documents, Hitler at that time had already decided to destroy Czecho-Slovakia. But there was apparently no definite decision on Slovakia as to whether to place it under German occupation or to have it occupied by Hungary. On March 14, 1939, the government of Dr. Jozef Tiso of Slovakia proclaimed Slovakia as an independent republic. Dr. Tiso was a Monsignor in the Roman Catholic Church and Vice-President of the People's Party of Slovakia. The Slovak people considered the act was the result of the Prague regime's violations of agreements that had been signed between Prague ( the Czech capital) and Bratislava (the capital of Slovakia) and which agreements had been incorporated in their Constitution. Public demonstrations spread throughout Slovakia. Hitler then suggested, in order to prevent Hungary possibly taking over Slovakia, that there be a declaration of Slovakia's independence. Even though the Slovak State was largely the result of a tense international situation, it nevertheless corresponded to the aspirations of the Slovak people for freedom SLOVAKIA 165 and the principle of self-determination and self-government. The Slovak state was far from being a perfect democracy in the traditional sense. It, however, reflected a compromise between the past and present, between an old tradition and a temporarily determined political dynamism in Central Europe. But, in general, it was an expression of the selfpreservation instinct of the Slovak nation. In 1941, the Slovak Government found it necessary, because of circumstances, to join Germany in the war against the Soviet Union. However, the Slovak forces, during the Second World War, did not engage in combat against any of the Western Powers. In 1944, an uprising, improvised by Russian Communists as well as Slovak communists, took place and of course the Germans intervened. It took the Nazis exactly two months to crush this rebellion and in the meantime the Red Army laying the ground work for its invasion, held up for more than three months on the Carpathian Mountains, watching this national tragedy quietly. Around 30,000 Slovaks of all political shades were killed in this uprising. Once the uprising had been liquidated, the Soviet Army began to advance and finally occupied Slovakia's territory by mid-April, 1945. Meanwhile, Dr. Benes and most of the Cabinet flew to Moscow where the new Czecho-Slovak Government was to be formed. Dr. Benes and his political entourage believed, or at least hoped, that collaboration between democracy and communism was possible and that co-existence could be achieved without the loss of freedom. They fostered the illusion that the Czech and Slovak Communists were different from other Reds and that their methods would turn out to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Thus, the Communist seizure of power in 1948 may be traced back to the 1945 Moscow meeting, and so it was that in April of 1945, Benes proclaimed the so-called 'Kosice Program' for the new Government of re-established CzechoSlovakia. The 'Kosice Program' was in effect a death sentence for the past. In July, 1947, an important event illustrated the new course of Czecho-Slovakia's foreign relations when the Czecho-Slovak Government had unanimously accepted the invitation to a conference of the Marshall Plan, which was 166 SLOVAKIA to be held in Paris. But Moscow reacted vehemently, asserting that Czecho-Slovakia, by accepting the Marshall Plan, would be participating in a political scheme directed against the Soviet Union and demanded that the Government reverse its decision. The Government complied. This was just the beginning of open interference by the Soviets in Czecho-Slovakia's foreign affairs. Then, with the Communist undermining the February, 1948 elections in Czecho-Slovakia, and Benes because of the Communistic pressure accepting the resignations of the 12 Democratic Minister, the Iron Curtain descended on the Czecho-Slovak frontier. Since 1948, Czechs and Slovaks had no independent foreign policy of their own, while internally both the Slovaks and Czechs have been forced to accept systematically 'introduced Soviet institutions which were designed to submerge their national and ethnic consciousness. Furthermore, the Russians have recklessly fostered heavy industry in Slovakia to serve Soviet military and economic needs, while wishes and well-being of the local people go almost totally unheeded. Hence, the Russians enjoy scant confidence and support from the bulk of the Slovak people who look upon them not as "socialist brothers" but instead as tyrans. The government of Czecho-Slovakia is communist, although people qualified to estimate have guessed that no more than 12 to 15 % are Party members or are unqualified supporters of communism. Thus, the peoples of Czecho-Slovakia were pitifully robbed of their economic, spiritual, and intellectual will under the terror of Stalin. This continued for approximately two decades. By the latter part of 1967, Party Chief Novotny of Czecho-Slovakia found himself enmeshed in a political crisis of major proportions; he had alienated the country's educated factions, the economy was in a mess and no one trusted or approved of his efforts to improve the situation, and finally, the Slovaks, led by Alexander Dubcek were daily gaining power towards the goal of getting more of their own people in high government office. Eventually, on February 18, 1968, Novotny lost his job as Party Chief to Alexander Dubcek. The inevitable pressure of circumstances caused Dubcek, a proud Slovak, to transform Czecho-Slovakia into the most liberal state east of the Iron Curtain. SLOVAKIA 167 Literary and press censorship was abolished, many victims of the Stalinist terror trials were publicly rehabilitated, freedom of minority opinion was guaranteed, travel and trade restrictions with the West were eased, the first strike of Czecho-Slovakia workers under communism was allowed, the police were required to wear numbered badges for identification, the church was partially freed of restraints, and finally the National Assembly was allowed to develop real legislative powers. Mr. Dubcek wanted the government to reflect the will of the people and to respect their traditions. On April 15, 1968, Dubcek unveiled his plans for the future as he published his "Action Program" in which he outlined his plans for even more freedom of the press, rights of assembly, and even larger increase of trade with the rest of Europe, especially with West Germany. Hence, in early 1968, Alexander Dubcek, who began as a leader of the aggrieved Slovaks, ended up as a national symbol for the entire nation. This event, however, created a situation that was both unique and dangerous to continued Russian domination of Eastern Europe. The reforms contemplated for Czecho-Slovakia went far beyond anything attempted before in the Soviet Bloc. Furthermore, there was a clearly pronounced anti-Soviet character to the popular responses to the planned liberalization reforms. Dubcek, although an ardent socialist, attempted to apply the principle that practicing socialism must respect the traditions of the country. All of the foregoing consequently alarmed the Russians, who publicly sought, at every opportunity available, to confer with Dubcek and privately to undermine his support and popularity in every way possible. And so on the night of August 21, 1968,' great hordes of Russian-led tanks and troops crossed into Czecho-Slovakia from neighboring Iron Curtain countries to end the most valiant and extensive attempt to liberalize a communist dominated land. This protest movement, although initiated to a large degree by Slovaks and led by a Slovak Dubcek, had nevertheless succeeded in rallying all segments of the country to seek a freer, more democratic way of life. The Soviets dared not let the noble experiment last, and therefore, in contradiction to all moral and international treaty 168 SLOVAKIA law, they intimidated the Slovaks and Czechs into partial submission by massed military might. Dubcek pleaded with his fellow countrymen that the only way to keep the nation from being literally destroyed by the Russians was to maintain strict discipline and order, as the withdrawal of Russian military force depended on the order in the country. However, the dislike for the invaders was so strong that the Slovaks and Czechs did protest and cursed and spat upon the troops, and some futile attempts at armed resistance was made by courageous young Slovaks who hurled gasoline bombs on tanks, thereby setting them ablaze and their crews scurrying. On August 21, 1968, Russian tanks ended a period of approximately 71/2 months of comparative freedom for the Slovaks and Czechs, and in one brutal week's work, the U.S.S.R. with its "rape of Czecho-Slovakia" made it crystalclear that even a little freedom is more than Soviet communism can tolerate. In conclusion, one must remember it has been said that the longest journey always starts with a single step, and possibly this can be applied to the efforts of the Slovak people to free themselves from the heavy burden of Russian oppression. Hopefully someday in the near future, they will be able to take more, even broader strides towards their freedom. In any case, it does not seem probable that the Slovaks will be forced to step back again. No other nation has suffered so much nor been more misunderstood as had been Slovakia and yet still possesses a fire of determination for its freedom and self-determination. Slovakia did emerge but unfortunately was stifled; yet she will again someday rise up to stand among the free and independent peoples of the earth as mistress of her own household. So be it! an agreement signed in Munich, Germany on September 30, 1938 forcing Czecho-Slovakia to give up the Sudetenland, part of its territory, to Nazi Germany. • Munich - (First place - College) BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS Freidin, Seymour, The Forgotten P eople, 1962, Charles Scribner & Soru. Kavka, Frantisek, A n Outline of Czecho-Slovak History, Prague, Orbis, 1963. SLOVAKIA 169 Kirschbaum, Joseph M., "Twenty Years of Czech and Communist Rule in Slovakia," SLovakia, 1965. Levine, Isaac D., Intervention, 1969, Van Rees Press. Oddo, Gilbert L., Slovakia and its People, 1960, Robert Speller and Sons. Pauco, Joseph (ed.), Slovakia, 1966, 1968, 1969, Slovak League of America. Roberts, Adam and Windsor, Philip, Czechoslovakia 1968, 1969, Columbia University Press. Schwartz, Harry, Prague's 200 Days, 1969, Frederick A. Praeger, Inc. Zubek, T. J ., O.F.M., Church of Silence in Slovakia, 1969, J. J . Lach. MAGAZINES Newsweek, Prague Defies the Kremlin, July 29, 1968. Reader's Digest, The Rape of Czechoslovakia, November, 1968. Time, Self-Determination for Czechoslovakia, April 5, 1968; Czechoslovakia-Approaching Total Eclipse, April 6, 1970; Alexander Dubcek's AU Too Human Face, May 18, 1970. PAMPHLETS AND PAPERS Committee on Un-American Activities, Soviet Total War, 1956. Embassy of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, Background Notes Department of State, Socialist Republic Background Notes. New York Times, February 10, 1970, Students in Prague Now Know Their Beautiful Dream is Over, by Alvin Shuster. Hrobak, Philip A., Who Betrayed Slovakia to the Reds. THE SLOVAK ARTS IN PERSPECTIVE Marlene B a rt o s It is \from the vantage point of a multi-ethnic democracy such as the United States that Slovak cultural history can best be placed in true perspective. This paper is an attempt to do so. Because Slovak cultural history has so many ramifications that reach deeply in the histories of neighboring nations, this presentation considers only the theatrical and musical arts, and then only in historical delineation. Analyses and evaluations must remain for the future. The earliest recorded report of a theatrical presentation in Slovakia is the performance of a Christmas play in Bratislava in 1439. By the mid-1500's, plays seem to have been regularly presented. The year 1544 to 1545, for example, records the performances of two plays in German; the one entitled Judith, the other, The Five Wise and Unwise Maidens. Similar reports record activity in Bardejov and Kremnica. (Dejiny slovenskej literatury, 1960. History of Slovak Literature.)  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 Background of Events Through the Soviet Takeover in 1968 Description An account of the resource Jane Noonan Slovakia, Vol. 24 (No. 47), 1974 pp. 162-169 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Noonan, Jane 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/879ef97a8ddef8efe5a17a597364edab.pdf 37ea45531a30003441660b3ff95649be PDF Text Text 40 SLOVAKIA Slovak Bishops Appeal on Behalf of President Tiso (In view of the trial of Msgr. Joseph Tiso, former President of Slovakia, the following letter addressed January 8, 1946 by the Bishops of Slovakia to the Slovak National Council is of particulad interest. ) N.C.W.C. NEWS SERVICE In the course of recent years, the Catholic Bishops of Slovakia have often pleaded with government authorities on behalf of all who suffered, were imprisoned or persecuted. They did so for all, Catholics and non-Catholics. The example of the Divine Samaritan and His positive command inspired us and urged us to raise our protective voice in the interest of people who suffered pernecution for political reasons or even because of their race. We did so at a time when we had to expect nothing but various inconveniences for our intervention. In taking the liberty today of graciously recommending to your good will the fate of the former president Dr. Joseph Tiso, we do so inspired by the most noble example of all history, the command given in the Gospel and which we also have before us at the present hour. We are motivated not only by the fact that the case concerns a priest of the Catholic Church, but also because the disposition of his personal problem is bound to have a deep effect upon the sentiment and conduct of a part of the Slovak nation with regard to reconstituted CzechoSlovakia and her representatives. We are also urged to take this action by the reality, that is generally known and admitted by every objective observer, that Dr. Joseph Tiso has always been a zealous priest of unimpeachable character. In his extensive labors he always endeavored to work for the common good and never enriched himself thereby. The exercise of justice is one of the most difficult tasks of state authority. Experience teaches that this task, difficult enough in itself becomes an even more delicate one when it is concerned with political delicts. History shows �SLOVAKIA 4.1 how many burdensome fateful errors have been made particularly at political trials, since it is a most difficult task to judge impartially the activities of a political opponent. It is, therefore, by no means a rare occurence that after severe sentences were pronounced in political trials, a demand for their revision arose sooner or later. In judging the activities of a statesman, even his intentions must also be taken into consideration. The predominant majority of the Slovak people shares our convictions that Dr. Joseph Tiso in his public activity was animated by the best intentions. No doubt, mistakes were made. At the time, the Catholic Bishops of Slovakia did not hesitate to call them to his attention. However, we must disregard the well-known fact that even the shrewdest politicians can commit very serious errors. Yet the unprejudiced observer, be he a contemporary or historian, can render objective judgment only if he takes into consideration the good and positive (elements) in the activities of a statesman. And this factor will often outweigh the errors committed by politicians as the result of their weakness. It will not be irrelevant to consider from another point of view the errors charged to Dr. Tiso. We graciously point at least to some of their circumstances. Recent declarations by the present governmental representatives make the incidents of zilina of October 1938* appear in a light different from that which party propaganda seeks to spread among the public. Even the press has shown that practically all Slovak political parties participated in these political changes. Attention must also be called to the important document which has been made public in the course of the Nuremberg trial, viz. the letter sent to Berlin by the former Magyar leader of the empire, Horthy, on March 13, 1939.** This important circumstance, too, throws a different light on the decisions made by Tiso and his regime on March 14, 1939. We must think what would have been the fate of the Slovak people if Horthy's plan had been carried through. We also know that after the publication of the antiJewish laws, Dr. Tiso was willing to resign the presidency. That he did not do so happened only because he tried to �42 SLOVAKIA hamper and alleviate the consequen ces of these decrees and also to prevent a greater evil. It is worth considerin g the fact that Tiso was unable to prevent what the government chief of Hungary, a country far larger and more independen t than Slovakia, equally failed to prevent. After considerin g all the circumstan ces it may also be possible to evaluate the other errors charged to Dr. Tiso (for instance, the war in the east, the events of August 29, 1944,***) in a manner different from that employed by a prejudiced propagand a. The entire Slovak public is following the developme nt situation concerning Dr. Tiso with keen interest, the of and the great majority is taking a negative stand to the efforts that would incite hatred against his person. This is bound to increase the unfortunat e division of the nation, which now should be united and exerting all its strength for reconstruc tion. A settlement of the Tiso case in a spirit of understand ing and without any unscrupulo us severity would be an accomplish ment of political vision and will greatly serve the peace of the nation. These higher motives prompt us to graciously ask you to consider our request and act favorably on it. Signatures : Archbishop Karol Kmet'ko of Nitra; Bishop Joseph C<irsky of Kosice; Bishop Andrej skr<ibik, Banska Bystrica; Bishop Joseph Toman6cy, Bishop Karol Jantausch, and Bishop Edward Necsey, Auxiliary of Nitra. * On October 6, 1938, all parties except the Communists and Social Democrats, joined forces at 2ilina to demand emphatically the political autonomy of Slovakia, as it had been repeatedly stipulated in several agreements concluded between Czechs and Slovaks since 1914, v. i.: The Pittsburgh Agreement, etc. ** In the letter Horthy demanded the split-up of Slovakia among Germany, Hungary and Poland. *** The date referred to marks the "partisan" uprising in Slovakia which Dr. Tiso is accused of having failed to support. "The execution of Dr. Joseph Tiso, who loved his people and served them conscientious ly throughout his life, will undoubtedly inspire thousands of his brethren to continue the fight for the inherent and God-given rights of the Slovak nation." - John Sabol, Secretary First Catholic Slovak Union, Cleveland, Ohio, April 30, 1947. � 40 SLOVAKIA Slovak Bishops Appeal on Behalf of President Tiso (In view of the trial of Msgr. Joseph Tiso, former President of Slovakia, the following letter addressed January 8, 1946 by the Bishops of Slovakia to the Slovak National Council is of particulad interest. ) N.C.W.C. NEWS SERVICE In the course of recent years, the Catholic Bishops of Slovakia have often pleaded with government authorities on behalf of all who suffered, were imprisoned or persecuted. They did so for all, Catholics and non-Catholics. The example of the Divine Samaritan and His positive command inspired us and urged us to raise our protective voice in the interest of people who suffered pernecution for political reasons or even because of their race. We did so at a time when we had to expect nothing but various inconveniences for our intervention. In taking the liberty today of graciously recommending to your good will the fate of the former president Dr. Joseph Tiso, we do so inspired by the most noble example of all history, the command given in the Gospel and which we also have before us at the present hour. We are motivated not only by the fact that the case concerns a priest of the Catholic Church, but also because the disposition of his personal problem is bound to have a deep effect upon the sentiment and conduct of a part of the Slovak nation with regard to reconstituted CzechoSlovakia and her representatives. We are also urged to take this action by the reality, that is generally known and admitted by every objective observer, that Dr. Joseph Tiso has always been a zealous priest of unimpeachable character. In his extensive labors he always endeavored to work for the common good and never enriched himself thereby. The exercise of justice is one of the most difficult tasks of state authority. Experience teaches that this task, difficult enough in itself becomes an even more delicate one when it is concerned with political delicts. History shows �SLOVAKIA 4.1 how many burdensome fateful errors have been made particularly at political trials, since it is a most difficult task to judge impartially the activities of a political opponent. It is, therefore, by no means a rare occurence that after severe sentences were pronounced in political trials, a demand for their revision arose sooner or later. In judging the activities of a statesman, even his intentions must also be taken into consideration. The predominant majority of the Slovak people shares our convictions that Dr. Joseph Tiso in his public activity was animated by the best intentions. No doubt, mistakes were made. At the time, the Catholic Bishops of Slovakia did not hesitate to call them to his attention. However, we must disregard the well-known fact that even the shrewdest politicians can commit very serious errors. Yet the unprejudiced observer, be he a contemporary or historian, can render objective judgment only if he takes into consideration the good and positive (elements) in the activities of a statesman. And this factor will often outweigh the errors committed by politicians as the result of their weakness. It will not be irrelevant to consider from another point of view the errors charged to Dr. Tiso. We graciously point at least to some of their circumstances. Recent declarations by the present governmental representatives make the incidents of zilina of October 1938* appear in a light different from that which party propaganda seeks to spread among the public. Even the press has shown that practically all Slovak political parties participated in these political changes. Attention must also be called to the important document which has been made public in the course of the Nuremberg trial, viz. the letter sent to Berlin by the former Magyar leader of the empire, Horthy, on March 13, 1939.** This important circumstance, too, throws a different light on the decisions made by Tiso and his regime on March 14, 1939. We must think what would have been the fate of the Slovak people if Horthy's plan had been carried through. We also know that after the publication of the antiJewish laws, Dr. Tiso was willing to resign the presidency. That he did not do so happened only because he tried to �42 SLOVAKIA hamper and alleviate the consequen ces of these decrees and also to prevent a greater evil. It is worth considerin g the fact that Tiso was unable to prevent what the government chief of Hungary, a country far larger and more independen t than Slovakia, equally failed to prevent. After considerin g all the circumstan ces it may also be possible to evaluate the other errors charged to Dr. Tiso (for instance, the war in the east, the events of August 29, 1944,***) in a manner different from that employed by a prejudiced propagand a. The entire Slovak public is following the developme nt situation concerning Dr. Tiso with keen interest, the of and the great majority is taking a negative stand to the efforts that would incite hatred against his person. This is bound to increase the unfortunat e division of the nation, which now should be united and exerting all its strength for reconstruc tion. A settlement of the Tiso case in a spirit of understand ing and without any unscrupulo us severity would be an accomplish ment of political vision and will greatly serve the peace of the nation. These higher motives prompt us to graciously ask you to consider our request and act favorably on it. Signatures : Archbishop Karol Kmet'ko of Nitra; Bishop Joseph C<irsky of Kosice; Bishop Andrej skr<ibik, Banska Bystrica; Bishop Joseph Toman6cy, Bishop Karol Jantausch, and Bishop Edward Necsey, Auxiliary of Nitra. * On October 6, 1938, all parties except the Communists and Social Democrats, joined forces at 2ilina to demand emphatically the political autonomy of Slovakia, as it had been repeatedly stipulated in several agreements concluded between Czechs and Slovaks since 1914, v. i.: The Pittsburgh Agreement, etc. ** In the letter Horthy demanded the split-up of Slovakia among Germany, Hungary and Poland. *** The date referred to marks the "partisan" uprising in Slovakia which Dr. Tiso is accused of having failed to support. "The execution of Dr. Joseph Tiso, who loved his people and served them conscientious ly throughout his life, will undoubtedly inspire thousands of his brethren to continue the fight for the inherent and God-given rights of the Slovak nation." - John Sabol, Secretary First Catholic Slovak Union, Cleveland, Ohio, April 30, 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 40 SLOVAKIA Slovak Bishops Appeal on Behalf of President Tiso (In view of the trial of Msgr. Joseph Tiso, former President of Slovakia, the following letter addressed January 8, 1946 by the Bishops of Slovakia to the Slovak National Council is of particulad interest. ) N.C.W.C. NEWS SERVICE In the course of recent years, the Catholic Bishops of Slovakia have often pleaded with government authorities on behalf of all who suffered, were imprisoned or persecuted. They did so for all, Catholics and non-Catholics. The example of the Divine Samaritan and His positive command inspired us and urged us to raise our protective voice in the interest of people who suffered pernecution for political reasons or even because of their race. We did so at a time when we had to expect nothing but various inconveniences for our intervention. In taking the liberty today of graciously recommending to your good will the fate of the former president Dr. Joseph Tiso, we do so inspired by the most noble example of all history, the command given in the Gospel and which we also have before us at the present hour. We are motivated not only by the fact that the case concerns a priest of the Catholic Church, but also because the disposition of his personal problem is bound to have a deep effect upon the sentiment and conduct of a part of the Slovak nation with regard to reconstituted CzechoSlovakia and her representatives. We are also urged to take this action by the reality, that is generally known and admitted by every objective observer, that Dr. Joseph Tiso has always been a zealous priest of unimpeachable character. In his extensive labors he always endeavored to work for the common good and never enriched himself thereby. The exercise of justice is one of the most difficult tasks of state authority. Experience teaches that this task, difficult enough in itself becomes an even more delicate one when it is concerned with political delicts. History shows SLOVAKIA 4.1 how many burdensome fateful errors have been made particularly at political trials, since it is a most difficult task to judge impartially the activities of a political opponent. It is, therefore, by no means a rare occurence that after severe sentences were pronounced in political trials, a demand for their revision arose sooner or later. In judging the activities of a statesman, even his intentions must also be taken into consideration. The predominant majority of the Slovak people shares our convictions that Dr. Joseph Tiso in his public activity was animated by the best intentions. No doubt, mistakes were made. At the time, the Catholic Bishops of Slovakia did not hesitate to call them to his attention. However, we must disregard the well-known fact that even the shrewdest politicians can commit very serious errors. Yet the unprejudiced observer, be he a contemporary or historian, can render objective judgment only if he takes into consideration the good and positive (elements) in the activities of a statesman. And this factor will often outweigh the errors committed by politicians as the result of their weakness. It will not be irrelevant to consider from another point of view the errors charged to Dr. Tiso. We graciously point at least to some of their circumstances. Recent declarations by the present governmental representatives make the incidents of zilina of October 1938* appear in a light different from that which party propaganda seeks to spread among the public. Even the press has shown that practically all Slovak political parties participated in these political changes. Attention must also be called to the important document which has been made public in the course of the Nuremberg trial, viz. the letter sent to Berlin by the former Magyar leader of the empire, Horthy, on March 13, 1939.** This important circumstance, too, throws a different light on the decisions made by Tiso and his regime on March 14, 1939. We must think what would have been the fate of the Slovak people if Horthy's plan had been carried through. We also know that after the publication of the antiJewish laws, Dr. Tiso was willing to resign the presidency. That he did not do so happened only because he tried to 42 SLOVAKIA hamper and alleviate the consequen ces of these decrees and also to prevent a greater evil. It is worth considerin g the fact that Tiso was unable to prevent what the government chief of Hungary, a country far larger and more independen t than Slovakia, equally failed to prevent. After considerin g all the circumstan ces it may also be possible to evaluate the other errors charged to Dr. Tiso (for instance, the war in the east, the events of August 29, 1944,***) in a manner different from that employed by a prejudiced propagand a. The entire Slovak public is following the developme nt situation concerning Dr. Tiso with keen interest, the of and the great majority is taking a negative stand to the efforts that would incite hatred against his person. This is bound to increase the unfortunat e division of the nation, which now should be united and exerting all its strength for reconstruc tion. A settlement of the Tiso case in a spirit of understand ing and without any unscrupulo us severity would be an accomplish ment of political vision and will greatly serve the peace of the nation. These higher motives prompt us to graciously ask you to consider our request and act favorably on it. Signatures : Archbishop Karol Kmet'ko of Nitra; Bishop Joseph C<irsky of Kosice; Bishop Andrej skr<ibik, Banska Bystrica; Bishop Joseph Toman6cy, Bishop Karol Jantausch, and Bishop Edward Necsey, Auxiliary of Nitra. * On October 6, 1938, all parties except the Communists and Social Democrats, joined forces at 2ilina to demand emphatically the political autonomy of Slovakia, as it had been repeatedly stipulated in several agreements concluded between Czechs and Slovaks since 1914, v. i.: The Pittsburgh Agreement, etc. ** In the letter Horthy demanded the split-up of Slovakia among Germany, Hungary and Poland. *** The date referred to marks the "partisan" uprising in Slovakia which Dr. Tiso is accused of having failed to support. "The execution of Dr. Joseph Tiso, who loved his people and served them conscientious ly throughout his life, will undoubtedly inspire thousands of his brethren to continue the fight for the inherent and God-given rights of the Slovak nation." - John Sabol, Secretary First Catholic Slovak Union, Cleveland, Ohio, April 30, 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 Bishops Appeal on Behalf of President Tiso Description An account of the resource N.C.W.C. News Service Letter by the Bishops of Slovakia to the Slovak National Council, January 8, 1946 Slovakia, Vol. 22 (No. 45), 1972 pp. 40-42 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1972 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/27b5940f75c9e6f99ce4633b24cd8071.pdf c1d159333a455b81345effec6f79a2ab PDF Text Text 30 SLOVAK.IA v!clnity were fought the battles whlch determined the fate of the heart of the contlnent. I).espite the fact that on the once mlghty stone castle only two medieval towers and a few walls have been preserved, the ruln.s, nevertheless, present a majestic appearance. That whlch remalns 1s stately and lmposing. The site of Devin is truly immense. Its expanse is large enough for a dozen ordinary castles or fortresses. That, as well as its lncomparable locatlon, glves lt majesty. The places where there were once lofty walls and wlde moats can stlll be clearly dlstinguished. But three hours are required for a vislt to Devin trom Bratisli;wa. Tbe journey can be made most pleasantly by boat. And you wlll conslder these three hours among the most worthwh!le you bave spent on the European continent - after Slovakla is llberated from the agents of Moscow, that 1s. • • • • SLOVAK COSTUMES AND CUSTOMS No other 1-and of Centra! Europe 1s able to display as many unspoiled popular and dlstinctive costumes as Slovakla. They are due to tbe pure feellngs of the people. The simple sense for color and ornamentation, wbich can only sprlng from the soul of the people if lt ls to be of value and ls to be a true echo of thelr lnner manlfestations, expresses ltself in the costumes and customs spontaneously and characterlstically, as can be the case only In a !and whlch has been 3pared trom too mucb culture and whose lnhabltants llved tranqullly In remote mountalns and valleys. The varlous rellgious festivals, such as Easter, Ascenslon, Corpus Chrlstl, and the celebration of the days of the local patron salnts, cause the people to dlsplay the best -and the most beautiful lnherlted costumes. In many places, such as Čičmany and Revúca, a simple folk archltecture of the abodes provldes a plcturesque and approprlate settlng for such vlvld scenes. The treasures of popular art, exhlblted at the Museum In Bratklava In systematlc arrangemerrt, stlll live. In the p1'0xlmlty of Bratislava, many places - especlally Vajnory, Chorvatský Grob, Schwannsbach, Čataj, Nemecký Grob - have preserved much from prlstlne limes. Also there 1s opportunlty at St. Jur to watch the llfe of the people in lts pristlne fashion. In the Trenčín reglon anclent customs are malntalned in many vlllages, lncludlng Dubnica near the famous spa Trenčianske Teplice. In the Tatra reglon the old costumes may be observed at Valec, Štrba, and štola, and farther East at Ždiar, Podollnec and elsewhere. The mountaln pasture season ends wlth the anclent custom of consecratlng cheese. Shepherds and herdsmen thus express the!r thanks for a successful sea.'lon. In November and December the unmarrled glrls meet In the evenlngs at some farmhouse for joint spin• ning and weavlng by hand. The weekly and annual markets, the p!lgrlmages, and the local festivals aftord excellent opportunltles for observlng the llfe of the Slovak people. � 30 SLOVAK.IA v!clnity were fought the battles whlch determined the fate of the heart of the contlnent. I).espite the fact that on the once mlghty stone castle only two medieval towers and a few walls have been preserved, the ruln.s, nevertheless, present a majestic appearance. That whlch remalns 1s stately and lmposing. The site of Devin is truly immense. Its expanse is large enough for a dozen ordinary castles or fortresses. That, as well as its lncomparable locatlon, glves lt majesty. The places where there were once lofty walls and wlde moats can stlll be clearly dlstinguished. But three hours are required for a vislt to Devin trom Bratisli;wa. Tbe journey can be made most pleasantly by boat. And you wlll conslder these three hours among the most worthwh!le you bave spent on the European continent - after Slovakla is llberated from the agents of Moscow, that 1s. • • • • SLOVAK COSTUMES AND CUSTOMS No other 1-and of Centra! Europe 1s able to display as many unspoiled popular and dlstinctive costumes as Slovakla. They are due to tbe pure feellngs of the people. The simple sense for color and ornamentation, wbich can only sprlng from the soul of the people if lt ls to be of value and ls to be a true echo of thelr lnner manlfestations, expresses ltself in the costumes and customs spontaneously and characterlstically, as can be the case only In a !and whlch has been 3pared trom too mucb culture and whose lnhabltants llved tranqullly In remote mountalns and valleys. The varlous rellgious festivals, such as Easter, Ascenslon, Corpus Chrlstl, and the celebration of the days of the local patron salnts, cause the people to dlsplay the best -and the most beautiful lnherlted costumes. In many places, such as Čičmany and Revúca, a simple folk archltecture of the abodes provldes a plcturesque and approprlate settlng for such vlvld scenes. The treasures of popular art, exhlblted at the Museum In Bratklava In systematlc arrangemerrt, stlll live. In the p1'0xlmlty of Bratislava, many places - especlally Vajnory, Chorvatský Grob, Schwannsbach, Čataj, Nemecký Grob - have preserved much from prlstlne limes. Also there 1s opportunlty at St. Jur to watch the llfe of the people in lts pristlne fashion. In the Trenčín reglon anclent customs are malntalned in many vlllages, lncludlng Dubnica near the famous spa Trenčianske Teplice. In the Tatra reglon the old costumes may be observed at Valec, Štrba, and štola, and farther East at Ždiar, Podollnec and elsewhere. The mountaln pasture season ends wlth the anclent custom of consecratlng cheese. Shepherds and herdsmen thus express the!r thanks for a successful sea.'lon. In November and December the unmarrled glrls meet In the evenlngs at some farmhouse for joint spin• ning and weavlng by hand. The weekly and annual markets, the p!lgrlmages, and the local festivals aftord excellent opportunltles for observlng the llfe of the Slovak people. � 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 30 SLOVAK.IA v!clnity were fought the battles whlch determined the fate of the heart of the contlnent. I).espite the fact that on the once mlghty stone castle only two medieval towers and a few walls have been preserved, the ruln.s, nevertheless, present a majestic appearance. That whlch remalns 1s stately and lmposing. The site of Devin is truly immense. Its expanse is large enough for a dozen ordinary castles or fortresses. That, as well as its lncomparable locatlon, glves lt majesty. The places where there were once lofty walls and wlde moats can stlll be clearly dlstinguished. But three hours are required for a vislt to Devin trom Bratisli;wa. Tbe journey can be made most pleasantly by boat. And you wlll conslder these three hours among the most worthwh!le you bave spent on the European continent - after Slovakla is llberated from the agents of Moscow, that 1s. • • • • SLOVAK COSTUMES AND CUSTOMS No other 1-and of Centra! Europe 1s able to display as many unspoiled popular and dlstinctive costumes as Slovakla. They are due to tbe pure feellngs of the people. The simple sense for color and ornamentation, wbich can only sprlng from the soul of the people if lt ls to be of value and ls to be a true echo of thelr lnner manlfestations, expresses ltself in the costumes and customs spontaneously and characterlstically, as can be the case only In a !and whlch has been 3pared trom too mucb culture and whose lnhabltants llved tranqullly In remote mountalns and valleys. The varlous rellgious festivals, such as Easter, Ascenslon, Corpus Chrlstl, and the celebration of the days of the local patron salnts, cause the people to dlsplay the best -and the most beautiful lnherlted costumes. In many places, such as Čičmany and Revúca, a simple folk archltecture of the abodes provldes a plcturesque and approprlate settlng for such vlvld scenes. The treasures of popular art, exhlblted at the Museum In Bratklava In systematlc arrangemerrt, stlll live. In the p1'0xlmlty of Bratislava, many places - especlally Vajnory, Chorvatský Grob, Schwannsbach, Čataj, Nemecký Grob - have preserved much from prlstlne limes. Also there 1s opportunlty at St. Jur to watch the llfe of the people in lts pristlne fashion. In the Trenčín reglon anclent customs are malntalned in many vlllages, lncludlng Dubnica near the famous spa Trenčianske Teplice. In the Tatra reglon the old costumes may be observed at Valec, Štrba, and štola, and farther East at Ždiar, Podollnec and elsewhere. The mountaln pasture season ends wlth the anclent custom of consecratlng cheese. Shepherds and herdsmen thus express the!r thanks for a successful sea.'lon. In November and December the unmarrled glrls meet In the evenlngs at some farmhouse for joint spin• ning and weavlng by hand. The weekly and annual markets, the p!lgrlmages, and the local festivals aftord excellent opportunltles for observlng the llfe of the Slovak people.  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 Costumes and Customs Description An account of the resource Slovakia, Vol. 1, No. 2 (2), December 1951 p. 30 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 1951 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/b69dc446e19c457b5bc9d36fefbc52d5.pdf b3d7f3bfb36c1c412f2a2ee3116fa9e3 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 57 Slovak Destiny Stephen B . R o m a n, President SLOVAK WORLD CONGRESS There are moments in the lives of Slovaks when we are very clearly and sometimes very painfully aware of who we are, where we came from, and where we should be going. These intimate perceptions are not frequent. Usually they come when the volume and tempo of persistent cares diminish, or just before the making of a critical decision. At such times we intuitively understand our relationship and responsibility to ourselves, to our immediate and distant relatives and friends, to our nation, to mankind, and to God. Over a long period of time we developed a collective consciousness, a set of intrinsic values which blend together to create a common bond among us. We are products of a nation that has cherished and developed its distinct character over millennia, and which has absorbed a full range of human talents and achievements in that process. Every page of our history bears the imprint of pain and suffering-pain and suffering from which have emerged great values. We are descendants of a nation which was not large in numbers. A nation, which, over a period of time, had to confront wave after wave of stronger and more aggressive neighbors. These attackers conquered our fortresses and burnt down our settlements; but, they never broke our spirit. No wonder then that, in our nation, courage and tenacity have always triumphed over oppression and hardship. What we went through marked our national personality-deepened, and strengthened it. Our earliest forefathers found strength in the soil. This close tie with the land gave our nation its typical characteristics: industry, endurance, faith in ourselves, and faith in God. From a natural reconciliation with nature grew other virtues: the virtues of hospitality, of justice, of judgment, �58 SLOVAKIA and of creativity. The feeling of togetherness brought brotherhood. From oppression and want, we crystalized a sense of fair play. The reality of mortal life brought judgement; and, a growing quality in day-to-day life gave time for the enrichment of the soul. Who are we today? We are no more, and no less. than one generation in the development of this patricular spirit. We have inherited the gift of our history. We are to advance the tradition of our forefathers and, walk a few steps further along the road towards our human destiny, which they marched on over the centuries. We are the custodians of their virtues. We are the ones who were left to aggrandize their tradition; and, this makes us responsible for further progress both as members of our nation, and as part of the commonwealth of mankind. A talent has been passed on to us for which we are responsible, and which we have to return, with interest, in the spirit of the best tradition and trust in Divine Providence. Where do we go? We continue in the footsteps of our fathers, perhaps with greater strides, perhaps with a stronger will, hopefully with an ever higher goal: confident because of the firm steps behind us; responsible for so many steps ahead. Our successes will not be ours alone; they will be shared by the nation; they should penetrate into the consciousness of mankind. Each one of us adds in his own way; each one of us takes credit towards the overall account of this process. Our people have seen many a crisis. The last one seems to have no equal; the strong have seized our nation and our nation is, again, praying and suffering. Yet, though the enemy may take its comforts from it, for a time - silence it - they cannot obliterate our souls. Our nation will survive this current evil. Our task is to surmount this trial; to achieve new successes in the shape and execution of democracy and freedom. We must grow in our humanity, in our unshakeable self-confidence, in our will to enrich what we are. Only then will we have grown under the test-will w-e feel needed-will we have pride that we are judged by �SLOVAKIA 59 measures applicable to all mankind, and that we come out well in the balance. I believe that every nation has a Divine destiny to fulfill. Slovak destiny, although at times obscure, is to improve and enhance that part of the world where its influence can be a positive factor for genuine advancement of humanity. The solid value of the word of a Slovak and the uniquely spiritual warmth of the sons and daughters of Slovakia can be a radiant source of edification to others as they exemplify what can be accomplished by work and good will, for God and country. May the name SLOVAK soon begin to ring out melodiously in the steeples of the Family of Nations and strike a responsive chord of recognition in the hearts of all peoples. DR. STEPHEN LUCAS, associate professor of Elementary Education at Edinboro State College, has been elected President of the Pennsylvania Science Teachers Association. A member of the Board of Directors for the past two years, Dr. Lucas has contributed articles and papers to "The Pennsylvania Science Teacher and the Voice of P .S.T .A." The recipient of a Bachelor of Science degree from Clarion State College, Dr. Lucas received his Master of Education in Biology and his Doctor of Education Degree in science education from Pennsylvania State University. He did additional graduate work at Cornell University, University of Vermont, North Caroline State College and Bloomsburg State College. He is an American Slovak. � SLOVAKIA 57 Slovak Destiny Stephen B . R o m a n, President SLOVAK WORLD CONGRESS There are moments in the lives of Slovaks when we are very clearly and sometimes very painfully aware of who we are, where we came from, and where we should be going. These intimate perceptions are not frequent. Usually they come when the volume and tempo of persistent cares diminish, or just before the making of a critical decision. At such times we intuitively understand our relationship and responsibility to ourselves, to our immediate and distant relatives and friends, to our nation, to mankind, and to God. Over a long period of time we developed a collective consciousness, a set of intrinsic values which blend together to create a common bond among us. We are products of a nation that has cherished and developed its distinct character over millennia, and which has absorbed a full range of human talents and achievements in that process. Every page of our history bears the imprint of pain and suffering-pain and suffering from which have emerged great values. We are descendants of a nation which was not large in numbers. A nation, which, over a period of time, had to confront wave after wave of stronger and more aggressive neighbors. These attackers conquered our fortresses and burnt down our settlements; but, they never broke our spirit. No wonder then that, in our nation, courage and tenacity have always triumphed over oppression and hardship. What we went through marked our national personality-deepened, and strengthened it. Our earliest forefathers found strength in the soil. This close tie with the land gave our nation its typical characteristics: industry, endurance, faith in ourselves, and faith in God. From a natural reconciliation with nature grew other virtues: the virtues of hospitality, of justice, of judgment, �58 SLOVAKIA and of creativity. The feeling of togetherness brought brotherhood. From oppression and want, we crystalized a sense of fair play. The reality of mortal life brought judgement; and, a growing quality in day-to-day life gave time for the enrichment of the soul. Who are we today? We are no more, and no less. than one generation in the development of this patricular spirit. We have inherited the gift of our history. We are to advance the tradition of our forefathers and, walk a few steps further along the road towards our human destiny, which they marched on over the centuries. We are the custodians of their virtues. We are the ones who were left to aggrandize their tradition; and, this makes us responsible for further progress both as members of our nation, and as part of the commonwealth of mankind. A talent has been passed on to us for which we are responsible, and which we have to return, with interest, in the spirit of the best tradition and trust in Divine Providence. Where do we go? We continue in the footsteps of our fathers, perhaps with greater strides, perhaps with a stronger will, hopefully with an ever higher goal: confident because of the firm steps behind us; responsible for so many steps ahead. Our successes will not be ours alone; they will be shared by the nation; they should penetrate into the consciousness of mankind. Each one of us adds in his own way; each one of us takes credit towards the overall account of this process. Our people have seen many a crisis. The last one seems to have no equal; the strong have seized our nation and our nation is, again, praying and suffering. Yet, though the enemy may take its comforts from it, for a time - silence it - they cannot obliterate our souls. Our nation will survive this current evil. Our task is to surmount this trial; to achieve new successes in the shape and execution of democracy and freedom. We must grow in our humanity, in our unshakeable self-confidence, in our will to enrich what we are. Only then will we have grown under the test-will w-e feel needed-will we have pride that we are judged by �SLOVAKIA 59 measures applicable to all mankind, and that we come out well in the balance. I believe that every nation has a Divine destiny to fulfill. Slovak destiny, although at times obscure, is to improve and enhance that part of the world where its influence can be a positive factor for genuine advancement of humanity. The solid value of the word of a Slovak and the uniquely spiritual warmth of the sons and daughters of Slovakia can be a radiant source of edification to others as they exemplify what can be accomplished by work and good will, for God and country. May the name SLOVAK soon begin to ring out melodiously in the steeples of the Family of Nations and strike a responsive chord of recognition in the hearts of all peoples. DR. STEPHEN LUCAS, associate professor of Elementary Education at Edinboro State College, has been elected President of the Pennsylvania Science Teachers Association. A member of the Board of Directors for the past two years, Dr. Lucas has contributed articles and papers to "The Pennsylvania Science Teacher and the Voice of P .S.T .A." The recipient of a Bachelor of Science degree from Clarion State College, Dr. Lucas received his Master of Education in Biology and his Doctor of Education Degree in science education from Pennsylvania State University. He did additional graduate work at Cornell University, University of Vermont, North Caroline State College and Bloomsburg State College. He is an American Slovak. � 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 SLOVAKIA 57 Slovak Destiny Stephen B . R o m a n, President SLOVAK WORLD CONGRESS There are moments in the lives of Slovaks when we are very clearly and sometimes very painfully aware of who we are, where we came from, and where we should be going. These intimate perceptions are not frequent. Usually they come when the volume and tempo of persistent cares diminish, or just before the making of a critical decision. At such times we intuitively understand our relationship and responsibility to ourselves, to our immediate and distant relatives and friends, to our nation, to mankind, and to God. Over a long period of time we developed a collective consciousness, a set of intrinsic values which blend together to create a common bond among us. We are products of a nation that has cherished and developed its distinct character over millennia, and which has absorbed a full range of human talents and achievements in that process. Every page of our history bears the imprint of pain and suffering-pain and suffering from which have emerged great values. We are descendants of a nation which was not large in numbers. A nation, which, over a period of time, had to confront wave after wave of stronger and more aggressive neighbors. These attackers conquered our fortresses and burnt down our settlements; but, they never broke our spirit. No wonder then that, in our nation, courage and tenacity have always triumphed over oppression and hardship. What we went through marked our national personality-deepened, and strengthened it. Our earliest forefathers found strength in the soil. This close tie with the land gave our nation its typical characteristics: industry, endurance, faith in ourselves, and faith in God. From a natural reconciliation with nature grew other virtues: the virtues of hospitality, of justice, of judgment, 58 SLOVAKIA and of creativity. The feeling of togetherness brought brotherhood. From oppression and want, we crystalized a sense of fair play. The reality of mortal life brought judgement; and, a growing quality in day-to-day life gave time for the enrichment of the soul. Who are we today? We are no more, and no less. than one generation in the development of this patricular spirit. We have inherited the gift of our history. We are to advance the tradition of our forefathers and, walk a few steps further along the road towards our human destiny, which they marched on over the centuries. We are the custodians of their virtues. We are the ones who were left to aggrandize their tradition; and, this makes us responsible for further progress both as members of our nation, and as part of the commonwealth of mankind. A talent has been passed on to us for which we are responsible, and which we have to return, with interest, in the spirit of the best tradition and trust in Divine Providence. Where do we go? We continue in the footsteps of our fathers, perhaps with greater strides, perhaps with a stronger will, hopefully with an ever higher goal: confident because of the firm steps behind us; responsible for so many steps ahead. Our successes will not be ours alone; they will be shared by the nation; they should penetrate into the consciousness of mankind. Each one of us adds in his own way; each one of us takes credit towards the overall account of this process. Our people have seen many a crisis. The last one seems to have no equal; the strong have seized our nation and our nation is, again, praying and suffering. Yet, though the enemy may take its comforts from it, for a time - silence it - they cannot obliterate our souls. Our nation will survive this current evil. Our task is to surmount this trial; to achieve new successes in the shape and execution of democracy and freedom. We must grow in our humanity, in our unshakeable self-confidence, in our will to enrich what we are. Only then will we have grown under the test-will w-e feel needed-will we have pride that we are judged by SLOVAKIA 59 measures applicable to all mankind, and that we come out well in the balance. I believe that every nation has a Divine destiny to fulfill. Slovak destiny, although at times obscure, is to improve and enhance that part of the world where its influence can be a positive factor for genuine advancement of humanity. The solid value of the word of a Slovak and the uniquely spiritual warmth of the sons and daughters of Slovakia can be a radiant source of edification to others as they exemplify what can be accomplished by work and good will, for God and country. May the name SLOVAK soon begin to ring out melodiously in the steeples of the Family of Nations and strike a responsive chord of recognition in the hearts of all peoples. DR. STEPHEN LUCAS, associate professor of Elementary Education at Edinboro State College, has been elected President of the Pennsylvania Science Teachers Association. A member of the Board of Directors for the past two years, Dr. Lucas has contributed articles and papers to "The Pennsylvania Science Teacher and the Voice of P .S.T .A." The recipient of a Bachelor of Science degree from Clarion State College, Dr. Lucas received his Master of Education in Biology and his Doctor of Education Degree in science education from Pennsylvania State University. He did additional graduate work at Cornell University, University of Vermont, North Caroline State College and Bloomsburg State College. He is an American Slovak.  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 Destiny Description An account of the resource Stephen B. Roman, President, Slovak World Congress Slovakia, Vol. 24 (No. 47), 1974 pp. 57-59 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Roman, Stephen, 1921-1988 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/2f686333d61a0f6f7c6836ec8b30d0b2.pdf 6871f9d1450242f7d5e2d428d3686255 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 7 Slovak Emigrants in Canada as Reflected in Diplomatic Documents (1920 - 1938) ELENA JAKESOVA Slovak emigration to Canada - not taking into account the European continental migration - can be considered one of the strongest and most significant of all of the Slovak migrations during the inter-war period. Great numbers of Slovaks moved to Canada across the Antlantic to earn some money, especially in the second half of the 1920s. 1 The inter-war years, however, represented only its second stage, because Slovaks had started to leave for the United States as early as the 1870s. The 1920s witnessed only a change in destination. The United States of America, which in 1920 contained about 620,000 Slovaks, halted that mass emigration. When the continuity of the traditional emigration had been broken partly in the year 1921, and definitely in the year 1924, the search for an alternative solution of the problem did not take long. The immigrants saw in Canada's common frontier with the United States the possibility of emigration south in the future. Therefore, Canada became in the second half of the twenties "the second chance", a kind of alternative destination of the Slovak emigrants in spite of the fact that in comparison with the USA there 1 Shipping companies transported from Slovakia to Canada in 1922 110 persons, in 1923 2029 , in 1924 2832, in 1925 2134 , in 1926 6066 , in 1927 6301 , in 1928 8184 , in 1929 4116 , in 1930 3586, in 1931 730, in 1932 522, in 1933 673 , in 1934 851, in 1935 742 , in 1936 716. Statistical Handbook of the Czechoslovak Republic (Vol. 4, Prague, 1932) and in Statistical Yearbook of the Czechoslovak Republic (Prague 1934 , 1935, 1936, 1937) . �8 SLOVAKIA were not many reasons to look for opportunities for employment on its territory. In the period up to World War I, Canada attracted only about 5,000 Slovaks. 2 As early as the beginning of the 1920s it appeared that Canada could become the alternative overseas country of destination of Slovak emigrants. That alternative began to attract not only applicants for emigration passports in Slovakia but also Czecho-Slovak diplomats, and their representatives in Canada. In elucidating the development of the stated tendency, and its impact, we chose a series of diplomatic documents, representing the activities of the Czechoslovak consulate in Montreal in the years 1920-1938 as the basis of the following essay . The most significant are those documents which give special attention to the process of emigration. The subjects of the correspondence of the Czechoslovak Consulate in Montreal were the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Social Welfare in Prague, and the Canadian Department of Immigration and Colonization in Ottawa.3 The Goals of this essay are limited. I will focus only on those aspects of the topic falling into the competence, tasks and activities of the Czechoslovak representatives in Canada. In consequence of the pro-emigration attitudes of the Czechoslovak government, two basic trends will coincide: Canadian immigration policy, and the development of the Slovak community in Canada. Slovak nationals represented the vast majority of all the people involved in the process of Czechoslovak emigration, especialy in the second half of the 2 Message of the Austro-Hungarian Consulate General in Montreal, IO December, I 902 to Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Vienna . Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv Wien, F 15, File 62, deliv . 27 December, 1902. 3 sources: Archives of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs , Prague (hereinafter only AFMZV), Political reports - Montreal (1920- I 938) (hereinafter PZ-M) , and Section II. National Archives, Prague (hereinafter SUA) , Fund of Ministry of Social Welfare (hereinafter MSP), Ministry of International Affairs - Old registers of 19191944 (hereinafter MV) . Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa (hereinafter PAC) , Immigration Branch (RG 76) , Vol. 198 Consul General of Czechoslovakia, Montreal , Quebec (1922-1940) (File 80671) , Vol. 251 Czechoslovakia, Passports (1924-1939) (File 183211), Vol. 616 Czechoslovaks (File 916207) . �SLOVAKIA 9 1920s .4 This fact accounted for the basis for the final ethnic identification of the newly-formed community in the Canadian environment, and, at the same time, determined the attitudes, and activities of the Czechoslovak Representatives in Canada. The first diplomatic contacts between Czechoslovakia and Canada were established on the consular level in Montreal in November of 1920. Bohuslav K. Ryznar was appointed the first Czechoslovak Consul. The Consulate was subordinated to the Czechoslovak Embassy in London, which corresponded with the arrangements of the relations between London and Ottawa. Despite the urgent request of B . K . Ryznar to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague, the functional designation of the Consulate in Montreal was not changed in the years 1920-1922 . He stressed the fact that "Canada is absolutely a self-governing country, and does not pay any taxes , duties or other allowances to the British Empire to be used by the army or navy. There is no British soldier, and no British warship in the whole territory of the Dominion .. ."5 B. K. Ryznar submitted several arguments to support his request for changing the Montreal office's rank to Consulate General. He suggested that the Governor General of Canada, the federal government, and the ministries in Ottawa entered into contacts only with accredited diplomats on the level of Consuls General. 6 Therefore, lower consular rankings resulted in the absence of contacts and information which, to a great extent, limited the possibility of diplomatic activity. Despite the Consul's assurances that eventual installation of a Consul General would not increase the budget, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague strictly refused the request.7 4 comparing the number of emigrants from Czechoslovakia to Canada during the years 1922-1932 with the number of emigrants from Slovakia for the same period, we have found that 83% were Slovaks, and only 17% were Czechs . If we compared it with the number of inhabitants , the difference would be even more extreme . Statistical Handbook of the Czechoslovak Republic (Vol. 4, Prague , 1932). 5AFMZV, PZ-M, year I 921, No. 19, 27 . 6. 1921. 6With the addition that of all European countries, only Czechoslovakia and Portugal had their Consulates in Canada. AFMZV , PZ-M, year 1921 , No . 9, 17 . 2. 1921 . 7AFMZV , PZ-M, year 1921, No. 10 (B . ve .). �SLOVAKIA In reply to the refusal , the Consul Ryznar again reminded the Ministry of the difficulties connected with the execution of his mission : "The situation looks as if the Prague centre has to seek information on the territory from Brittany to the foot of the Urals, and from Cadiz to Hamerfest, without any auxiliary offices and means" .8 These basic arguments - i. e. the inferior position of the representation , and the large size of Canada - were, for a certain period, the most effective tool in the hands of the Czechoslovak Consul in Canada to be used whenever he was obliged to take a stand , or to characterize some generally valid phenomenon. The taking of such an attitude was under those circumstances understandable. The presence and activity of the first Czechoslovak Consul in Canada represented but the first stage of the Czechoslovak diplomatic activity in Canada, aimed at the gradual acquisition and transmission to the Czechoslovak Government of essential information on anything he considered important, including the care for his own nationals, with special attention paid to immigrants coming to the country. Taking into account the goal of the present essay , it is important to stress first of all the Consul's investigation of the state of the regional community of his fellow-countrymen. This all formed a part of the information sent at the beginning of 1920 to the Political Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague. He characterized it as follows : 11 ••• a colony of Czechoslovak nationals representing over five thousand persons living in the whole Dominion , i. e. an area equal to the extent of the United States of North America ... , it is , however, insufficiently organized, and could not be used as a decisive element to support any political faction .. . Also the interest of the Czechoslovak farmers settled in the province of Saskatchewan are quite different from those of the miners in Nova Scotia, living apart a distance of about four thousand kilometers. It will be very difficult to unify them and to make them act together" _9 It is obvious that recognizing the small numbers in the community provoked both interested parties to consider the further possibi8AFMZV , PZ-M,year 1921 , No . 19, 27. 6. 1921. 9AFMZV , PZ-M , year 1921, No . 2, File No . 10/21. �SLOVAK.IA 11 lities of its growth. These appeared already in 1921 in connection with the increasing interest in emigration from Czechoslovakia, and also with the growing threat of the limitation of immigration by the US Government. Therefore, the future Canadian immigration policy , and especially its relation to Central Europe, became the primary area of interest of the Czechoslovak Consulate in Montreal. The formulation dealing with the diffusion and disorganization of the colony had the hidden agenda of the further activity of the Czechoslovak Consulate - i.e. co-operation with the community in order to unify it as far as its organization is concerned, and, in this way, to shape its future direction. A matter of question, however, was - by which means and in what manner should it be done? The organizational and political attitudes chosen by the consular authorities in relationship to the Slovak community is the principal topic of this essay. The diplomatic communiques themselves contained certain signals in answer to the question because there the community was referred to as a colony of Czechoslovak nationals, without more detailed ethnic identification. Despite the fact that the first impression acquired by the Czechoslovak side from the trends in Canadian immigration policy was not in any way favourable - "the Canadian authorities obstructed the immigrants" 10 - the Consul reported to Prague at the beginning of 1921 that the consular office succeeded in finding some indications of change. Public debates began to mould opinions that, with respect to the growing need for cheap labour, it was necessary to retain the principle of a priority in the selection of immigrants, i. e. not to prefer Britons as the representatives of the "mother country" of Canada, but to permit a bit of benevolence in the selection of the immigrants. 11 It was decided by the Consulate to seize the opportunity immediately. The federal Department of Immigration and Colonization in IOAFMZV, Sec . II ., Reg . 531, File No . 514, 4.2.1921. 11 AFMZV, PZ-M, year 1921, No . 19, an article published in The Montreal Daily Star, 4. 6. 1921 , "Repudiation , Annexation or Population". �12 SLOVAKIA Ottawal 2 was asked in November of 1922 to provide statistical data on the number of Czechoslovak immigrants in Canada, and, at the same time, to inform the Consulate about the willingness of the Canadian government to accept the immigration and settlement of Czechoslovak nationals in Canada,13 This initiative of the Czechoslovak Consul was premature. The department took a very reserved attitude. Its Secretary, F. C. Blair, provided only the requested statistical data, and completely omitted the problem connected with the possibility of immigration from Czechoslovakia. 14 It is, therefore, clear that it was only the Czechoslovak side which initiated and tried to recommend its own citizens as suitable potential immigrants to Canada. Despite the fact that this effort had been ignored, the Consul Ryznar was not discouraged. He went on searching for some sign of permissivness in the Canadian immigration policy towards the Continent and concretely to Central Europe. He tried to convince the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs and also the Ministry of Social Welfare, that he was doing his best to search for possibilities for Slovak applicants for emigration to countries other than to the USA. The Consul constantly tried to find some solution and began to consider the most attractive the idea of the Canadian immigration officials - i. e. to attract peasants, who, unlike the British colonists coming mainly from towns, and again settled in towns in Canada, would be able and willing to farm in Canada, to cutlivate the virgin land, and to revive the economy of the country.15 He saw such a solution in Central Europe. Ryznar had been so encouraged with the possibility of Slovak immigration that he decided at the beginning of 1923 to send another letter to F. C. Blair. He did so in order to get some information about the new policy of settlement being enforced by certain political 12The Department of Immigration and Colonization, an independent Department of the Federal Government, came into existence in 1917 through its separation from the Ministry of the Interior. 13 PAC, RG 76 , Vol. 198, File 80671 , 11. I 1. 1922. 14 PAC, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, 28 . 11.1922. 15 AFMZV, PZ-M, year 1922, No. 7, 4.12 . 1922. �SLOVAKIA 13 circles . His primary goal was, however, again to remind the Canadian government of Czechoslovakia, and its peasantry applying for immigration visas. He stressed in his letter that he had been urged by his own government, and primarily by the Ministry of Social Welfare, which was greatly interested in the possibility of immigration of its citizens to Canada. In another letter he told of the intention of the above-mentioned Ministry to subscribe to the most significant Canadian newspaper in order to receive information on the programme of the settlement of the country, and at the same time to find missing information for numerous applicants for emigration, i.e. the citizens of Czechoslovakia.16 His efforts to attract the attention of the highest authorities of the Canadian Department of Immigration and Colonization brought some results in the end. The Czechoslovak Ministry of Social Welfare was finally put on the list of the addresses of the immigration press being issued by the Department of Immigration and Colonization. 17 Above all, those institutions realised that Czechoslovakia was offering a certain part of its peasantry with the assurance that they certainly would be very suitable future colonists . The explanation of the following could be found in the activity of the Czechoslovak Consulate: when in the autumn of 1923 a great need for a cheap labor force emerged in Canada in connection with the logging of old wood in forests, and its preparation for further processing in sawmills, representing in itself very heavy manual work, the citizens of British or French origin did not want to do it. Therefore, the Department of Immigration and Colonization met the demands of some entrepreneurial circles and agreed with the submitted proposal to obtain suitable lumberjacks in Central Europe . The Minister of Immigration and Colonization personally suggested that sort of labour force be sought in Czechoslovakia. He explained it in the following manner: "based on the information received, applicants for emigration from Czechoslovakia are said to have some experience with agricultural work, and also the prerequisites for 16pAc, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671 , 27 . 2. 1923. 17PAC , RG 76 , Vol. 198 , File 80671 , 7. 3. 1923. �14 SLOVAKIA managing methods used in Canadian agriculture in order to become true Canadian farmers in the end" .1 8 The Consulate was very proud of the results of its diplomatic mission. It interpreted its work in the following, quite inadequate, manner: "The Canadian immigration authorities prefer Czechoslovak nationals because of their good physical condition, honesty and industriousness. They find them excellent colonists , and they would be very glad to receive them" _19 In fact the Canadian authorities permitted workers at the end of 1923 in Czechoslovakia for the Canadian lumbering industry only, with only some five hundred, 20 later increased to a thousand workers. 21 Most of those people were obtained in Slovakia as can be seen in the statistical data of the shipping companies concerning the transporting of over two thousand persons from Slovakia to Canada during that same year.22 Immediately after the arrival of the first post-war contingent of Slovak immigrants, they faced numerous problems . The consulate in February 1924 issued the following message: "Most of those (i. e. immigrants) devoted themselves in the winter season to cutting wood. The living standards in those camps, hundreds of miles from civilization, situated in vast forests , are hardly enviable .. . They work from early morning till late at night. They eat food prepared in a common kitchen and pay for it through the reduction of their salaries. The employer provides workers with clothes and other requisites paid for in the above-mentioned manner. It is obvious that our fellows , knowing neither the language nor the customs , are in an endless wilderness thrown at the mercy of dishonest officials, and some problems had to be solved through the consular authorities with the director or owner of the company in order to ensure their protection" .23 18 PAC, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, 3. 11. 1923. 19.-;;:,UA, , MSP, Reg. 3894, No. 2028 , 2. 6. 1923. 20PAC, RG 76, Vol. 616, File 916207, pt. 1, 18. 10. 1923. 21SUA, MSP, Reg. 3899, File 847, 20. 2. 1924. 22 Statistical Handbook of the Czechoslovak Republic (Vol. 3, Prague, 1928). 23SUA, MSP, Reg. 3899, File 847 , 20.2. 1924. �SLOVAKIA 15 In addition to the difficult position of a part of the Slovak immigrants in lumber camps, there were also other problems . The Canadian authorities offered, in fact only seasonal work. That meant that in the spring of the year 1924, when the season had ended, the immigrants were on their own. A part of them started to drift to Montreal, and other cities, especially those near the American border. It was clear in the end that the first group of post-war immigrants had come to Canada with a clear goal: to get around the restrictive immigration measures imposed by the American authorities, and to get to the United States via Canada,24 where their relatives and friends were already settled. Numerous requests of the immigrants to solve this problem were a heavy burden for the Czechoslovak consular officials .25 All their efforts, however, were useless. At least a one-year stay of the immigrant in Canada was a necessary precondition to receiving a visa to the USA. The situation of the Slovak lumberjacks was very difficult to resolve. The Czechoslovak Consulate tried to avoid growing difficulties caused partly by its own activity. The Czechoslovak authorities were immediately asked to inform passport offices about issuing emigration visas to Canada only to those applicants willing to settle permanently in Canada. 26 In order to stop the growth of further complications, the Consulate again addressed the Department of Immigration and Colonization in Ottawa to provide it with the form, or the text of the agreement usually concluded between the employer and employee.27 The letter also expressed the Government's interest in receiving more detailed information about living conditions of the 1mmigrants in Canada. The highest Canadian authorities answered the letter immediately. They informed the Consulate that neither an agreement form, nor any legislative criteria, existed in Canada for concluding contracts. As far as the securing of certain living standards for immigrants was concerned, living conditions were different in various 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27PAC, RG 76 , Vol. 198 , File 80671 , 16. 4.1924 . �16 SLOVAKIA parts of the country and what was offered was generally considered sufficient. 28 It was too late and quite useless to ask those questions. We know that the Canadian government authorities cared for the problems of their own poorest workers even less than for the Czechoslovak ones, and there was no motivation to help the immigrants, coming without any financial means, and at their own risk. It follows from the above that, at the beginning of 1924, the activity of the Consulate had to orient itself to immigration from Czechoslovakia. It had to decide what to do with people coming from Slovakia with the intention of going to the United States. The chance to get there was only minimal. While the Czechoslovak Consulate was asking the questions, the Slovak League of America, as the cover organization of Slovak immigrants in the USA, took the initiative. Many Slovak immigrants in Canada turned to it with requests for help, because the CanadianSlovak community itself was small in number, lost over the huge territory, and therefore could not support them. In the summer of 1924, the Slovak League sent its delegate to Canada to investigate the situation. Upon his arrival the delegate confirmed the fact that the immigrants had come to Canada with the goal of getting into the USA. At the same time he informed the American-Slovak public that "the prisons on the frontier are full of our people caught when they tried to get to the USA illegally" .29 After receiving that information, the executive of the Slovak League decided to publish information about the hopeless situation of most of the Slovak immigrants in Canada in magazines in Slovakia. 30 Thus a short article published later in numerous Slovak magazines came into being. The text of it was more than meaningful: "The representative of the Slovak League of America who had been sent to Canada reported about a sad group there. Over 12,000 of them are living there and suffer awfully. They cannot find work, and when they get 28PAC , RG 76, Vol. 198 , File 80212 , 25 . 4. 1924. 29 Minutes of the session of the delegates of the Slovak organizations in America organized by the executive of the Slovak League , held in Pittsburgh, Pa ., 18 . December of 1924. In: Slovak v Amerike, 51, No. 37, 2. 3. 1925, p. 3. 3oIbid. �SLOVAKIA 17 it, they have to work in the Canadian virgin forests and are paid only a pittance. Their feet and hands are frost-bitten and some of them even went mad" _31 The disclosure of the irresponsibility of the Czechoslovak and Canadian authorities who had prepared and organized the immigration , upset not only American Slovaks and people in Slovakia, it also affected diplomatic relations between Czechoslovakia and Canada. The Department of Immigration and Colonization in Ottawa was probably informed directly through the British Ambassador in Prague . A letter was immediately sent to the Czechoslovak Consul in Montreal containing - a slightly paraphrased - "anxiety about the fact that the published information on the situation in Canada does not correspond with reality" _32 At the same time Ottawa asked the Consul to inform it about the Slovak League of America. They were mostly interested in whether the organization had a branch in Canada consisting of the proper members, and finally asked the Consul about the alleged problem, i. e. whether he was really informed about a greater number of Slovak immigrants in Canada who had not found work.33 In his answer B. K. Ryznar suggested to the Minister W. J. Egan that the Slovak League of America was a strong organization with half a million members. He assured him, however, that the organization had not had any branch in Canada. 34 As he had not ment to destroy his previous efforts in the field of creating premises for acceptance of immigrants from Czechoslovakia, he to a certain extent negated the arguments of the above-mentioned article, and assured Ottawa that there were not many unemployed Slovaks in Canada. In order not to minimize his duties and problems connected with the execution of his mission, Ryznar mentioned in his letter having heard only about the complaints of the immigrants concerning irregular practices applied by the employers and the labour 3 IE. g. Sloven ska domovina, 7, No. 6, 5. 2. I 925, p. 2. 32 As in Note 29 . 33PAC , RG 76, Vol. 616 , File 916207, pt . I, 10. 2. 1925 . 34Toe Slovak League of America had but one subsidiary in Canada, at Fort William , Ontario, founded in 1916, havi ng one hundred and fifty members. �18 SLOVAKIA agencies, and their attempts to misuse them. His attitude to the whole problem was contrary to the facts .35 The above-mentioned problem had been disturbing to both interested parties, and therefore the Department in Ottawa decided to inform the Czechoslovak authorities in order to elucidate somehow the problems of unemployment and basic social care provided to the Slovak immigrants. The information was , however, only general , covering but the job opportunities offered by Canada to the immigrants . Job opportunities were represented principally by seasonal work for agricultural workers. The number of needed seasonal workers was very difficult to determine ahead of time. The Department cleared up only the problem of the salaries offered. They assured the Czechoslovak authorities that the minimum monthly salary had to be 25 dollars , at the same time admitting even higher wages in case of additional seasonal work.36 But the Czechoslovak authorities wanted to make the problem clear. Therefore, they sent a delegate on a mission to Eastern Canada. He could only confirm the well-known facts about the difficulties of a part of the new Slovak immigrants. The most serious of them represented unemployment on the one hand, and unpaid salaries for work done on the other. The employers, for various reasons, often refused to pay the immigrants. They were sure that it was quite impossible to claim their salaries through the courts, as no service contracts had been concluded with the immigrants. 37 Together with the arrival of a greater number of immigrants, and especially when the lumbering season had ended, a tendency appeared during 1924 among groups of immigrants settling in Montreal to be near the residence of the Czechoslovak Consulate. Growing unemployment was the motive for their concentration. The officials saw the reasons for immigrants remaining in the big cities in their apparent aversion to working on farms, and in their false illusions of 35PAC, RG 76, Vol. 616, File 916207, pt . I, 14.2.1925. 36 PAC, RG 76, Vol. 616, File 916207, pt. I, 26.3.1925. 37SUA, MSP, Reg . 3803, No . 10219, 2.5. 1925. �SLOVAKIA 19 better salaries in cities. The immigrants hoped to find in Montreal an advanced industry, as was the case in cities of the United States .38 Social dislocation, therefore, became the decisive experience of the people. This motivated them during the summer 1924 to support each other through a co-operative association. 39 The forming of the ethnically homogenous Slovak group in Montreal, welded together by common problems, could not be ignored by the Czechoslovak Consul. He reported to Prague in detail about the two Slovaks in Montreal, who strove to establish a "Slovak Benefit Society". He added, however, that their task was very difficult, because of the small and ever-changing number of the Slovaks in Montreal, as most of them were looking for work, and their stay in the city was temporary .40 He also reported on the activity of the Slovak League of America, aimed at the organization of Slovak immigrants in Canada. The League sent its delegate to Montreal to investigate the situation. According to the Consul there was no response to the efforts of that Slovak-American organization in Canada. His opinion was, that the representative of the Slovak League "had not been accepted positively by his fellow-countrymen" _41 It is clear that the associative efforts of the Slovak immigrants were from the very beginning followed very carefully by the Consulate. The fact that the Slovak immigrants had decided to go their own way inspired the Consulate General to act in accordance with its original intention to organize the whole community in Canada, representing several thousand. At the beginning the Consulate tried to control the activity of the newly-formed association of Slovaks in Montreal. The Consul Ryznar, as soon as he arrived in 1920, decided to enter in a most decisive manner into the life of the community. But there was little hope of realizing that because of the originally small 38 Jbid. 39The association was founded by Gabriel Kurdel and F. Capkovic , at the end of 1924, in the first Slovak restaurant in Montreal , named "Tatra" . It was opened by F. Capkovic in the spring of I 924 . From the letter of G . Kurdel to the author dated 8. 12. 1974. (Personal archives of the author) . 40 AFMZ, PZ-M, year 1924, No. 8, 8. 9. 1924. 41 Ibid. �20 SLOVAKIA number of the Slovak immigrants scattered across the vast Canadian lanscape. That all prevented him from managing the situation. Therefore, in his diplomatic agenda, he prudently suggested that the Slovak inhabitants in Canada were not organized as they could not be organized. But, as it is known from the diplomatic agenda of the former Austro-Hungarian Consuls General in Canada, the truth was just opposite. The Slovaks in Canada did organize already at the tum of the 19th and 20th centuries but not in their own associations. They were establishing in Canada numerous branches of American-Slovak associations. This resulted in subordinating them to centres in the USA, thus connecting more tightly the Canadian Slovaks with American ones, rather than the Slovaks living across Canada. With respect to the above-mentioned facts, the Czechoslovak Consul did not consider uniting the Canadian-Slovak community possible. This made him believe in the end that the Slovaks in Canada were not organized at all. The alternative of establishing new associations after World War I was impossible. In 1922 the Consul expressed his attitude in the following manner: "there are not suitable conditions here for establishing Czechoslovak associations" .42 It follows that he really intended to establish not only new associations, but also to make those already existing acquire the status of Czechoslovak ones, i. e. to conform to the Czechoslovak stateforming conception, and to manifest it in concrete organizational forms of their foreign enclave. When it was necessary to explain the reasons preventing him from realizing his plans, the Consul stressed the fact that there was a conflict between his intentions and the Slovak attitude represented by the strong pro-Hungarian orientation of the greatest concentration of the pre-war Slovak immigrants in Fort William, Ontario.43 About six hundred to one thousand and two hundred Slovaks were living there. The pro-Hungarian tendencies of that nationally and organizationally unified group of the Slovak immigrants coming mostly from 4 2SuA . MSP, Reg . 3894, No . 2313, 26. 6. 1922. 43 AFMZ, PZ-M, year 1922, File 36 d, 25.4. 1922. �SLOVAKIA 21 the Orava region - which was in the period before the World War I known as an area nearly untouched by the process of magyarization - "were explained" very simply: those Slovaks had attended Hungarian schools and immigrated to Canada from Hungarian lands. We must add, however, that he, himself, doubted his statements about the pro-Hungarian manifestations of the Fort William Slovaks with the confession about getting his information "second hand" . Later on, he made use of his statements about magyarized Slovaks as a serious obstacle to the enforcement of the Czechoslovak philosophy. He said that the pro-Hungarian tendencies were permanently supported both by former Austro-Hungarian and new Hungarian Consuls in Canada during his journeys across Canada where the Hungarians had lived together with the Slovaks.44 The Czechoslovak Consul made use of that fact. He remarked that he himself as a Consul had not been able to travel along the consular "region" by permission of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs even after his three years' stay in Canada.45 In such a way he brought forward both the "principal", and other, i.e. "technical" cause of his temporary failure in relation to the Slovak community in Canada. We must say, however, that arguments such as the long distances between Montreal and individual Slovak settlements, the absence of contact with them, or surviving pro-Hungarian emotions among regional inhabitants, as well as the existence of no chance to change it, also survived. They could never be used to characterize the newly-forming associations of Slovak immigrants. The consul chose quite a different explanation. As he himself noted in the consular report, he had evaluated the activity of "the Czechoslovak citizens coming from Slovakia". In relationship to the existing foreign-political conception of the unitary Czechoslovak state, and the officialy-accepted theory of the Czechoslovak nation as well, he started to characterize the new associative tendencies of Montreal's Slovaks as the activation of anti-Czech 44 AFMZ, PZ-M , year 1924, No . 6. 11. 11. 1924. 4SAFMZ, PZ-M , year 1923, No. 13. 13 . 12. 1923 . �22 SLOVAKIA ideas, and the spreading of treasonous ideas brought apparently by Slovak immigrants and spread among fellow-countrymen. 46 Characterization of the associative tendencies of the Slovak immigrants in Montreal as anti-Czech, or even treasonous, was naive , and in the end turned against the Consulate itself. The Consulate had immediately to respond, and to eliminate the manifestations of the Slovak separatists represented, and replace them with the associative efforts of helpless immigrants. The Consul was supposed to initiate an unifying processes and make the Slovak immigrants accept their organization with those Czech immigrants who had settled in Montreal long before. It was, however, very difficult to find a proper way to solve the problem. There were only a few Czech immigrants living in Montreal. 47 They were mostly older inhabitants, and besides, they were on a higher social level, with other interests and needs. The Slovaks, meanwhile, were not in the least interested in any sort of social activity, or even "making policy". Therefore even the old traditional and experienced way of ideologically influencing the community, as it was suggested by the Czechoslovak authorities - i. e. to issue a newspaper - was considered inappropriate, and even useless. Migrating Slovaks searching all the time for jobs would not accept any newspaper _48 The following "solution" proved the most suitable one: the Canadian public was informed through an article published in The Montreal Daily Star in December of 1924 about the organization of "the Czechoslovak citizens in order to establish an independent association of Czechoslovak immigrants" .49 When, at the beginning of 1925, B. K. Ryznar finished his diplomatic mission to Canada (from January 1923 he was Consul General) the Montreal Slovak community was already officialy represented by the Czechoslovak 46 AFMZ, PZ-M, year 1924, No. 8. 8.9.1924. 47 Before World War I, thirteen Czech families and one Slovak family lived in Montreal. In: Rybnfcek, A.: "Vzpomfnky starousadlfka." I:udove zvesti, 26, No. 40 , I 9. 10. 1961, p. 14. 48 AFMZ, PZ-M , year 1924, No . 12. 11. 11 . 1924. 4 9"Society formed to aid Czechs . New body will assist immigrants to prosper here". The Montreal Daily Star, 16. 12. 1924 . PAC, RG 76, Vol. 616 , File 916207, pt. I . �SLOVAKIA 23 Benefit Society. An internal conflict existed, however, concerning its name, emerging from time to time with greater or less intensity ,50 as the roots of a sort of natural alliance were missing.51 The beginning of 1925, connected with the end of B. K. Ryznar's diplomatic mission, and the coming of the new Consul General F. V. Kveton, represented a break in the immigration policy of Canada. Thanks to favourable economic-political decisions of the Canadian Government to end the policy of favouring immigrants from Great Britain, psychologically and physically not sufficiently prepared to do hard agricultural work in the Canadian wilderness, resulted in the recruitment of immigrants - mainly peasants - from the Central European region. It was the poor state of the Canadian economy at the beginning of 1925 as mentioned by the federal Parliament of Canada,52 which resulted in the above-mentioned changes in immigration policy. That new alternative was, despite the poor economic situation of Canada, evaluated by the Czechoslovak authorities with great satisfaction. It seemed that the arrival of immigrants would be greatly simplified for the immigrants comming from some "selected European countries, including the Czechoslovak Republic" .53 New workers were expected to revive the Canadian economy. They, however, misunderstood each other. The Canadian politicians saw the solution in further cultivation of land and farms left by the British colonists , thus solving the urgent need for agricultural workers. In fact, most of the applicants for emigration from the 50From a letter of G. Kurdel to the author dated 8. 12. 1974. 51 Canadian immigration policy allowed from Czechoslovakia only agricultural workers. Therefore, the intelligentsia had no place among immigrants (with some few exceptions). It meant that the Slovak community had no natural leaders. Some did develop. Gabriel Kurdel was the most significant one. In connection with the newlyfounded association in Montreal, G. Kurdel in his memoires said that he had informed the new Consul General Kv~ton about existing conflicts in the association. The Consul agreed with the change of the name of the association to a Slovak one. But, according to his memoirs, when he submitted his proposal to the leaders of the association, represented by Czech fellow-countrymen, they commented on it as follows: "It is nonsense". In: Memoirs of G. Kurdel. Phone record from 26. 10. 1977. No. SLK 3023. Archives of the Multicultural History Society of Ontario, Toronto. 52AFMZ, PZ-M, year 1925, No. 5. 7.2.1925. • 53~.:.UA, , MSP, Reg. 3894, File 847, 20. 2. 1924. �24 SLOVAKIA Central European region, including Slovakia, were poor people unable to participate in the Canadian programme of immigration of farming families with some capital. They could only saturate the secondary needs of the workforces , i.e. the agricultural workers on farms. The second alternative attracted primarily those applicants for emigration from Slovakia who were rejected by the United States. The number of those interested was very large. According to officials of the Ministry of Social Welfare in Prague, it was nearly impossible to control the situation. The quota permitted annualy by the Canadian side could not be exceeded. The Canadians succeeded in keeping it low .54 In this way the number of Slovaks in Canada was by the end of the year 1930 increased to some 30 ,000 - 40,000 persons. 55 Czechoslobvak representatives in Montreal protested by means of a Memorandum to Minister Egan aginst the recruitment of workers without appropriate legislative requisites. The Consul stressed in the Memorandum that, according to Czechoslovak emigration law, each of the emigrants should, before their departure , be furnished with a -valid contract with the name of the employer, the location , sort of work, the duration of the employment, as well as the offered wage. 56 In response to the Memorandum, the Canadian Department of Immigration and Colonization considered it its duty to inform the Ministry of Social Welfare in Prague only of the fact that an immigrant - agricultural worker - was to be paid 25 dollars per month with board and lodging.57 Further disputes and legally-unsolved problems were on both sides consulted usually in the following manner: in further similar inter-governmental agreements concerning the emigration and immi- 54Approximately 6,000 to 7,000 persons. 55 Archives of the President's Office, D. 12331/38. Secret message of CS . Consul General dr. F. Pavl~sek to Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague about the situation among Slovaks in Canada, dated 17. 3. 1937. In: Bielik, F.: Sloven ske vys(ahovaleccvo. Dokumency III. Martin, MS 1976, doc. No. 375 . 56PAC, RG. 76, Vol. 616, File 916207 , pt. 1, 23 . 5. 1925 . 57 PAC, RG. 76, Vol. 616, File 916207 , pt. 1, 23 . 5. 1925 . �SLOVAKIA 25 gration , proper attention should be paid to the solution of the problem of concrete labour contracts.58 From the above-mentioned it follows that the period of activity of Consul General F. V. Kveton (during the years 1925-1929) reflected a considerable increase in the community, not only in Montreal or Toronto, but also in other Canadian regions. This was connected with new organizations of the immigration process. The immigrants were placed primarily on the Praires of Canada, with the organizational centre located in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Consul General F. V. Kveton visited that region in 1926. On his journey across Canada he discovered an increase in Slovak colonists despite the fact that he had intended to investigate mainly the Czech settlements. He came to the conclusion that "the Czechoslovak colony" in Canada was in fact the Slovak community. He stressed that fact in his report . Fort William was, according to him , the most significant and stable Slovak city. He estimated that some 1,100 to 1,200 Slovak souls were concentrated there with their own Catholic parish, and a nice church. He said that the Slovaks were working mainly in the port, loading and unloading the ships transporting goods across Lake Ontario, i. e. the inland Canadian "sea". In order to verify known opinions of his diplomatic predecessor concerning the pro-Hungarian orientation of Fort William Slovaks, he asked not only the old inhabitants , but post-war ones too. He came to the following conclusion: the community as a whole takes an autonomous attitude towards the solution of the problem of the constitutional position of Slovakia within the Czechoslovak Republic. The city of Winnipeg in Manitoba, as the destination place of his journey, was characterized as the biggest Czech settlement in Canada, with some four hundred souls, represented primarily by tailors and shoemakers. The Consul General stressed , however, the other function of Winnipeg. It was used as the "winter station" to retire in after the agricultural season on farms was over. His own opinions shifted into a different position because of having obtained new facts about the community. The Consul started 58s(JA, MV, Reg. 1015, No. 6980/1925. �26 SLOVAKIA to respond to the demands of older emigrants concerning education and national culture. He explained his attempt to the Czechoslovak authorities by the need to preserve national consciousness. He asked for the delivery of Slovak books for Montreal and Fort William, and above all, for a Slovak teacher for approximately two hundred school-aged children in Fort William.59 Thanks to the new consular representative, the Czechoslovak authorities were in 1926 forced to return to the problem of the social position of the Slovak immigrants. At first they started to investigate the chances of immigrants to obtain farms. Ottawa was asked questions about the place to obtain certain capital loans if an immigrant intended to do private farming.6() The federal Ministry did not intend to answer the question. The Consul was asked to address the responsible institutions, and first of all the Secretary of the Association of Canadian Bankers 61 who had offered him information on the existence of credit permitted by the Government in 1926 to be used exclusively for the purchase of agricultural land, the construction of houses, and affiliated buildings, for the purchase of cattle, irrigation systems, construction, etc.62 Despite a positive answer, no references were found in the archives referring to the use of that aid by Slovak immigrants. Because of those circumstances, the arrival of the two delegates from Czechoslovakia was a matter of question. They were invited by the Canadian Pacific Railway to investigate local conditions for settlement of independent families with some capital. Research has shown that there were only a few solvent families leaving Slovakia for Canada. Therefore, the information offered by the host company was quite useless for ordinary Slovak immigrants.63 Another delegate of the Ministry of Social Welfare offered to the interested Ministries information about his journey to Canada in the spring 1927 . He considered the position of Slovak agricultural workers as gene59S(JA, MSP, Reg. 3894, No. 6588. 6()PAC, RG . 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, 10. 6. 1926. 61PAC, RG . 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, I 7. 6. 1926. 62SCJA, MSP, Reg . 3965, 2782/26. 63SCJA, MV, Reg . 1015, 498/1927. �SLOVAKIA 27 rally bad. He presented the following facts: they were working without any contract between them and their employers, and thrown on the mercy of the farmers. Above all, they were working without any health or accident insurance. No such insurance existed in Canada. Only Railways and larger industries had their own insurance systems. The afflicted immigrant could be protected only through a benefit society of fellow-countrymen, or by Canadian charity institutions. 64 When the Consulate had intervened in the Canadian Department it was offered a long list of the agencies and associations entitled to protecting the interests of immigrants in Canada.65 During the following year quite different opinions appeared among fellow-countrymen, evaluating the situation of Slovak immigrants. Some of them had strongly criticized their position because they had to be regularly aided through the Slovak League of America. Others were satisfied, pointing to those individuals living in Canada for a long time who became rich. The most objective evaluation, however, resulted from the latest information gathered during the years 1924-1927. It was as follows: "Fellow-countrymen are not for the time being doing well" _66 Evidence about it was provided by the Czechoslovak Consulate in Canada in a document published in Slovak newspapers. The title of the mentioned article was "Information for Those Emigrating to Canada" .67 It analysed the social conditions of Slovak immigrants in Canada, considered them to be insufficient, thus preventing others from making the decision to leave for Canada to work. The intention to get through Canada to the USA was considered nonsense. There were many profiteers promising to get people secretly over the borders to the USA, extorting their last money. The Consulate warned people because the promises had been false. Those profiteers were interested only in their hard-earned money. 64 SUA, MV, Reg . 1015, No . 27464/1927, 11.4. 1927. 65 S0A, MSP, Reg . 3965 , File 6849/1927, 28. 12. 1927. 66 Kopac, A.: "Ako sa zije na~fm v Kanade?", I:udova politika, 3, 1927, p. 3. 67 Narodnie noviny, 58., No . 50, 29. 4. 1927 , p. 3. No . 207, 15. 9. �28 SLOVAKIA Despite those facts, the Consul Kveton sent in the summer of 1928 an optimistic report to Prague about enough job opportunities, and that there was no unemployment among the immigrants. 68 He was, however, undoubtly conscious of the fact that critical situations were emerging after seasonal work was over, i.e. during the longlasting winter. It was almost the same by the end of the year 1928 . The unemployed started, as usual, to concentrate in Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, and other cities. That concentration resulted in great associative activity. Consular reports paid special attention primarily to the activity of the Slovak League of America, which had succeeded in establishing its subsidiaries in Canada in the years 1927 and 1928 (in Toronto and Montreal, and a year before also in Winnipeg). For most Slovak immigrants in Canada membership in those organizations was quite necessary, because they had been aiding them in case of illnesses, or accidents. However, the activity of the Slovak League did not correspond with the above-mentioned intentions of the Czechoslovak Consulate. The Committee for Emigration was immediately addressed with urgent demands for the Government to provide some financial aid to the co-operative association in Montreal to cover its activities. 69 Such procedures did not surprise anybody. Once again the original arguments were used about the Slovaks looking for locations with older settlements of their fellow-countrymen, and gradually losing their interest in the idea of the so-called Czechoslovak nationality _?O That private opinion of the informer was in strong contradiction with the tendencies of the Slovak League being known with its identification with the Slovak autonomy programme during the inter-war years. The League was popular among the immigrants, especially for its co-operative function. The situation, however, got worse as the years went on. Unemployment was increasing, and as a result, a new phenomenon ap68S(JA , MSP, Reg. 3965, 30.11.1928 . 69S(JA, MSP, Reg . 3966, No . 21443, 28 .6.1928 . 7oIbid. �SLOVAKIA 29 peared in the diplomatic agenda as early as the winter of 1929-1930 . It concerned the deportation of Czechoslovak nationals from Canada. According to existing Canadian law a man who, during the first five years of his arrival in Canada applied for, or was provided with some public finacial aid, was considered an undesirable person, not able to conform to Canadian conditions. Such a person was to be deported to his mother country .7 1 The situation between the two countries worsened. There were frequent controversies between them. Many of the persons to be deported by the Canadians were ill or even incapacitated, either physically or psychically, and there were also criminals among them. Finally, the Czechoslovak authorities refused to accept those individuals who had not had, after a ten years' stay in Canada, re-established their Czechoslovak citizenship, or had not requested an extension of the validity of the right of domicle abroad. It is very difficult to find an accurate count of such persons,72 but they were often mentioned in diplomatic reports. It is obvious that this situation resulted from the economic crisis which broke out in 1929. The Depression affected the immigrants as never before. Besides increasing unemployment, the crisis meant also a significant reduction of the immigration quota for Czechoslovakia to two thousand people a year. This uncompromising procedure of the immigration authorities irritated the Czechoslovak Consulate so much that the Consul addressed Ottawa with an open protest. It follows from his report, sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague, that he was discussing the problem with Deputy Minister Egan in Ottawa. The Consul considered the quota unfair, and even offensive, for Czechoslovakia. The reaction of the Canadian Minister to that invective was related the Czechoslovak Minister of Foreign Affairs as follows: the Deputy Minister said that "if only the immigrants from Bohemia and Moravia were concerned, 71SuA , MSP, Reg. 4029, No. 4310-36. 72 PAC, RG 76 , Vol. 251 , File 183211. �30 SLOVAKIA the whole situation would have been quite different, but there was only a minimum percentage of immigrants coming those regions" .73 At the beginning of 1930 K. Kveton was ending his diplomatic mission in Montreal , and was replaced by the new Consul-General, K. Moser. The attitude of the Canadian public and the immigration authorities as well, towards the immigration policy became even more hostile . Finally, in August of 1930 immigration from Czechoslovakia was halted. Public opinion accused the Government of having caused both the crisis, and the unemployment, too, due to its rather "benevolent" immigration policy, mainly in the second half of the 1920s. According to this opinion, the labour market was saturated, resulting in unexpected problems. No improvement in the field of employment occured even after spring work had started. The situation was the same even during the harvest. Farmers were so cutting back on wages that it became quite unprofitable to travel for work to the prairie provincies. Therefore the new Consul Moser reported to Prague in June of 1930 that: "don't let the emigrants come here under these circumstances, as they would only have travel expenses and _a temporary stay here" .74 Thus the hot issue of a part of the diplomatic agenda, represented by the immigration policy, disappeared from it at the beginning of the 1930s. A natural consequence of that was only sporadic contacts between the Czechoslovak Consulate and the Federal Department for Immigration and Colonization. Due to the restriction of immigration, the Federal Department had given up its original position, and importance as well, and beginning with the year 1936 started to function as the Immigration Branch of the Federal Department of Mines and Resources. Unemployment and deportations represented the most serious problem of the period of the economic crisis. Therefo- 73 SUA, MSP, Reg. 3990, 6. 2. 1929. It is necessary to add that the Canadian Government limited or stopped immigration from the entire continent of Europe, of course except for families with some capital, or wives and children of those already settled in Canada, In: an article "Immigration from Europe is Stopped" . The Gazette, Montreal, 16. 8. 1930. 74<'1, .:>UA, MSP, Reg . 3990, No. 6921, 3. 6. 1930. �SLOVAKIA 31 re, the Czechoslovak Consulate paid special attention to the internal i.e. social, associative, and political life of the Slovak community. When in 1930 the Director of the Czechoslovak Institute of Foreign Affairs in Prague V. Tlapak went on a study-tour to Canada, he could only confirm the well-known facts about numerous unemployed immigrants who would like to return to their native land, if only they could. Many of them did not earn enough money to pay the travel expences for the journey back home . He found many examples of those who worked only to cover their daily food costs.7 5 The first to sense the impact of the Depression were farm workers . Having come to Canada in the second half of the 1920s, these people were not accepted in Canada with special favour. The crisis made their position quite unbearable. The Federal Government, trying to solve the situation as best as it would, created a programme of emergency works. Nearly every province "drew" the unemployed from the cities and organized in the country so-called labour camps. Especially the young unemployed did such beneficial work as reconstruction of roads, cultivation of natural parks, etc. No Slovaks took part in it, according to diplomatic reports. In January of 1932 Consul Moser reported to Prague that unemployment was not decreasing at all, but on the contrary, it was gradually increasing. 76 Not only the immigamts who were agricultural workers had problems. Even some better-situated individuals had problems. In spite of the fact that some of the immigrants had succeded in getting land, they had to leave the farms as they were not able to pay off the mortgage.77 Deportations became the accompanying phenomenon of unemployment. Canada resorted to that unpleasant measure in order to shake off the burden of the persons who were not able to care for themselves.7 8 There were many Slovak immigrants among them. Consul General Moser, in his effort to somehow protect the interests 75 SDA, MSP , Reg . 4019, No . 3751/30, 29.11.1930. 76AFMzv, PZ-M, year 1932, No. 3, 27 .. 1. 1932. 77 SUA, MSP , Reg . 3990, No. 4105 - 32. 78 vystehovalecky zpravodaj Ministerstva socialnf pece , Vol. 2, 20. 5. 1932 , p. 19 . �32 SLOVAKIA of the immigrants, sent a complaint to Ottawa in August of 1932, stressing the fact that Canada was deporting immigrants too late, because most of them were in such a bad situation that they could not wait the two-to-three months for the departure. Therefore, he asked the Department to deport them as early as possible.79 The Department in Ottawa answered that they had a huge list of those waiting for deportation, and in any case could not make the deportation process quicker, especially due to the limited capacity of the ships departing from Montreal. 80 Even in January 1934 the consular materials contained information about unemployed immigrants who, for three years, had hopelessly waited for deportation. Therefore, some of them illegaly left for the USA, only to be caught, and in such way to be more quickly deported (after a two-to-three months stay in prison) to Czechoslovakia.81 By the end of 1935 the Consul suggested that things were going better and visits to the Consulate were rare. At the same time he reported that numerous immigrants had succeded in finding some work in construction, mines and forests, while others had returned to Czechosloyakia. 82 It does not mean, however, that he automatically considered an improvement in the field of employment a symptom of the restoration of the immigration process, or the release of the restrictions imposed on immigration policy. The only exception was that concerning the possibility of immigration of some peasant families with a capital of $1,000 - $2,000. Even under those circumstances the Consul considered the immigration of well-off individuals more than disputable. He reasoned in the following way: If the applicant for immigration to Canada sells in Czechoslovakia his whole property to get the necessary financial means, it will be enough only to invest in uncultivated land. Very hard work will follow the purchase, with the results coming in most cases too late. 79PAC, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, I. 8. 1932. 80PAC, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, 20. 8.1932. 8lx, .:>UA, MSP, Reg. 4029, 12. I. 1934. 82X' .:>UA, MSP, Reg. 4029, 27.1.1936. �SLOVAKIA 33 This will make the immigrant fail , which often will result in his deportation. 83 It has been stated already that no other event influenced the Slovak community so much as the Depression. The immigration process of the second half of the 1920s was practically halted and the number of immigrants in the community was relatively stabilized (representing some 30,000 Slovaks, and about 1,000 Czechs). During the period preceding the crisis , the community was insufficiently organized. It was lacking in leaders, preachers, teachers, and schools. During the crisis the community was more active, and even more radical. Some new associations were founded. Ethnic consciousness was also activated. This resulted in a rapid decrease in their interest and willingness to co-operate in so-called Czechoslovak: associations. The activity of the benefit society in Montreal was nearly halted. 84 The Consulate notified Prague of the revival of autonomist tendencies, illustrating it with the fact that the First Slovak Benefit Society came into existence in Western Canada. More seriously, he considered the fact that there were being established numerous subsidiaries of the American-Slovak: associations with centers situated in the USA. He noticed, however, the great disappointment among the Canadian members because their funds had been delivered to the USA, thus not sufficiently meeting their needs. Finally, some of the members met in Winnipeg, Manitoba to reach a decision about leaving the American-Slovak: Association in order to found their own Canadian-Slovak: one. 85 The newly established Canadian Slovak League, together with the newspaper Slovak v Kanade, were by Consul Moser characterized as the principal representatives of the autonomist flow in the Slovak community, with the addition, that the same opinion was shared by the First Catholic Slovak Union in Canada. When F. Pavlasek took up his consular mission in Canada, he came to the conclusion that Slovaks were against the Czechs because 83SDA , MSP, Reg. 4029, 19. 8.1936. 84AFMZV, Section II., Reg . 492, No . 6787, I. 10. 1932. 85 SDA, MSP , Reg . 4029 . Periodical Report of the Immigration Branch , IV . quart. 1932. �34 SLOVAKIA of their motto "Slovakia for the Slovaks" .86 According to the new Consul General, the immigrants transfered from Slovakia to Canada many of Andrej Hlinka's ideas. Their attitudes were enforced both due to the American Slovak influences, and the agitation about the Pittsburgh Agreement. The fact that the Slovaks represented the poorest layers of the inhabitants of Canada, and belonged often to the unemployed, resulted in some being attracted to Marxism. The Consul discovered that in Montreal some four hundred persons were concentrating around the Slovak newspaper Robotnfcke slovo. The Consul Pavlasek characterized the group as quite compatible and devoted to their common ideal. At the same time he stressed the fact that the magazine was doing well and had a lot of symphatizers, in spite of the fact that many of them were not organized in the Association at all .87 Finally, in 1934 he characterized the community as politically split between the autonomists, autonomist communists, and those loyal to democratic Czechoslovakia. He considered it the result of the differentiation process which occured during the Depression. The autonomist communists were originally Czechoslovaks but had split in 1936 into Czechs and Slovaks. He tried to contact the different groups . "At first I tried to attract the conservative Catholic associations (the parish of Saints Cyril and Methodius) but without any success ... When I saw that the door for my activity among autonomists was shut for a certain period, I turned to less radical workers in order to build up co-operation between them and a middle democratic group. The result, however, was much the same ... 11 88 The Consul came to the conclusion that comunists triumphed during the crisis because they had exploited unemployment for establishing new associations. Among them were Czechoslovak Worker Education Clubs, the Slovak Workmen's Association, The International Workmen's Association, etc. They had numerous sym86AFMZV, Section II ., Reg. 531, 18.7.1934. 87 Ibid. 88 As in Note 55. �SLOVAKIA 35 pathizers among the common people. They improved the financial state of their associations, and a quality newspaper as well. In other words, they were very succesfuI. 89 The Consul Pavlasek stressed the intensity of communist propaganda among their fellow-countrymen in 1936. At the same time he noticed the fact that the propaganda could not be discounted, and in spite of the fact that it had been the result of a long-term Depression, it was spreading very rapidly, and fellow-countrymen were accepting it.90 Already in 1937 the Consul Pavlasek.was very pessimistic: "The position of this office is extremely difficult, because we have nobody to lean on. There are only a few Czechs here, and they are mostly assimilated, and a majority of them have withdrawn from public life due to permanent attacks". The fact that the Slovak community rejected Czechoslovakism nearly 'en bloc', he characterized as follows: "loyal Czechoslovak thinking, ever respecting the democracy and the Czechoslovak national unity, represents in some colonies but a minority", at the same time he added that the Czechs had arrived in Canada already before World War I, and they had been living there for two or three generations. They had been greatly assimililated, because the second generation had been educated in the Canadian manner. Finally, he expressed his "sad" conclusion that he himself, as well as the Consulate, were permanently attacked by the autonomists, and communists as well. It meant that the Consulate was to a great extent isolated from the Slovak community as a whole, in spite of the latter's internal ideological differentiation. In other words, the Consulate's mission was unsuccesful - it failed completely to unify the Czecho-Slovak nationals in Canada. Therefore, its arguments, formulated in 1937, suggesting that "everything must be done to keep the consciousness of Czechoslovak national unity in spite of the protests and demonstrations of the autonomist circles", were in vain.9 1 89SuA , MSP , Reg. 4029 , 25 . 10. 1935 . 90SuA, MSP, Reg . 4029 , 13.5 . 1937 . 91 As in note 88. � SLOVAKIA 7 Slovak Emigrants in Canada as Reflected in Diplomatic Documents (1920 - 1938) ELENA JAKESOVA Slovak emigration to Canada - not taking into account the European continental migration - can be considered one of the strongest and most significant of all of the Slovak migrations during the inter-war period. Great numbers of Slovaks moved to Canada across the Antlantic to earn some money, especially in the second half of the 1920s. 1 The inter-war years, however, represented only its second stage, because Slovaks had started to leave for the United States as early as the 1870s. The 1920s witnessed only a change in destination. The United States of America, which in 1920 contained about 620,000 Slovaks, halted that mass emigration. When the continuity of the traditional emigration had been broken partly in the year 1921, and definitely in the year 1924, the search for an alternative solution of the problem did not take long. The immigrants saw in Canada's common frontier with the United States the possibility of emigration south in the future. Therefore, Canada became in the second half of the twenties "the second chance", a kind of alternative destination of the Slovak emigrants in spite of the fact that in comparison with the USA there 1 Shipping companies transported from Slovakia to Canada in 1922 110 persons, in 1923 2029 , in 1924 2832, in 1925 2134 , in 1926 6066 , in 1927 6301 , in 1928 8184 , in 1929 4116 , in 1930 3586, in 1931 730, in 1932 522, in 1933 673 , in 1934 851, in 1935 742 , in 1936 716. Statistical Handbook of the Czechoslovak Republic (Vol. 4, Prague, 1932) and in Statistical Yearbook of the Czechoslovak Republic (Prague 1934 , 1935, 1936, 1937) . �8 SLOVAKIA were not many reasons to look for opportunities for employment on its territory. In the period up to World War I, Canada attracted only about 5,000 Slovaks. 2 As early as the beginning of the 1920s it appeared that Canada could become the alternative overseas country of destination of Slovak emigrants. That alternative began to attract not only applicants for emigration passports in Slovakia but also Czecho-Slovak diplomats, and their representatives in Canada. In elucidating the development of the stated tendency, and its impact, we chose a series of diplomatic documents, representing the activities of the Czechoslovak consulate in Montreal in the years 1920-1938 as the basis of the following essay . The most significant are those documents which give special attention to the process of emigration. The subjects of the correspondence of the Czechoslovak Consulate in Montreal were the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Social Welfare in Prague, and the Canadian Department of Immigration and Colonization in Ottawa.3 The Goals of this essay are limited. I will focus only on those aspects of the topic falling into the competence, tasks and activities of the Czechoslovak representatives in Canada. In consequence of the pro-emigration attitudes of the Czechoslovak government, two basic trends will coincide: Canadian immigration policy, and the development of the Slovak community in Canada. Slovak nationals represented the vast majority of all the people involved in the process of Czechoslovak emigration, especialy in the second half of the 2 Message of the Austro-Hungarian Consulate General in Montreal, IO December, I 902 to Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Vienna . Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv Wien, F 15, File 62, deliv . 27 December, 1902. 3 sources: Archives of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs , Prague (hereinafter only AFMZV), Political reports - Montreal (1920- I 938) (hereinafter PZ-M) , and Section II. National Archives, Prague (hereinafter SUA) , Fund of Ministry of Social Welfare (hereinafter MSP), Ministry of International Affairs - Old registers of 19191944 (hereinafter MV) . Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa (hereinafter PAC) , Immigration Branch (RG 76) , Vol. 198 Consul General of Czechoslovakia, Montreal , Quebec (1922-1940) (File 80671) , Vol. 251 Czechoslovakia, Passports (1924-1939) (File 183211), Vol. 616 Czechoslovaks (File 916207) . �SLOVAKIA 9 1920s .4 This fact accounted for the basis for the final ethnic identification of the newly-formed community in the Canadian environment, and, at the same time, determined the attitudes, and activities of the Czechoslovak Representatives in Canada. The first diplomatic contacts between Czechoslovakia and Canada were established on the consular level in Montreal in November of 1920. Bohuslav K. Ryznar was appointed the first Czechoslovak Consul. The Consulate was subordinated to the Czechoslovak Embassy in London, which corresponded with the arrangements of the relations between London and Ottawa. Despite the urgent request of B . K . Ryznar to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague, the functional designation of the Consulate in Montreal was not changed in the years 1920-1922 . He stressed the fact that "Canada is absolutely a self-governing country, and does not pay any taxes , duties or other allowances to the British Empire to be used by the army or navy. There is no British soldier, and no British warship in the whole territory of the Dominion .. ."5 B. K. Ryznar submitted several arguments to support his request for changing the Montreal office's rank to Consulate General. He suggested that the Governor General of Canada, the federal government, and the ministries in Ottawa entered into contacts only with accredited diplomats on the level of Consuls General. 6 Therefore, lower consular rankings resulted in the absence of contacts and information which, to a great extent, limited the possibility of diplomatic activity. Despite the Consul's assurances that eventual installation of a Consul General would not increase the budget, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague strictly refused the request.7 4 comparing the number of emigrants from Czechoslovakia to Canada during the years 1922-1932 with the number of emigrants from Slovakia for the same period, we have found that 83% were Slovaks, and only 17% were Czechs . If we compared it with the number of inhabitants , the difference would be even more extreme . Statistical Handbook of the Czechoslovak Republic (Vol. 4, Prague , 1932). 5AFMZV, PZ-M, year I 921, No. 19, 27 . 6. 1921. 6With the addition that of all European countries, only Czechoslovakia and Portugal had their Consulates in Canada. AFMZV , PZ-M, year 1921 , No . 9, 17 . 2. 1921 . 7AFMZV , PZ-M, year 1921, No. 10 (B . ve .). �SLOVAKIA In reply to the refusal , the Consul Ryznar again reminded the Ministry of the difficulties connected with the execution of his mission : "The situation looks as if the Prague centre has to seek information on the territory from Brittany to the foot of the Urals, and from Cadiz to Hamerfest, without any auxiliary offices and means" .8 These basic arguments - i. e. the inferior position of the representation , and the large size of Canada - were, for a certain period, the most effective tool in the hands of the Czechoslovak Consul in Canada to be used whenever he was obliged to take a stand , or to characterize some generally valid phenomenon. The taking of such an attitude was under those circumstances understandable. The presence and activity of the first Czechoslovak Consul in Canada represented but the first stage of the Czechoslovak diplomatic activity in Canada, aimed at the gradual acquisition and transmission to the Czechoslovak Government of essential information on anything he considered important, including the care for his own nationals, with special attention paid to immigrants coming to the country. Taking into account the goal of the present essay , it is important to stress first of all the Consul's investigation of the state of the regional community of his fellow-countrymen. This all formed a part of the information sent at the beginning of 1920 to the Political Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague. He characterized it as follows : 11 ••• a colony of Czechoslovak nationals representing over five thousand persons living in the whole Dominion , i. e. an area equal to the extent of the United States of North America ... , it is , however, insufficiently organized, and could not be used as a decisive element to support any political faction .. . Also the interest of the Czechoslovak farmers settled in the province of Saskatchewan are quite different from those of the miners in Nova Scotia, living apart a distance of about four thousand kilometers. It will be very difficult to unify them and to make them act together" _9 It is obvious that recognizing the small numbers in the community provoked both interested parties to consider the further possibi8AFMZV , PZ-M,year 1921 , No . 19, 27. 6. 1921. 9AFMZV , PZ-M , year 1921, No . 2, File No . 10/21. �SLOVAK.IA 11 lities of its growth. These appeared already in 1921 in connection with the increasing interest in emigration from Czechoslovakia, and also with the growing threat of the limitation of immigration by the US Government. Therefore, the future Canadian immigration policy , and especially its relation to Central Europe, became the primary area of interest of the Czechoslovak Consulate in Montreal. The formulation dealing with the diffusion and disorganization of the colony had the hidden agenda of the further activity of the Czechoslovak Consulate - i.e. co-operation with the community in order to unify it as far as its organization is concerned, and, in this way, to shape its future direction. A matter of question, however, was - by which means and in what manner should it be done? The organizational and political attitudes chosen by the consular authorities in relationship to the Slovak community is the principal topic of this essay. The diplomatic communiques themselves contained certain signals in answer to the question because there the community was referred to as a colony of Czechoslovak nationals, without more detailed ethnic identification. Despite the fact that the first impression acquired by the Czechoslovak side from the trends in Canadian immigration policy was not in any way favourable - "the Canadian authorities obstructed the immigrants" 10 - the Consul reported to Prague at the beginning of 1921 that the consular office succeeded in finding some indications of change. Public debates began to mould opinions that, with respect to the growing need for cheap labour, it was necessary to retain the principle of a priority in the selection of immigrants, i. e. not to prefer Britons as the representatives of the "mother country" of Canada, but to permit a bit of benevolence in the selection of the immigrants. 11 It was decided by the Consulate to seize the opportunity immediately. The federal Department of Immigration and Colonization in IOAFMZV, Sec . II ., Reg . 531, File No . 514, 4.2.1921. 11 AFMZV, PZ-M, year 1921, No . 19, an article published in The Montreal Daily Star, 4. 6. 1921 , "Repudiation , Annexation or Population". �12 SLOVAKIA Ottawal 2 was asked in November of 1922 to provide statistical data on the number of Czechoslovak immigrants in Canada, and, at the same time, to inform the Consulate about the willingness of the Canadian government to accept the immigration and settlement of Czechoslovak nationals in Canada,13 This initiative of the Czechoslovak Consul was premature. The department took a very reserved attitude. Its Secretary, F. C. Blair, provided only the requested statistical data, and completely omitted the problem connected with the possibility of immigration from Czechoslovakia. 14 It is, therefore, clear that it was only the Czechoslovak side which initiated and tried to recommend its own citizens as suitable potential immigrants to Canada. Despite the fact that this effort had been ignored, the Consul Ryznar was not discouraged. He went on searching for some sign of permissivness in the Canadian immigration policy towards the Continent and concretely to Central Europe. He tried to convince the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs and also the Ministry of Social Welfare, that he was doing his best to search for possibilities for Slovak applicants for emigration to countries other than to the USA. The Consul constantly tried to find some solution and began to consider the most attractive the idea of the Canadian immigration officials - i. e. to attract peasants, who, unlike the British colonists coming mainly from towns, and again settled in towns in Canada, would be able and willing to farm in Canada, to cutlivate the virgin land, and to revive the economy of the country.15 He saw such a solution in Central Europe. Ryznar had been so encouraged with the possibility of Slovak immigration that he decided at the beginning of 1923 to send another letter to F. C. Blair. He did so in order to get some information about the new policy of settlement being enforced by certain political 12The Department of Immigration and Colonization, an independent Department of the Federal Government, came into existence in 1917 through its separation from the Ministry of the Interior. 13 PAC, RG 76 , Vol. 198, File 80671 , 11. I 1. 1922. 14 PAC, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, 28 . 11.1922. 15 AFMZV, PZ-M, year 1922, No. 7, 4.12 . 1922. �SLOVAKIA 13 circles . His primary goal was, however, again to remind the Canadian government of Czechoslovakia, and its peasantry applying for immigration visas. He stressed in his letter that he had been urged by his own government, and primarily by the Ministry of Social Welfare, which was greatly interested in the possibility of immigration of its citizens to Canada. In another letter he told of the intention of the above-mentioned Ministry to subscribe to the most significant Canadian newspaper in order to receive information on the programme of the settlement of the country, and at the same time to find missing information for numerous applicants for emigration, i.e. the citizens of Czechoslovakia.16 His efforts to attract the attention of the highest authorities of the Canadian Department of Immigration and Colonization brought some results in the end. The Czechoslovak Ministry of Social Welfare was finally put on the list of the addresses of the immigration press being issued by the Department of Immigration and Colonization. 17 Above all, those institutions realised that Czechoslovakia was offering a certain part of its peasantry with the assurance that they certainly would be very suitable future colonists . The explanation of the following could be found in the activity of the Czechoslovak Consulate: when in the autumn of 1923 a great need for a cheap labor force emerged in Canada in connection with the logging of old wood in forests, and its preparation for further processing in sawmills, representing in itself very heavy manual work, the citizens of British or French origin did not want to do it. Therefore, the Department of Immigration and Colonization met the demands of some entrepreneurial circles and agreed with the submitted proposal to obtain suitable lumberjacks in Central Europe . The Minister of Immigration and Colonization personally suggested that sort of labour force be sought in Czechoslovakia. He explained it in the following manner: "based on the information received, applicants for emigration from Czechoslovakia are said to have some experience with agricultural work, and also the prerequisites for 16pAc, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671 , 27 . 2. 1923. 17PAC , RG 76 , Vol. 198 , File 80671 , 7. 3. 1923. �14 SLOVAKIA managing methods used in Canadian agriculture in order to become true Canadian farmers in the end" .1 8 The Consulate was very proud of the results of its diplomatic mission. It interpreted its work in the following, quite inadequate, manner: "The Canadian immigration authorities prefer Czechoslovak nationals because of their good physical condition, honesty and industriousness. They find them excellent colonists , and they would be very glad to receive them" _19 In fact the Canadian authorities permitted workers at the end of 1923 in Czechoslovakia for the Canadian lumbering industry only, with only some five hundred, 20 later increased to a thousand workers. 21 Most of those people were obtained in Slovakia as can be seen in the statistical data of the shipping companies concerning the transporting of over two thousand persons from Slovakia to Canada during that same year.22 Immediately after the arrival of the first post-war contingent of Slovak immigrants, they faced numerous problems . The consulate in February 1924 issued the following message: "Most of those (i. e. immigrants) devoted themselves in the winter season to cutting wood. The living standards in those camps, hundreds of miles from civilization, situated in vast forests , are hardly enviable .. . They work from early morning till late at night. They eat food prepared in a common kitchen and pay for it through the reduction of their salaries. The employer provides workers with clothes and other requisites paid for in the above-mentioned manner. It is obvious that our fellows , knowing neither the language nor the customs , are in an endless wilderness thrown at the mercy of dishonest officials, and some problems had to be solved through the consular authorities with the director or owner of the company in order to ensure their protection" .23 18 PAC, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, 3. 11. 1923. 19.-;;:,UA, , MSP, Reg. 3894, No. 2028 , 2. 6. 1923. 20PAC, RG 76, Vol. 616, File 916207, pt. 1, 18. 10. 1923. 21SUA, MSP, Reg. 3899, File 847, 20. 2. 1924. 22 Statistical Handbook of the Czechoslovak Republic (Vol. 3, Prague, 1928). 23SUA, MSP, Reg. 3899, File 847 , 20.2. 1924. �SLOVAKIA 15 In addition to the difficult position of a part of the Slovak immigrants in lumber camps, there were also other problems . The Canadian authorities offered, in fact only seasonal work. That meant that in the spring of the year 1924, when the season had ended, the immigrants were on their own. A part of them started to drift to Montreal, and other cities, especially those near the American border. It was clear in the end that the first group of post-war immigrants had come to Canada with a clear goal: to get around the restrictive immigration measures imposed by the American authorities, and to get to the United States via Canada,24 where their relatives and friends were already settled. Numerous requests of the immigrants to solve this problem were a heavy burden for the Czechoslovak consular officials .25 All their efforts, however, were useless. At least a one-year stay of the immigrant in Canada was a necessary precondition to receiving a visa to the USA. The situation of the Slovak lumberjacks was very difficult to resolve. The Czechoslovak Consulate tried to avoid growing difficulties caused partly by its own activity. The Czechoslovak authorities were immediately asked to inform passport offices about issuing emigration visas to Canada only to those applicants willing to settle permanently in Canada. 26 In order to stop the growth of further complications, the Consulate again addressed the Department of Immigration and Colonization in Ottawa to provide it with the form, or the text of the agreement usually concluded between the employer and employee.27 The letter also expressed the Government's interest in receiving more detailed information about living conditions of the 1mmigrants in Canada. The highest Canadian authorities answered the letter immediately. They informed the Consulate that neither an agreement form, nor any legislative criteria, existed in Canada for concluding contracts. As far as the securing of certain living standards for immigrants was concerned, living conditions were different in various 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27PAC, RG 76 , Vol. 198 , File 80671 , 16. 4.1924 . �16 SLOVAKIA parts of the country and what was offered was generally considered sufficient. 28 It was too late and quite useless to ask those questions. We know that the Canadian government authorities cared for the problems of their own poorest workers even less than for the Czechoslovak ones, and there was no motivation to help the immigrants, coming without any financial means, and at their own risk. It follows from the above that, at the beginning of 1924, the activity of the Consulate had to orient itself to immigration from Czechoslovakia. It had to decide what to do with people coming from Slovakia with the intention of going to the United States. The chance to get there was only minimal. While the Czechoslovak Consulate was asking the questions, the Slovak League of America, as the cover organization of Slovak immigrants in the USA, took the initiative. Many Slovak immigrants in Canada turned to it with requests for help, because the CanadianSlovak community itself was small in number, lost over the huge territory, and therefore could not support them. In the summer of 1924, the Slovak League sent its delegate to Canada to investigate the situation. Upon his arrival the delegate confirmed the fact that the immigrants had come to Canada with the goal of getting into the USA. At the same time he informed the American-Slovak public that "the prisons on the frontier are full of our people caught when they tried to get to the USA illegally" .29 After receiving that information, the executive of the Slovak League decided to publish information about the hopeless situation of most of the Slovak immigrants in Canada in magazines in Slovakia. 30 Thus a short article published later in numerous Slovak magazines came into being. The text of it was more than meaningful: "The representative of the Slovak League of America who had been sent to Canada reported about a sad group there. Over 12,000 of them are living there and suffer awfully. They cannot find work, and when they get 28PAC , RG 76, Vol. 198 , File 80212 , 25 . 4. 1924. 29 Minutes of the session of the delegates of the Slovak organizations in America organized by the executive of the Slovak League , held in Pittsburgh, Pa ., 18 . December of 1924. In: Slovak v Amerike, 51, No. 37, 2. 3. 1925, p. 3. 3oIbid. �SLOVAKIA 17 it, they have to work in the Canadian virgin forests and are paid only a pittance. Their feet and hands are frost-bitten and some of them even went mad" _31 The disclosure of the irresponsibility of the Czechoslovak and Canadian authorities who had prepared and organized the immigration , upset not only American Slovaks and people in Slovakia, it also affected diplomatic relations between Czechoslovakia and Canada. The Department of Immigration and Colonization in Ottawa was probably informed directly through the British Ambassador in Prague . A letter was immediately sent to the Czechoslovak Consul in Montreal containing - a slightly paraphrased - "anxiety about the fact that the published information on the situation in Canada does not correspond with reality" _32 At the same time Ottawa asked the Consul to inform it about the Slovak League of America. They were mostly interested in whether the organization had a branch in Canada consisting of the proper members, and finally asked the Consul about the alleged problem, i. e. whether he was really informed about a greater number of Slovak immigrants in Canada who had not found work.33 In his answer B. K. Ryznar suggested to the Minister W. J. Egan that the Slovak League of America was a strong organization with half a million members. He assured him, however, that the organization had not had any branch in Canada. 34 As he had not ment to destroy his previous efforts in the field of creating premises for acceptance of immigrants from Czechoslovakia, he to a certain extent negated the arguments of the above-mentioned article, and assured Ottawa that there were not many unemployed Slovaks in Canada. In order not to minimize his duties and problems connected with the execution of his mission, Ryznar mentioned in his letter having heard only about the complaints of the immigrants concerning irregular practices applied by the employers and the labour 3 IE. g. Sloven ska domovina, 7, No. 6, 5. 2. I 925, p. 2. 32 As in Note 29 . 33PAC , RG 76, Vol. 616 , File 916207, pt . I, 10. 2. 1925 . 34Toe Slovak League of America had but one subsidiary in Canada, at Fort William , Ontario, founded in 1916, havi ng one hundred and fifty members. �18 SLOVAKIA agencies, and their attempts to misuse them. His attitude to the whole problem was contrary to the facts .35 The above-mentioned problem had been disturbing to both interested parties, and therefore the Department in Ottawa decided to inform the Czechoslovak authorities in order to elucidate somehow the problems of unemployment and basic social care provided to the Slovak immigrants. The information was , however, only general , covering but the job opportunities offered by Canada to the immigrants . Job opportunities were represented principally by seasonal work for agricultural workers. The number of needed seasonal workers was very difficult to determine ahead of time. The Department cleared up only the problem of the salaries offered. They assured the Czechoslovak authorities that the minimum monthly salary had to be 25 dollars , at the same time admitting even higher wages in case of additional seasonal work.36 But the Czechoslovak authorities wanted to make the problem clear. Therefore, they sent a delegate on a mission to Eastern Canada. He could only confirm the well-known facts about the difficulties of a part of the new Slovak immigrants. The most serious of them represented unemployment on the one hand, and unpaid salaries for work done on the other. The employers, for various reasons, often refused to pay the immigrants. They were sure that it was quite impossible to claim their salaries through the courts, as no service contracts had been concluded with the immigrants. 37 Together with the arrival of a greater number of immigrants, and especially when the lumbering season had ended, a tendency appeared during 1924 among groups of immigrants settling in Montreal to be near the residence of the Czechoslovak Consulate. Growing unemployment was the motive for their concentration. The officials saw the reasons for immigrants remaining in the big cities in their apparent aversion to working on farms, and in their false illusions of 35PAC, RG 76, Vol. 616, File 916207, pt . I, 14.2.1925. 36 PAC, RG 76, Vol. 616, File 916207, pt. I, 26.3.1925. 37SUA, MSP, Reg . 3803, No . 10219, 2.5. 1925. �SLOVAKIA 19 better salaries in cities. The immigrants hoped to find in Montreal an advanced industry, as was the case in cities of the United States .38 Social dislocation, therefore, became the decisive experience of the people. This motivated them during the summer 1924 to support each other through a co-operative association. 39 The forming of the ethnically homogenous Slovak group in Montreal, welded together by common problems, could not be ignored by the Czechoslovak Consul. He reported to Prague in detail about the two Slovaks in Montreal, who strove to establish a "Slovak Benefit Society". He added, however, that their task was very difficult, because of the small and ever-changing number of the Slovaks in Montreal, as most of them were looking for work, and their stay in the city was temporary .40 He also reported on the activity of the Slovak League of America, aimed at the organization of Slovak immigrants in Canada. The League sent its delegate to Montreal to investigate the situation. According to the Consul there was no response to the efforts of that Slovak-American organization in Canada. His opinion was, that the representative of the Slovak League "had not been accepted positively by his fellow-countrymen" _41 It is clear that the associative efforts of the Slovak immigrants were from the very beginning followed very carefully by the Consulate. The fact that the Slovak immigrants had decided to go their own way inspired the Consulate General to act in accordance with its original intention to organize the whole community in Canada, representing several thousand. At the beginning the Consulate tried to control the activity of the newly-formed association of Slovaks in Montreal. The Consul Ryznar, as soon as he arrived in 1920, decided to enter in a most decisive manner into the life of the community. But there was little hope of realizing that because of the originally small 38 Jbid. 39The association was founded by Gabriel Kurdel and F. Capkovic , at the end of 1924, in the first Slovak restaurant in Montreal , named "Tatra" . It was opened by F. Capkovic in the spring of I 924 . From the letter of G . Kurdel to the author dated 8. 12. 1974. (Personal archives of the author) . 40 AFMZ, PZ-M, year 1924, No. 8, 8. 9. 1924. 41 Ibid. �20 SLOVAKIA number of the Slovak immigrants scattered across the vast Canadian lanscape. That all prevented him from managing the situation. Therefore, in his diplomatic agenda, he prudently suggested that the Slovak inhabitants in Canada were not organized as they could not be organized. But, as it is known from the diplomatic agenda of the former Austro-Hungarian Consuls General in Canada, the truth was just opposite. The Slovaks in Canada did organize already at the tum of the 19th and 20th centuries but not in their own associations. They were establishing in Canada numerous branches of American-Slovak associations. This resulted in subordinating them to centres in the USA, thus connecting more tightly the Canadian Slovaks with American ones, rather than the Slovaks living across Canada. With respect to the above-mentioned facts, the Czechoslovak Consul did not consider uniting the Canadian-Slovak community possible. This made him believe in the end that the Slovaks in Canada were not organized at all. The alternative of establishing new associations after World War I was impossible. In 1922 the Consul expressed his attitude in the following manner: "there are not suitable conditions here for establishing Czechoslovak associations" .42 It follows that he really intended to establish not only new associations, but also to make those already existing acquire the status of Czechoslovak ones, i. e. to conform to the Czechoslovak stateforming conception, and to manifest it in concrete organizational forms of their foreign enclave. When it was necessary to explain the reasons preventing him from realizing his plans, the Consul stressed the fact that there was a conflict between his intentions and the Slovak attitude represented by the strong pro-Hungarian orientation of the greatest concentration of the pre-war Slovak immigrants in Fort William, Ontario.43 About six hundred to one thousand and two hundred Slovaks were living there. The pro-Hungarian tendencies of that nationally and organizationally unified group of the Slovak immigrants coming mostly from 4 2SuA . MSP, Reg . 3894, No . 2313, 26. 6. 1922. 43 AFMZ, PZ-M, year 1922, File 36 d, 25.4. 1922. �SLOVAKIA 21 the Orava region - which was in the period before the World War I known as an area nearly untouched by the process of magyarization - "were explained" very simply: those Slovaks had attended Hungarian schools and immigrated to Canada from Hungarian lands. We must add, however, that he, himself, doubted his statements about the pro-Hungarian manifestations of the Fort William Slovaks with the confession about getting his information "second hand" . Later on, he made use of his statements about magyarized Slovaks as a serious obstacle to the enforcement of the Czechoslovak philosophy. He said that the pro-Hungarian tendencies were permanently supported both by former Austro-Hungarian and new Hungarian Consuls in Canada during his journeys across Canada where the Hungarians had lived together with the Slovaks.44 The Czechoslovak Consul made use of that fact. He remarked that he himself as a Consul had not been able to travel along the consular "region" by permission of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs even after his three years' stay in Canada.45 In such a way he brought forward both the "principal", and other, i.e. "technical" cause of his temporary failure in relation to the Slovak community in Canada. We must say, however, that arguments such as the long distances between Montreal and individual Slovak settlements, the absence of contact with them, or surviving pro-Hungarian emotions among regional inhabitants, as well as the existence of no chance to change it, also survived. They could never be used to characterize the newly-forming associations of Slovak immigrants. The consul chose quite a different explanation. As he himself noted in the consular report, he had evaluated the activity of "the Czechoslovak citizens coming from Slovakia". In relationship to the existing foreign-political conception of the unitary Czechoslovak state, and the officialy-accepted theory of the Czechoslovak nation as well, he started to characterize the new associative tendencies of Montreal's Slovaks as the activation of anti-Czech 44 AFMZ, PZ-M , year 1924, No . 6. 11. 11. 1924. 4SAFMZ, PZ-M , year 1923, No. 13. 13 . 12. 1923 . �22 SLOVAKIA ideas, and the spreading of treasonous ideas brought apparently by Slovak immigrants and spread among fellow-countrymen. 46 Characterization of the associative tendencies of the Slovak immigrants in Montreal as anti-Czech, or even treasonous, was naive , and in the end turned against the Consulate itself. The Consulate had immediately to respond, and to eliminate the manifestations of the Slovak separatists represented, and replace them with the associative efforts of helpless immigrants. The Consul was supposed to initiate an unifying processes and make the Slovak immigrants accept their organization with those Czech immigrants who had settled in Montreal long before. It was, however, very difficult to find a proper way to solve the problem. There were only a few Czech immigrants living in Montreal. 47 They were mostly older inhabitants, and besides, they were on a higher social level, with other interests and needs. The Slovaks, meanwhile, were not in the least interested in any sort of social activity, or even "making policy". Therefore even the old traditional and experienced way of ideologically influencing the community, as it was suggested by the Czechoslovak authorities - i. e. to issue a newspaper - was considered inappropriate, and even useless. Migrating Slovaks searching all the time for jobs would not accept any newspaper _48 The following "solution" proved the most suitable one: the Canadian public was informed through an article published in The Montreal Daily Star in December of 1924 about the organization of "the Czechoslovak citizens in order to establish an independent association of Czechoslovak immigrants" .49 When, at the beginning of 1925, B. K. Ryznar finished his diplomatic mission to Canada (from January 1923 he was Consul General) the Montreal Slovak community was already officialy represented by the Czechoslovak 46 AFMZ, PZ-M, year 1924, No. 8. 8.9.1924. 47 Before World War I, thirteen Czech families and one Slovak family lived in Montreal. In: Rybnfcek, A.: "Vzpomfnky starousadlfka." I:udove zvesti, 26, No. 40 , I 9. 10. 1961, p. 14. 48 AFMZ, PZ-M , year 1924, No . 12. 11. 11 . 1924. 4 9"Society formed to aid Czechs . New body will assist immigrants to prosper here". The Montreal Daily Star, 16. 12. 1924 . PAC, RG 76, Vol. 616 , File 916207, pt. I . �SLOVAKIA 23 Benefit Society. An internal conflict existed, however, concerning its name, emerging from time to time with greater or less intensity ,50 as the roots of a sort of natural alliance were missing.51 The beginning of 1925, connected with the end of B. K. Ryznar's diplomatic mission, and the coming of the new Consul General F. V. Kveton, represented a break in the immigration policy of Canada. Thanks to favourable economic-political decisions of the Canadian Government to end the policy of favouring immigrants from Great Britain, psychologically and physically not sufficiently prepared to do hard agricultural work in the Canadian wilderness, resulted in the recruitment of immigrants - mainly peasants - from the Central European region. It was the poor state of the Canadian economy at the beginning of 1925 as mentioned by the federal Parliament of Canada,52 which resulted in the above-mentioned changes in immigration policy. That new alternative was, despite the poor economic situation of Canada, evaluated by the Czechoslovak authorities with great satisfaction. It seemed that the arrival of immigrants would be greatly simplified for the immigrants comming from some "selected European countries, including the Czechoslovak Republic" .53 New workers were expected to revive the Canadian economy. They, however, misunderstood each other. The Canadian politicians saw the solution in further cultivation of land and farms left by the British colonists , thus solving the urgent need for agricultural workers. In fact, most of the applicants for emigration from the 50From a letter of G. Kurdel to the author dated 8. 12. 1974. 51 Canadian immigration policy allowed from Czechoslovakia only agricultural workers. Therefore, the intelligentsia had no place among immigrants (with some few exceptions). It meant that the Slovak community had no natural leaders. Some did develop. Gabriel Kurdel was the most significant one. In connection with the newlyfounded association in Montreal, G. Kurdel in his memoires said that he had informed the new Consul General Kv~ton about existing conflicts in the association. The Consul agreed with the change of the name of the association to a Slovak one. But, according to his memoirs, when he submitted his proposal to the leaders of the association, represented by Czech fellow-countrymen, they commented on it as follows: "It is nonsense". In: Memoirs of G. Kurdel. Phone record from 26. 10. 1977. No. SLK 3023. Archives of the Multicultural History Society of Ontario, Toronto. 52AFMZ, PZ-M, year 1925, No. 5. 7.2.1925. • 53~.:.UA, , MSP, Reg. 3894, File 847, 20. 2. 1924. �24 SLOVAKIA Central European region, including Slovakia, were poor people unable to participate in the Canadian programme of immigration of farming families with some capital. They could only saturate the secondary needs of the workforces , i.e. the agricultural workers on farms. The second alternative attracted primarily those applicants for emigration from Slovakia who were rejected by the United States. The number of those interested was very large. According to officials of the Ministry of Social Welfare in Prague, it was nearly impossible to control the situation. The quota permitted annualy by the Canadian side could not be exceeded. The Canadians succeeded in keeping it low .54 In this way the number of Slovaks in Canada was by the end of the year 1930 increased to some 30 ,000 - 40,000 persons. 55 Czechoslobvak representatives in Montreal protested by means of a Memorandum to Minister Egan aginst the recruitment of workers without appropriate legislative requisites. The Consul stressed in the Memorandum that, according to Czechoslovak emigration law, each of the emigrants should, before their departure , be furnished with a -valid contract with the name of the employer, the location , sort of work, the duration of the employment, as well as the offered wage. 56 In response to the Memorandum, the Canadian Department of Immigration and Colonization considered it its duty to inform the Ministry of Social Welfare in Prague only of the fact that an immigrant - agricultural worker - was to be paid 25 dollars per month with board and lodging.57 Further disputes and legally-unsolved problems were on both sides consulted usually in the following manner: in further similar inter-governmental agreements concerning the emigration and immi- 54Approximately 6,000 to 7,000 persons. 55 Archives of the President's Office, D. 12331/38. Secret message of CS . Consul General dr. F. Pavl~sek to Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague about the situation among Slovaks in Canada, dated 17. 3. 1937. In: Bielik, F.: Sloven ske vys(ahovaleccvo. Dokumency III. Martin, MS 1976, doc. No. 375 . 56PAC, RG. 76, Vol. 616, File 916207 , pt. 1, 23 . 5. 1925 . 57 PAC, RG. 76, Vol. 616, File 916207 , pt. 1, 23 . 5. 1925 . �SLOVAKIA 25 gration , proper attention should be paid to the solution of the problem of concrete labour contracts.58 From the above-mentioned it follows that the period of activity of Consul General F. V. Kveton (during the years 1925-1929) reflected a considerable increase in the community, not only in Montreal or Toronto, but also in other Canadian regions. This was connected with new organizations of the immigration process. The immigrants were placed primarily on the Praires of Canada, with the organizational centre located in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Consul General F. V. Kveton visited that region in 1926. On his journey across Canada he discovered an increase in Slovak colonists despite the fact that he had intended to investigate mainly the Czech settlements. He came to the conclusion that "the Czechoslovak colony" in Canada was in fact the Slovak community. He stressed that fact in his report . Fort William was, according to him , the most significant and stable Slovak city. He estimated that some 1,100 to 1,200 Slovak souls were concentrated there with their own Catholic parish, and a nice church. He said that the Slovaks were working mainly in the port, loading and unloading the ships transporting goods across Lake Ontario, i. e. the inland Canadian "sea". In order to verify known opinions of his diplomatic predecessor concerning the pro-Hungarian orientation of Fort William Slovaks, he asked not only the old inhabitants , but post-war ones too. He came to the following conclusion: the community as a whole takes an autonomous attitude towards the solution of the problem of the constitutional position of Slovakia within the Czechoslovak Republic. The city of Winnipeg in Manitoba, as the destination place of his journey, was characterized as the biggest Czech settlement in Canada, with some four hundred souls, represented primarily by tailors and shoemakers. The Consul General stressed , however, the other function of Winnipeg. It was used as the "winter station" to retire in after the agricultural season on farms was over. His own opinions shifted into a different position because of having obtained new facts about the community. The Consul started 58s(JA, MV, Reg. 1015, No. 6980/1925. �26 SLOVAKIA to respond to the demands of older emigrants concerning education and national culture. He explained his attempt to the Czechoslovak authorities by the need to preserve national consciousness. He asked for the delivery of Slovak books for Montreal and Fort William, and above all, for a Slovak teacher for approximately two hundred school-aged children in Fort William.59 Thanks to the new consular representative, the Czechoslovak authorities were in 1926 forced to return to the problem of the social position of the Slovak immigrants. At first they started to investigate the chances of immigrants to obtain farms. Ottawa was asked questions about the place to obtain certain capital loans if an immigrant intended to do private farming.6() The federal Ministry did not intend to answer the question. The Consul was asked to address the responsible institutions, and first of all the Secretary of the Association of Canadian Bankers 61 who had offered him information on the existence of credit permitted by the Government in 1926 to be used exclusively for the purchase of agricultural land, the construction of houses, and affiliated buildings, for the purchase of cattle, irrigation systems, construction, etc.62 Despite a positive answer, no references were found in the archives referring to the use of that aid by Slovak immigrants. Because of those circumstances, the arrival of the two delegates from Czechoslovakia was a matter of question. They were invited by the Canadian Pacific Railway to investigate local conditions for settlement of independent families with some capital. Research has shown that there were only a few solvent families leaving Slovakia for Canada. Therefore, the information offered by the host company was quite useless for ordinary Slovak immigrants.63 Another delegate of the Ministry of Social Welfare offered to the interested Ministries information about his journey to Canada in the spring 1927 . He considered the position of Slovak agricultural workers as gene59S(JA, MSP, Reg. 3894, No. 6588. 6()PAC, RG . 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, 10. 6. 1926. 61PAC, RG . 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, I 7. 6. 1926. 62SCJA, MSP, Reg . 3965, 2782/26. 63SCJA, MV, Reg . 1015, 498/1927. �SLOVAKIA 27 rally bad. He presented the following facts: they were working without any contract between them and their employers, and thrown on the mercy of the farmers. Above all, they were working without any health or accident insurance. No such insurance existed in Canada. Only Railways and larger industries had their own insurance systems. The afflicted immigrant could be protected only through a benefit society of fellow-countrymen, or by Canadian charity institutions. 64 When the Consulate had intervened in the Canadian Department it was offered a long list of the agencies and associations entitled to protecting the interests of immigrants in Canada.65 During the following year quite different opinions appeared among fellow-countrymen, evaluating the situation of Slovak immigrants. Some of them had strongly criticized their position because they had to be regularly aided through the Slovak League of America. Others were satisfied, pointing to those individuals living in Canada for a long time who became rich. The most objective evaluation, however, resulted from the latest information gathered during the years 1924-1927. It was as follows: "Fellow-countrymen are not for the time being doing well" _66 Evidence about it was provided by the Czechoslovak Consulate in Canada in a document published in Slovak newspapers. The title of the mentioned article was "Information for Those Emigrating to Canada" .67 It analysed the social conditions of Slovak immigrants in Canada, considered them to be insufficient, thus preventing others from making the decision to leave for Canada to work. The intention to get through Canada to the USA was considered nonsense. There were many profiteers promising to get people secretly over the borders to the USA, extorting their last money. The Consulate warned people because the promises had been false. Those profiteers were interested only in their hard-earned money. 64 SUA, MV, Reg . 1015, No . 27464/1927, 11.4. 1927. 65 S0A, MSP, Reg . 3965 , File 6849/1927, 28. 12. 1927. 66 Kopac, A.: "Ako sa zije na~fm v Kanade?", I:udova politika, 3, 1927, p. 3. 67 Narodnie noviny, 58., No . 50, 29. 4. 1927 , p. 3. No . 207, 15. 9. �28 SLOVAKIA Despite those facts, the Consul Kveton sent in the summer of 1928 an optimistic report to Prague about enough job opportunities, and that there was no unemployment among the immigrants. 68 He was, however, undoubtly conscious of the fact that critical situations were emerging after seasonal work was over, i.e. during the longlasting winter. It was almost the same by the end of the year 1928 . The unemployed started, as usual, to concentrate in Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, and other cities. That concentration resulted in great associative activity. Consular reports paid special attention primarily to the activity of the Slovak League of America, which had succeeded in establishing its subsidiaries in Canada in the years 1927 and 1928 (in Toronto and Montreal, and a year before also in Winnipeg). For most Slovak immigrants in Canada membership in those organizations was quite necessary, because they had been aiding them in case of illnesses, or accidents. However, the activity of the Slovak League did not correspond with the above-mentioned intentions of the Czechoslovak Consulate. The Committee for Emigration was immediately addressed with urgent demands for the Government to provide some financial aid to the co-operative association in Montreal to cover its activities. 69 Such procedures did not surprise anybody. Once again the original arguments were used about the Slovaks looking for locations with older settlements of their fellow-countrymen, and gradually losing their interest in the idea of the so-called Czechoslovak nationality _?O That private opinion of the informer was in strong contradiction with the tendencies of the Slovak League being known with its identification with the Slovak autonomy programme during the inter-war years. The League was popular among the immigrants, especially for its co-operative function. The situation, however, got worse as the years went on. Unemployment was increasing, and as a result, a new phenomenon ap68S(JA , MSP, Reg. 3965, 30.11.1928 . 69S(JA, MSP, Reg . 3966, No . 21443, 28 .6.1928 . 7oIbid. �SLOVAKIA 29 peared in the diplomatic agenda as early as the winter of 1929-1930 . It concerned the deportation of Czechoslovak nationals from Canada. According to existing Canadian law a man who, during the first five years of his arrival in Canada applied for, or was provided with some public finacial aid, was considered an undesirable person, not able to conform to Canadian conditions. Such a person was to be deported to his mother country .7 1 The situation between the two countries worsened. There were frequent controversies between them. Many of the persons to be deported by the Canadians were ill or even incapacitated, either physically or psychically, and there were also criminals among them. Finally, the Czechoslovak authorities refused to accept those individuals who had not had, after a ten years' stay in Canada, re-established their Czechoslovak citizenship, or had not requested an extension of the validity of the right of domicle abroad. It is very difficult to find an accurate count of such persons,72 but they were often mentioned in diplomatic reports. It is obvious that this situation resulted from the economic crisis which broke out in 1929. The Depression affected the immigrants as never before. Besides increasing unemployment, the crisis meant also a significant reduction of the immigration quota for Czechoslovakia to two thousand people a year. This uncompromising procedure of the immigration authorities irritated the Czechoslovak Consulate so much that the Consul addressed Ottawa with an open protest. It follows from his report, sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague, that he was discussing the problem with Deputy Minister Egan in Ottawa. The Consul considered the quota unfair, and even offensive, for Czechoslovakia. The reaction of the Canadian Minister to that invective was related the Czechoslovak Minister of Foreign Affairs as follows: the Deputy Minister said that "if only the immigrants from Bohemia and Moravia were concerned, 71SuA , MSP, Reg. 4029, No. 4310-36. 72 PAC, RG 76 , Vol. 251 , File 183211. �30 SLOVAKIA the whole situation would have been quite different, but there was only a minimum percentage of immigrants coming those regions" .73 At the beginning of 1930 K. Kveton was ending his diplomatic mission in Montreal , and was replaced by the new Consul-General, K. Moser. The attitude of the Canadian public and the immigration authorities as well, towards the immigration policy became even more hostile . Finally, in August of 1930 immigration from Czechoslovakia was halted. Public opinion accused the Government of having caused both the crisis, and the unemployment, too, due to its rather "benevolent" immigration policy, mainly in the second half of the 1920s. According to this opinion, the labour market was saturated, resulting in unexpected problems. No improvement in the field of employment occured even after spring work had started. The situation was the same even during the harvest. Farmers were so cutting back on wages that it became quite unprofitable to travel for work to the prairie provincies. Therefore the new Consul Moser reported to Prague in June of 1930 that: "don't let the emigrants come here under these circumstances, as they would only have travel expenses and _a temporary stay here" .74 Thus the hot issue of a part of the diplomatic agenda, represented by the immigration policy, disappeared from it at the beginning of the 1930s. A natural consequence of that was only sporadic contacts between the Czechoslovak Consulate and the Federal Department for Immigration and Colonization. Due to the restriction of immigration, the Federal Department had given up its original position, and importance as well, and beginning with the year 1936 started to function as the Immigration Branch of the Federal Department of Mines and Resources. Unemployment and deportations represented the most serious problem of the period of the economic crisis. Therefo- 73 SUA, MSP, Reg. 3990, 6. 2. 1929. It is necessary to add that the Canadian Government limited or stopped immigration from the entire continent of Europe, of course except for families with some capital, or wives and children of those already settled in Canada, In: an article "Immigration from Europe is Stopped" . The Gazette, Montreal, 16. 8. 1930. 74<'1, .:>UA, MSP, Reg . 3990, No. 6921, 3. 6. 1930. �SLOVAKIA 31 re, the Czechoslovak Consulate paid special attention to the internal i.e. social, associative, and political life of the Slovak community. When in 1930 the Director of the Czechoslovak Institute of Foreign Affairs in Prague V. Tlapak went on a study-tour to Canada, he could only confirm the well-known facts about numerous unemployed immigrants who would like to return to their native land, if only they could. Many of them did not earn enough money to pay the travel expences for the journey back home . He found many examples of those who worked only to cover their daily food costs.7 5 The first to sense the impact of the Depression were farm workers . Having come to Canada in the second half of the 1920s, these people were not accepted in Canada with special favour. The crisis made their position quite unbearable. The Federal Government, trying to solve the situation as best as it would, created a programme of emergency works. Nearly every province "drew" the unemployed from the cities and organized in the country so-called labour camps. Especially the young unemployed did such beneficial work as reconstruction of roads, cultivation of natural parks, etc. No Slovaks took part in it, according to diplomatic reports. In January of 1932 Consul Moser reported to Prague that unemployment was not decreasing at all, but on the contrary, it was gradually increasing. 76 Not only the immigamts who were agricultural workers had problems. Even some better-situated individuals had problems. In spite of the fact that some of the immigrants had succeded in getting land, they had to leave the farms as they were not able to pay off the mortgage.77 Deportations became the accompanying phenomenon of unemployment. Canada resorted to that unpleasant measure in order to shake off the burden of the persons who were not able to care for themselves.7 8 There were many Slovak immigrants among them. Consul General Moser, in his effort to somehow protect the interests 75 SDA, MSP , Reg . 4019, No . 3751/30, 29.11.1930. 76AFMzv, PZ-M, year 1932, No. 3, 27 .. 1. 1932. 77 SUA, MSP , Reg . 3990, No. 4105 - 32. 78 vystehovalecky zpravodaj Ministerstva socialnf pece , Vol. 2, 20. 5. 1932 , p. 19 . �32 SLOVAKIA of the immigrants, sent a complaint to Ottawa in August of 1932, stressing the fact that Canada was deporting immigrants too late, because most of them were in such a bad situation that they could not wait the two-to-three months for the departure. Therefore, he asked the Department to deport them as early as possible.79 The Department in Ottawa answered that they had a huge list of those waiting for deportation, and in any case could not make the deportation process quicker, especially due to the limited capacity of the ships departing from Montreal. 80 Even in January 1934 the consular materials contained information about unemployed immigrants who, for three years, had hopelessly waited for deportation. Therefore, some of them illegaly left for the USA, only to be caught, and in such way to be more quickly deported (after a two-to-three months stay in prison) to Czechoslovakia.81 By the end of 1935 the Consul suggested that things were going better and visits to the Consulate were rare. At the same time he reported that numerous immigrants had succeded in finding some work in construction, mines and forests, while others had returned to Czechosloyakia. 82 It does not mean, however, that he automatically considered an improvement in the field of employment a symptom of the restoration of the immigration process, or the release of the restrictions imposed on immigration policy. The only exception was that concerning the possibility of immigration of some peasant families with a capital of $1,000 - $2,000. Even under those circumstances the Consul considered the immigration of well-off individuals more than disputable. He reasoned in the following way: If the applicant for immigration to Canada sells in Czechoslovakia his whole property to get the necessary financial means, it will be enough only to invest in uncultivated land. Very hard work will follow the purchase, with the results coming in most cases too late. 79PAC, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, I. 8. 1932. 80PAC, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, 20. 8.1932. 8lx, .:>UA, MSP, Reg. 4029, 12. I. 1934. 82X' .:>UA, MSP, Reg. 4029, 27.1.1936. �SLOVAKIA 33 This will make the immigrant fail , which often will result in his deportation. 83 It has been stated already that no other event influenced the Slovak community so much as the Depression. The immigration process of the second half of the 1920s was practically halted and the number of immigrants in the community was relatively stabilized (representing some 30,000 Slovaks, and about 1,000 Czechs). During the period preceding the crisis , the community was insufficiently organized. It was lacking in leaders, preachers, teachers, and schools. During the crisis the community was more active, and even more radical. Some new associations were founded. Ethnic consciousness was also activated. This resulted in a rapid decrease in their interest and willingness to co-operate in so-called Czechoslovak: associations. The activity of the benefit society in Montreal was nearly halted. 84 The Consulate notified Prague of the revival of autonomist tendencies, illustrating it with the fact that the First Slovak Benefit Society came into existence in Western Canada. More seriously, he considered the fact that there were being established numerous subsidiaries of the American-Slovak: associations with centers situated in the USA. He noticed, however, the great disappointment among the Canadian members because their funds had been delivered to the USA, thus not sufficiently meeting their needs. Finally, some of the members met in Winnipeg, Manitoba to reach a decision about leaving the American-Slovak: Association in order to found their own Canadian-Slovak: one. 85 The newly established Canadian Slovak League, together with the newspaper Slovak v Kanade, were by Consul Moser characterized as the principal representatives of the autonomist flow in the Slovak community, with the addition, that the same opinion was shared by the First Catholic Slovak Union in Canada. When F. Pavlasek took up his consular mission in Canada, he came to the conclusion that Slovaks were against the Czechs because 83SDA , MSP, Reg. 4029, 19. 8.1936. 84AFMZV, Section II., Reg . 492, No . 6787, I. 10. 1932. 85 SDA, MSP , Reg . 4029 . Periodical Report of the Immigration Branch , IV . quart. 1932. �34 SLOVAKIA of their motto "Slovakia for the Slovaks" .86 According to the new Consul General, the immigrants transfered from Slovakia to Canada many of Andrej Hlinka's ideas. Their attitudes were enforced both due to the American Slovak influences, and the agitation about the Pittsburgh Agreement. The fact that the Slovaks represented the poorest layers of the inhabitants of Canada, and belonged often to the unemployed, resulted in some being attracted to Marxism. The Consul discovered that in Montreal some four hundred persons were concentrating around the Slovak newspaper Robotnfcke slovo. The Consul Pavlasek characterized the group as quite compatible and devoted to their common ideal. At the same time he stressed the fact that the magazine was doing well and had a lot of symphatizers, in spite of the fact that many of them were not organized in the Association at all .87 Finally, in 1934 he characterized the community as politically split between the autonomists, autonomist communists, and those loyal to democratic Czechoslovakia. He considered it the result of the differentiation process which occured during the Depression. The autonomist communists were originally Czechoslovaks but had split in 1936 into Czechs and Slovaks. He tried to contact the different groups . "At first I tried to attract the conservative Catholic associations (the parish of Saints Cyril and Methodius) but without any success ... When I saw that the door for my activity among autonomists was shut for a certain period, I turned to less radical workers in order to build up co-operation between them and a middle democratic group. The result, however, was much the same ... 11 88 The Consul came to the conclusion that comunists triumphed during the crisis because they had exploited unemployment for establishing new associations. Among them were Czechoslovak Worker Education Clubs, the Slovak Workmen's Association, The International Workmen's Association, etc. They had numerous sym86AFMZV, Section II ., Reg. 531, 18.7.1934. 87 Ibid. 88 As in Note 55. �SLOVAKIA 35 pathizers among the common people. They improved the financial state of their associations, and a quality newspaper as well. In other words, they were very succesfuI. 89 The Consul Pavlasek stressed the intensity of communist propaganda among their fellow-countrymen in 1936. At the same time he noticed the fact that the propaganda could not be discounted, and in spite of the fact that it had been the result of a long-term Depression, it was spreading very rapidly, and fellow-countrymen were accepting it.90 Already in 1937 the Consul Pavlasek.was very pessimistic: "The position of this office is extremely difficult, because we have nobody to lean on. There are only a few Czechs here, and they are mostly assimilated, and a majority of them have withdrawn from public life due to permanent attacks". The fact that the Slovak community rejected Czechoslovakism nearly 'en bloc', he characterized as follows: "loyal Czechoslovak thinking, ever respecting the democracy and the Czechoslovak national unity, represents in some colonies but a minority", at the same time he added that the Czechs had arrived in Canada already before World War I, and they had been living there for two or three generations. They had been greatly assimililated, because the second generation had been educated in the Canadian manner. Finally, he expressed his "sad" conclusion that he himself, as well as the Consulate, were permanently attacked by the autonomists, and communists as well. It meant that the Consulate was to a great extent isolated from the Slovak community as a whole, in spite of the latter's internal ideological differentiation. In other words, the Consulate's mission was unsuccesful - it failed completely to unify the Czecho-Slovak nationals in Canada. Therefore, its arguments, formulated in 1937, suggesting that "everything must be done to keep the consciousness of Czechoslovak national unity in spite of the protests and demonstrations of the autonomist circles", were in vain.9 1 89SuA , MSP , Reg. 4029 , 25 . 10. 1935 . 90SuA, MSP, Reg . 4029 , 13.5 . 1937 . 91 As in note 88. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1991-92, Vol. 35 Description An account of the resource Vol. 35 (No. 64-65), 1991-92. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Slovak League of America Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available 1991-92 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SLOVAKIA 7 Slovak Emigrants in Canada as Reflected in Diplomatic Documents (1920 - 1938) ELENA JAKESOVA Slovak emigration to Canada - not taking into account the European continental migration - can be considered one of the strongest and most significant of all of the Slovak migrations during the inter-war period. Great numbers of Slovaks moved to Canada across the Antlantic to earn some money, especially in the second half of the 1920s. 1 The inter-war years, however, represented only its second stage, because Slovaks had started to leave for the United States as early as the 1870s. The 1920s witnessed only a change in destination. The United States of America, which in 1920 contained about 620,000 Slovaks, halted that mass emigration. When the continuity of the traditional emigration had been broken partly in the year 1921, and definitely in the year 1924, the search for an alternative solution of the problem did not take long. The immigrants saw in Canada's common frontier with the United States the possibility of emigration south in the future. Therefore, Canada became in the second half of the twenties "the second chance", a kind of alternative destination of the Slovak emigrants in spite of the fact that in comparison with the USA there 1 Shipping companies transported from Slovakia to Canada in 1922 110 persons, in 1923 2029 , in 1924 2832, in 1925 2134 , in 1926 6066 , in 1927 6301 , in 1928 8184 , in 1929 4116 , in 1930 3586, in 1931 730, in 1932 522, in 1933 673 , in 1934 851, in 1935 742 , in 1936 716. Statistical Handbook of the Czechoslovak Republic (Vol. 4, Prague, 1932) and in Statistical Yearbook of the Czechoslovak Republic (Prague 1934 , 1935, 1936, 1937) . 8 SLOVAKIA were not many reasons to look for opportunities for employment on its territory. In the period up to World War I, Canada attracted only about 5,000 Slovaks. 2 As early as the beginning of the 1920s it appeared that Canada could become the alternative overseas country of destination of Slovak emigrants. That alternative began to attract not only applicants for emigration passports in Slovakia but also Czecho-Slovak diplomats, and their representatives in Canada. In elucidating the development of the stated tendency, and its impact, we chose a series of diplomatic documents, representing the activities of the Czechoslovak consulate in Montreal in the years 1920-1938 as the basis of the following essay . The most significant are those documents which give special attention to the process of emigration. The subjects of the correspondence of the Czechoslovak Consulate in Montreal were the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Social Welfare in Prague, and the Canadian Department of Immigration and Colonization in Ottawa.3 The Goals of this essay are limited. I will focus only on those aspects of the topic falling into the competence, tasks and activities of the Czechoslovak representatives in Canada. In consequence of the pro-emigration attitudes of the Czechoslovak government, two basic trends will coincide: Canadian immigration policy, and the development of the Slovak community in Canada. Slovak nationals represented the vast majority of all the people involved in the process of Czechoslovak emigration, especialy in the second half of the 2 Message of the Austro-Hungarian Consulate General in Montreal, IO December, I 902 to Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Vienna . Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv Wien, F 15, File 62, deliv . 27 December, 1902. 3 sources: Archives of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs , Prague (hereinafter only AFMZV), Political reports - Montreal (1920- I 938) (hereinafter PZ-M) , and Section II. National Archives, Prague (hereinafter SUA) , Fund of Ministry of Social Welfare (hereinafter MSP), Ministry of International Affairs - Old registers of 19191944 (hereinafter MV) . Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa (hereinafter PAC) , Immigration Branch (RG 76) , Vol. 198 Consul General of Czechoslovakia, Montreal , Quebec (1922-1940) (File 80671) , Vol. 251 Czechoslovakia, Passports (1924-1939) (File 183211), Vol. 616 Czechoslovaks (File 916207) . SLOVAKIA 9 1920s .4 This fact accounted for the basis for the final ethnic identification of the newly-formed community in the Canadian environment, and, at the same time, determined the attitudes, and activities of the Czechoslovak Representatives in Canada. The first diplomatic contacts between Czechoslovakia and Canada were established on the consular level in Montreal in November of 1920. Bohuslav K. Ryznar was appointed the first Czechoslovak Consul. The Consulate was subordinated to the Czechoslovak Embassy in London, which corresponded with the arrangements of the relations between London and Ottawa. Despite the urgent request of B . K . Ryznar to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague, the functional designation of the Consulate in Montreal was not changed in the years 1920-1922 . He stressed the fact that "Canada is absolutely a self-governing country, and does not pay any taxes , duties or other allowances to the British Empire to be used by the army or navy. There is no British soldier, and no British warship in the whole territory of the Dominion .. ."5 B. K. Ryznar submitted several arguments to support his request for changing the Montreal office's rank to Consulate General. He suggested that the Governor General of Canada, the federal government, and the ministries in Ottawa entered into contacts only with accredited diplomats on the level of Consuls General. 6 Therefore, lower consular rankings resulted in the absence of contacts and information which, to a great extent, limited the possibility of diplomatic activity. Despite the Consul's assurances that eventual installation of a Consul General would not increase the budget, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague strictly refused the request.7 4 comparing the number of emigrants from Czechoslovakia to Canada during the years 1922-1932 with the number of emigrants from Slovakia for the same period, we have found that 83% were Slovaks, and only 17% were Czechs . If we compared it with the number of inhabitants , the difference would be even more extreme . Statistical Handbook of the Czechoslovak Republic (Vol. 4, Prague , 1932). 5AFMZV, PZ-M, year I 921, No. 19, 27 . 6. 1921. 6With the addition that of all European countries, only Czechoslovakia and Portugal had their Consulates in Canada. AFMZV , PZ-M, year 1921 , No . 9, 17 . 2. 1921 . 7AFMZV , PZ-M, year 1921, No. 10 (B . ve .). SLOVAKIA In reply to the refusal , the Consul Ryznar again reminded the Ministry of the difficulties connected with the execution of his mission : "The situation looks as if the Prague centre has to seek information on the territory from Brittany to the foot of the Urals, and from Cadiz to Hamerfest, without any auxiliary offices and means" .8 These basic arguments - i. e. the inferior position of the representation , and the large size of Canada - were, for a certain period, the most effective tool in the hands of the Czechoslovak Consul in Canada to be used whenever he was obliged to take a stand , or to characterize some generally valid phenomenon. The taking of such an attitude was under those circumstances understandable. The presence and activity of the first Czechoslovak Consul in Canada represented but the first stage of the Czechoslovak diplomatic activity in Canada, aimed at the gradual acquisition and transmission to the Czechoslovak Government of essential information on anything he considered important, including the care for his own nationals, with special attention paid to immigrants coming to the country. Taking into account the goal of the present essay , it is important to stress first of all the Consul's investigation of the state of the regional community of his fellow-countrymen. This all formed a part of the information sent at the beginning of 1920 to the Political Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague. He characterized it as follows : 11 ••• a colony of Czechoslovak nationals representing over five thousand persons living in the whole Dominion , i. e. an area equal to the extent of the United States of North America ... , it is , however, insufficiently organized, and could not be used as a decisive element to support any political faction .. . Also the interest of the Czechoslovak farmers settled in the province of Saskatchewan are quite different from those of the miners in Nova Scotia, living apart a distance of about four thousand kilometers. It will be very difficult to unify them and to make them act together" _9 It is obvious that recognizing the small numbers in the community provoked both interested parties to consider the further possibi8AFMZV , PZ-M,year 1921 , No . 19, 27. 6. 1921. 9AFMZV , PZ-M , year 1921, No . 2, File No . 10/21. SLOVAK.IA 11 lities of its growth. These appeared already in 1921 in connection with the increasing interest in emigration from Czechoslovakia, and also with the growing threat of the limitation of immigration by the US Government. Therefore, the future Canadian immigration policy , and especially its relation to Central Europe, became the primary area of interest of the Czechoslovak Consulate in Montreal. The formulation dealing with the diffusion and disorganization of the colony had the hidden agenda of the further activity of the Czechoslovak Consulate - i.e. co-operation with the community in order to unify it as far as its organization is concerned, and, in this way, to shape its future direction. A matter of question, however, was - by which means and in what manner should it be done? The organizational and political attitudes chosen by the consular authorities in relationship to the Slovak community is the principal topic of this essay. The diplomatic communiques themselves contained certain signals in answer to the question because there the community was referred to as a colony of Czechoslovak nationals, without more detailed ethnic identification. Despite the fact that the first impression acquired by the Czechoslovak side from the trends in Canadian immigration policy was not in any way favourable - "the Canadian authorities obstructed the immigrants" 10 - the Consul reported to Prague at the beginning of 1921 that the consular office succeeded in finding some indications of change. Public debates began to mould opinions that, with respect to the growing need for cheap labour, it was necessary to retain the principle of a priority in the selection of immigrants, i. e. not to prefer Britons as the representatives of the "mother country" of Canada, but to permit a bit of benevolence in the selection of the immigrants. 11 It was decided by the Consulate to seize the opportunity immediately. The federal Department of Immigration and Colonization in IOAFMZV, Sec . II ., Reg . 531, File No . 514, 4.2.1921. 11 AFMZV, PZ-M, year 1921, No . 19, an article published in The Montreal Daily Star, 4. 6. 1921 , "Repudiation , Annexation or Population". 12 SLOVAKIA Ottawal 2 was asked in November of 1922 to provide statistical data on the number of Czechoslovak immigrants in Canada, and, at the same time, to inform the Consulate about the willingness of the Canadian government to accept the immigration and settlement of Czechoslovak nationals in Canada,13 This initiative of the Czechoslovak Consul was premature. The department took a very reserved attitude. Its Secretary, F. C. Blair, provided only the requested statistical data, and completely omitted the problem connected with the possibility of immigration from Czechoslovakia. 14 It is, therefore, clear that it was only the Czechoslovak side which initiated and tried to recommend its own citizens as suitable potential immigrants to Canada. Despite the fact that this effort had been ignored, the Consul Ryznar was not discouraged. He went on searching for some sign of permissivness in the Canadian immigration policy towards the Continent and concretely to Central Europe. He tried to convince the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs and also the Ministry of Social Welfare, that he was doing his best to search for possibilities for Slovak applicants for emigration to countries other than to the USA. The Consul constantly tried to find some solution and began to consider the most attractive the idea of the Canadian immigration officials - i. e. to attract peasants, who, unlike the British colonists coming mainly from towns, and again settled in towns in Canada, would be able and willing to farm in Canada, to cutlivate the virgin land, and to revive the economy of the country.15 He saw such a solution in Central Europe. Ryznar had been so encouraged with the possibility of Slovak immigration that he decided at the beginning of 1923 to send another letter to F. C. Blair. He did so in order to get some information about the new policy of settlement being enforced by certain political 12The Department of Immigration and Colonization, an independent Department of the Federal Government, came into existence in 1917 through its separation from the Ministry of the Interior. 13 PAC, RG 76 , Vol. 198, File 80671 , 11. I 1. 1922. 14 PAC, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, 28 . 11.1922. 15 AFMZV, PZ-M, year 1922, No. 7, 4.12 . 1922. SLOVAKIA 13 circles . His primary goal was, however, again to remind the Canadian government of Czechoslovakia, and its peasantry applying for immigration visas. He stressed in his letter that he had been urged by his own government, and primarily by the Ministry of Social Welfare, which was greatly interested in the possibility of immigration of its citizens to Canada. In another letter he told of the intention of the above-mentioned Ministry to subscribe to the most significant Canadian newspaper in order to receive information on the programme of the settlement of the country, and at the same time to find missing information for numerous applicants for emigration, i.e. the citizens of Czechoslovakia.16 His efforts to attract the attention of the highest authorities of the Canadian Department of Immigration and Colonization brought some results in the end. The Czechoslovak Ministry of Social Welfare was finally put on the list of the addresses of the immigration press being issued by the Department of Immigration and Colonization. 17 Above all, those institutions realised that Czechoslovakia was offering a certain part of its peasantry with the assurance that they certainly would be very suitable future colonists . The explanation of the following could be found in the activity of the Czechoslovak Consulate: when in the autumn of 1923 a great need for a cheap labor force emerged in Canada in connection with the logging of old wood in forests, and its preparation for further processing in sawmills, representing in itself very heavy manual work, the citizens of British or French origin did not want to do it. Therefore, the Department of Immigration and Colonization met the demands of some entrepreneurial circles and agreed with the submitted proposal to obtain suitable lumberjacks in Central Europe . The Minister of Immigration and Colonization personally suggested that sort of labour force be sought in Czechoslovakia. He explained it in the following manner: "based on the information received, applicants for emigration from Czechoslovakia are said to have some experience with agricultural work, and also the prerequisites for 16pAc, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671 , 27 . 2. 1923. 17PAC , RG 76 , Vol. 198 , File 80671 , 7. 3. 1923. 14 SLOVAKIA managing methods used in Canadian agriculture in order to become true Canadian farmers in the end" .1 8 The Consulate was very proud of the results of its diplomatic mission. It interpreted its work in the following, quite inadequate, manner: "The Canadian immigration authorities prefer Czechoslovak nationals because of their good physical condition, honesty and industriousness. They find them excellent colonists , and they would be very glad to receive them" _19 In fact the Canadian authorities permitted workers at the end of 1923 in Czechoslovakia for the Canadian lumbering industry only, with only some five hundred, 20 later increased to a thousand workers. 21 Most of those people were obtained in Slovakia as can be seen in the statistical data of the shipping companies concerning the transporting of over two thousand persons from Slovakia to Canada during that same year.22 Immediately after the arrival of the first post-war contingent of Slovak immigrants, they faced numerous problems . The consulate in February 1924 issued the following message: "Most of those (i. e. immigrants) devoted themselves in the winter season to cutting wood. The living standards in those camps, hundreds of miles from civilization, situated in vast forests , are hardly enviable .. . They work from early morning till late at night. They eat food prepared in a common kitchen and pay for it through the reduction of their salaries. The employer provides workers with clothes and other requisites paid for in the above-mentioned manner. It is obvious that our fellows , knowing neither the language nor the customs , are in an endless wilderness thrown at the mercy of dishonest officials, and some problems had to be solved through the consular authorities with the director or owner of the company in order to ensure their protection" .23 18 PAC, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, 3. 11. 1923. 19.-;;:,UA, , MSP, Reg. 3894, No. 2028 , 2. 6. 1923. 20PAC, RG 76, Vol. 616, File 916207, pt. 1, 18. 10. 1923. 21SUA, MSP, Reg. 3899, File 847, 20. 2. 1924. 22 Statistical Handbook of the Czechoslovak Republic (Vol. 3, Prague, 1928). 23SUA, MSP, Reg. 3899, File 847 , 20.2. 1924. SLOVAKIA 15 In addition to the difficult position of a part of the Slovak immigrants in lumber camps, there were also other problems . The Canadian authorities offered, in fact only seasonal work. That meant that in the spring of the year 1924, when the season had ended, the immigrants were on their own. A part of them started to drift to Montreal, and other cities, especially those near the American border. It was clear in the end that the first group of post-war immigrants had come to Canada with a clear goal: to get around the restrictive immigration measures imposed by the American authorities, and to get to the United States via Canada,24 where their relatives and friends were already settled. Numerous requests of the immigrants to solve this problem were a heavy burden for the Czechoslovak consular officials .25 All their efforts, however, were useless. At least a one-year stay of the immigrant in Canada was a necessary precondition to receiving a visa to the USA. The situation of the Slovak lumberjacks was very difficult to resolve. The Czechoslovak Consulate tried to avoid growing difficulties caused partly by its own activity. The Czechoslovak authorities were immediately asked to inform passport offices about issuing emigration visas to Canada only to those applicants willing to settle permanently in Canada. 26 In order to stop the growth of further complications, the Consulate again addressed the Department of Immigration and Colonization in Ottawa to provide it with the form, or the text of the agreement usually concluded between the employer and employee.27 The letter also expressed the Government's interest in receiving more detailed information about living conditions of the 1mmigrants in Canada. The highest Canadian authorities answered the letter immediately. They informed the Consulate that neither an agreement form, nor any legislative criteria, existed in Canada for concluding contracts. As far as the securing of certain living standards for immigrants was concerned, living conditions were different in various 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27PAC, RG 76 , Vol. 198 , File 80671 , 16. 4.1924 . 16 SLOVAKIA parts of the country and what was offered was generally considered sufficient. 28 It was too late and quite useless to ask those questions. We know that the Canadian government authorities cared for the problems of their own poorest workers even less than for the Czechoslovak ones, and there was no motivation to help the immigrants, coming without any financial means, and at their own risk. It follows from the above that, at the beginning of 1924, the activity of the Consulate had to orient itself to immigration from Czechoslovakia. It had to decide what to do with people coming from Slovakia with the intention of going to the United States. The chance to get there was only minimal. While the Czechoslovak Consulate was asking the questions, the Slovak League of America, as the cover organization of Slovak immigrants in the USA, took the initiative. Many Slovak immigrants in Canada turned to it with requests for help, because the CanadianSlovak community itself was small in number, lost over the huge territory, and therefore could not support them. In the summer of 1924, the Slovak League sent its delegate to Canada to investigate the situation. Upon his arrival the delegate confirmed the fact that the immigrants had come to Canada with the goal of getting into the USA. At the same time he informed the American-Slovak public that "the prisons on the frontier are full of our people caught when they tried to get to the USA illegally" .29 After receiving that information, the executive of the Slovak League decided to publish information about the hopeless situation of most of the Slovak immigrants in Canada in magazines in Slovakia. 30 Thus a short article published later in numerous Slovak magazines came into being. The text of it was more than meaningful: "The representative of the Slovak League of America who had been sent to Canada reported about a sad group there. Over 12,000 of them are living there and suffer awfully. They cannot find work, and when they get 28PAC , RG 76, Vol. 198 , File 80212 , 25 . 4. 1924. 29 Minutes of the session of the delegates of the Slovak organizations in America organized by the executive of the Slovak League , held in Pittsburgh, Pa ., 18 . December of 1924. In: Slovak v Amerike, 51, No. 37, 2. 3. 1925, p. 3. 3oIbid. SLOVAKIA 17 it, they have to work in the Canadian virgin forests and are paid only a pittance. Their feet and hands are frost-bitten and some of them even went mad" _31 The disclosure of the irresponsibility of the Czechoslovak and Canadian authorities who had prepared and organized the immigration , upset not only American Slovaks and people in Slovakia, it also affected diplomatic relations between Czechoslovakia and Canada. The Department of Immigration and Colonization in Ottawa was probably informed directly through the British Ambassador in Prague . A letter was immediately sent to the Czechoslovak Consul in Montreal containing - a slightly paraphrased - "anxiety about the fact that the published information on the situation in Canada does not correspond with reality" _32 At the same time Ottawa asked the Consul to inform it about the Slovak League of America. They were mostly interested in whether the organization had a branch in Canada consisting of the proper members, and finally asked the Consul about the alleged problem, i. e. whether he was really informed about a greater number of Slovak immigrants in Canada who had not found work.33 In his answer B. K. Ryznar suggested to the Minister W. J. Egan that the Slovak League of America was a strong organization with half a million members. He assured him, however, that the organization had not had any branch in Canada. 34 As he had not ment to destroy his previous efforts in the field of creating premises for acceptance of immigrants from Czechoslovakia, he to a certain extent negated the arguments of the above-mentioned article, and assured Ottawa that there were not many unemployed Slovaks in Canada. In order not to minimize his duties and problems connected with the execution of his mission, Ryznar mentioned in his letter having heard only about the complaints of the immigrants concerning irregular practices applied by the employers and the labour 3 IE. g. Sloven ska domovina, 7, No. 6, 5. 2. I 925, p. 2. 32 As in Note 29 . 33PAC , RG 76, Vol. 616 , File 916207, pt . I, 10. 2. 1925 . 34Toe Slovak League of America had but one subsidiary in Canada, at Fort William , Ontario, founded in 1916, havi ng one hundred and fifty members. 18 SLOVAKIA agencies, and their attempts to misuse them. His attitude to the whole problem was contrary to the facts .35 The above-mentioned problem had been disturbing to both interested parties, and therefore the Department in Ottawa decided to inform the Czechoslovak authorities in order to elucidate somehow the problems of unemployment and basic social care provided to the Slovak immigrants. The information was , however, only general , covering but the job opportunities offered by Canada to the immigrants . Job opportunities were represented principally by seasonal work for agricultural workers. The number of needed seasonal workers was very difficult to determine ahead of time. The Department cleared up only the problem of the salaries offered. They assured the Czechoslovak authorities that the minimum monthly salary had to be 25 dollars , at the same time admitting even higher wages in case of additional seasonal work.36 But the Czechoslovak authorities wanted to make the problem clear. Therefore, they sent a delegate on a mission to Eastern Canada. He could only confirm the well-known facts about the difficulties of a part of the new Slovak immigrants. The most serious of them represented unemployment on the one hand, and unpaid salaries for work done on the other. The employers, for various reasons, often refused to pay the immigrants. They were sure that it was quite impossible to claim their salaries through the courts, as no service contracts had been concluded with the immigrants. 37 Together with the arrival of a greater number of immigrants, and especially when the lumbering season had ended, a tendency appeared during 1924 among groups of immigrants settling in Montreal to be near the residence of the Czechoslovak Consulate. Growing unemployment was the motive for their concentration. The officials saw the reasons for immigrants remaining in the big cities in their apparent aversion to working on farms, and in their false illusions of 35PAC, RG 76, Vol. 616, File 916207, pt . I, 14.2.1925. 36 PAC, RG 76, Vol. 616, File 916207, pt. I, 26.3.1925. 37SUA, MSP, Reg . 3803, No . 10219, 2.5. 1925. SLOVAKIA 19 better salaries in cities. The immigrants hoped to find in Montreal an advanced industry, as was the case in cities of the United States .38 Social dislocation, therefore, became the decisive experience of the people. This motivated them during the summer 1924 to support each other through a co-operative association. 39 The forming of the ethnically homogenous Slovak group in Montreal, welded together by common problems, could not be ignored by the Czechoslovak Consul. He reported to Prague in detail about the two Slovaks in Montreal, who strove to establish a "Slovak Benefit Society". He added, however, that their task was very difficult, because of the small and ever-changing number of the Slovaks in Montreal, as most of them were looking for work, and their stay in the city was temporary .40 He also reported on the activity of the Slovak League of America, aimed at the organization of Slovak immigrants in Canada. The League sent its delegate to Montreal to investigate the situation. According to the Consul there was no response to the efforts of that Slovak-American organization in Canada. His opinion was, that the representative of the Slovak League "had not been accepted positively by his fellow-countrymen" _41 It is clear that the associative efforts of the Slovak immigrants were from the very beginning followed very carefully by the Consulate. The fact that the Slovak immigrants had decided to go their own way inspired the Consulate General to act in accordance with its original intention to organize the whole community in Canada, representing several thousand. At the beginning the Consulate tried to control the activity of the newly-formed association of Slovaks in Montreal. The Consul Ryznar, as soon as he arrived in 1920, decided to enter in a most decisive manner into the life of the community. But there was little hope of realizing that because of the originally small 38 Jbid. 39The association was founded by Gabriel Kurdel and F. Capkovic , at the end of 1924, in the first Slovak restaurant in Montreal , named "Tatra" . It was opened by F. Capkovic in the spring of I 924 . From the letter of G . Kurdel to the author dated 8. 12. 1974. (Personal archives of the author) . 40 AFMZ, PZ-M, year 1924, No. 8, 8. 9. 1924. 41 Ibid. 20 SLOVAKIA number of the Slovak immigrants scattered across the vast Canadian lanscape. That all prevented him from managing the situation. Therefore, in his diplomatic agenda, he prudently suggested that the Slovak inhabitants in Canada were not organized as they could not be organized. But, as it is known from the diplomatic agenda of the former Austro-Hungarian Consuls General in Canada, the truth was just opposite. The Slovaks in Canada did organize already at the tum of the 19th and 20th centuries but not in their own associations. They were establishing in Canada numerous branches of American-Slovak associations. This resulted in subordinating them to centres in the USA, thus connecting more tightly the Canadian Slovaks with American ones, rather than the Slovaks living across Canada. With respect to the above-mentioned facts, the Czechoslovak Consul did not consider uniting the Canadian-Slovak community possible. This made him believe in the end that the Slovaks in Canada were not organized at all. The alternative of establishing new associations after World War I was impossible. In 1922 the Consul expressed his attitude in the following manner: "there are not suitable conditions here for establishing Czechoslovak associations" .42 It follows that he really intended to establish not only new associations, but also to make those already existing acquire the status of Czechoslovak ones, i. e. to conform to the Czechoslovak stateforming conception, and to manifest it in concrete organizational forms of their foreign enclave. When it was necessary to explain the reasons preventing him from realizing his plans, the Consul stressed the fact that there was a conflict between his intentions and the Slovak attitude represented by the strong pro-Hungarian orientation of the greatest concentration of the pre-war Slovak immigrants in Fort William, Ontario.43 About six hundred to one thousand and two hundred Slovaks were living there. The pro-Hungarian tendencies of that nationally and organizationally unified group of the Slovak immigrants coming mostly from 4 2SuA . MSP, Reg . 3894, No . 2313, 26. 6. 1922. 43 AFMZ, PZ-M, year 1922, File 36 d, 25.4. 1922. SLOVAKIA 21 the Orava region - which was in the period before the World War I known as an area nearly untouched by the process of magyarization - "were explained" very simply: those Slovaks had attended Hungarian schools and immigrated to Canada from Hungarian lands. We must add, however, that he, himself, doubted his statements about the pro-Hungarian manifestations of the Fort William Slovaks with the confession about getting his information "second hand" . Later on, he made use of his statements about magyarized Slovaks as a serious obstacle to the enforcement of the Czechoslovak philosophy. He said that the pro-Hungarian tendencies were permanently supported both by former Austro-Hungarian and new Hungarian Consuls in Canada during his journeys across Canada where the Hungarians had lived together with the Slovaks.44 The Czechoslovak Consul made use of that fact. He remarked that he himself as a Consul had not been able to travel along the consular "region" by permission of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs even after his three years' stay in Canada.45 In such a way he brought forward both the "principal", and other, i.e. "technical" cause of his temporary failure in relation to the Slovak community in Canada. We must say, however, that arguments such as the long distances between Montreal and individual Slovak settlements, the absence of contact with them, or surviving pro-Hungarian emotions among regional inhabitants, as well as the existence of no chance to change it, also survived. They could never be used to characterize the newly-forming associations of Slovak immigrants. The consul chose quite a different explanation. As he himself noted in the consular report, he had evaluated the activity of "the Czechoslovak citizens coming from Slovakia". In relationship to the existing foreign-political conception of the unitary Czechoslovak state, and the officialy-accepted theory of the Czechoslovak nation as well, he started to characterize the new associative tendencies of Montreal's Slovaks as the activation of anti-Czech 44 AFMZ, PZ-M , year 1924, No . 6. 11. 11. 1924. 4SAFMZ, PZ-M , year 1923, No. 13. 13 . 12. 1923 . 22 SLOVAKIA ideas, and the spreading of treasonous ideas brought apparently by Slovak immigrants and spread among fellow-countrymen. 46 Characterization of the associative tendencies of the Slovak immigrants in Montreal as anti-Czech, or even treasonous, was naive , and in the end turned against the Consulate itself. The Consulate had immediately to respond, and to eliminate the manifestations of the Slovak separatists represented, and replace them with the associative efforts of helpless immigrants. The Consul was supposed to initiate an unifying processes and make the Slovak immigrants accept their organization with those Czech immigrants who had settled in Montreal long before. It was, however, very difficult to find a proper way to solve the problem. There were only a few Czech immigrants living in Montreal. 47 They were mostly older inhabitants, and besides, they were on a higher social level, with other interests and needs. The Slovaks, meanwhile, were not in the least interested in any sort of social activity, or even "making policy". Therefore even the old traditional and experienced way of ideologically influencing the community, as it was suggested by the Czechoslovak authorities - i. e. to issue a newspaper - was considered inappropriate, and even useless. Migrating Slovaks searching all the time for jobs would not accept any newspaper _48 The following "solution" proved the most suitable one: the Canadian public was informed through an article published in The Montreal Daily Star in December of 1924 about the organization of "the Czechoslovak citizens in order to establish an independent association of Czechoslovak immigrants" .49 When, at the beginning of 1925, B. K. Ryznar finished his diplomatic mission to Canada (from January 1923 he was Consul General) the Montreal Slovak community was already officialy represented by the Czechoslovak 46 AFMZ, PZ-M, year 1924, No. 8. 8.9.1924. 47 Before World War I, thirteen Czech families and one Slovak family lived in Montreal. In: Rybnfcek, A.: "Vzpomfnky starousadlfka." I:udove zvesti, 26, No. 40 , I 9. 10. 1961, p. 14. 48 AFMZ, PZ-M , year 1924, No . 12. 11. 11 . 1924. 4 9"Society formed to aid Czechs . New body will assist immigrants to prosper here". The Montreal Daily Star, 16. 12. 1924 . PAC, RG 76, Vol. 616 , File 916207, pt. I . SLOVAKIA 23 Benefit Society. An internal conflict existed, however, concerning its name, emerging from time to time with greater or less intensity ,50 as the roots of a sort of natural alliance were missing.51 The beginning of 1925, connected with the end of B. K. Ryznar's diplomatic mission, and the coming of the new Consul General F. V. Kveton, represented a break in the immigration policy of Canada. Thanks to favourable economic-political decisions of the Canadian Government to end the policy of favouring immigrants from Great Britain, psychologically and physically not sufficiently prepared to do hard agricultural work in the Canadian wilderness, resulted in the recruitment of immigrants - mainly peasants - from the Central European region. It was the poor state of the Canadian economy at the beginning of 1925 as mentioned by the federal Parliament of Canada,52 which resulted in the above-mentioned changes in immigration policy. That new alternative was, despite the poor economic situation of Canada, evaluated by the Czechoslovak authorities with great satisfaction. It seemed that the arrival of immigrants would be greatly simplified for the immigrants comming from some "selected European countries, including the Czechoslovak Republic" .53 New workers were expected to revive the Canadian economy. They, however, misunderstood each other. The Canadian politicians saw the solution in further cultivation of land and farms left by the British colonists , thus solving the urgent need for agricultural workers. In fact, most of the applicants for emigration from the 50From a letter of G. Kurdel to the author dated 8. 12. 1974. 51 Canadian immigration policy allowed from Czechoslovakia only agricultural workers. Therefore, the intelligentsia had no place among immigrants (with some few exceptions). It meant that the Slovak community had no natural leaders. Some did develop. Gabriel Kurdel was the most significant one. In connection with the newlyfounded association in Montreal, G. Kurdel in his memoires said that he had informed the new Consul General Kv~ton about existing conflicts in the association. The Consul agreed with the change of the name of the association to a Slovak one. But, according to his memoirs, when he submitted his proposal to the leaders of the association, represented by Czech fellow-countrymen, they commented on it as follows: "It is nonsense". In: Memoirs of G. Kurdel. Phone record from 26. 10. 1977. No. SLK 3023. Archives of the Multicultural History Society of Ontario, Toronto. 52AFMZ, PZ-M, year 1925, No. 5. 7.2.1925. • 53~.:.UA, , MSP, Reg. 3894, File 847, 20. 2. 1924. 24 SLOVAKIA Central European region, including Slovakia, were poor people unable to participate in the Canadian programme of immigration of farming families with some capital. They could only saturate the secondary needs of the workforces , i.e. the agricultural workers on farms. The second alternative attracted primarily those applicants for emigration from Slovakia who were rejected by the United States. The number of those interested was very large. According to officials of the Ministry of Social Welfare in Prague, it was nearly impossible to control the situation. The quota permitted annualy by the Canadian side could not be exceeded. The Canadians succeeded in keeping it low .54 In this way the number of Slovaks in Canada was by the end of the year 1930 increased to some 30 ,000 - 40,000 persons. 55 Czechoslobvak representatives in Montreal protested by means of a Memorandum to Minister Egan aginst the recruitment of workers without appropriate legislative requisites. The Consul stressed in the Memorandum that, according to Czechoslovak emigration law, each of the emigrants should, before their departure , be furnished with a -valid contract with the name of the employer, the location , sort of work, the duration of the employment, as well as the offered wage. 56 In response to the Memorandum, the Canadian Department of Immigration and Colonization considered it its duty to inform the Ministry of Social Welfare in Prague only of the fact that an immigrant - agricultural worker - was to be paid 25 dollars per month with board and lodging.57 Further disputes and legally-unsolved problems were on both sides consulted usually in the following manner: in further similar inter-governmental agreements concerning the emigration and immi- 54Approximately 6,000 to 7,000 persons. 55 Archives of the President's Office, D. 12331/38. Secret message of CS . Consul General dr. F. Pavl~sek to Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague about the situation among Slovaks in Canada, dated 17. 3. 1937. In: Bielik, F.: Sloven ske vys(ahovaleccvo. Dokumency III. Martin, MS 1976, doc. No. 375 . 56PAC, RG. 76, Vol. 616, File 916207 , pt. 1, 23 . 5. 1925 . 57 PAC, RG. 76, Vol. 616, File 916207 , pt. 1, 23 . 5. 1925 . SLOVAKIA 25 gration , proper attention should be paid to the solution of the problem of concrete labour contracts.58 From the above-mentioned it follows that the period of activity of Consul General F. V. Kveton (during the years 1925-1929) reflected a considerable increase in the community, not only in Montreal or Toronto, but also in other Canadian regions. This was connected with new organizations of the immigration process. The immigrants were placed primarily on the Praires of Canada, with the organizational centre located in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Consul General F. V. Kveton visited that region in 1926. On his journey across Canada he discovered an increase in Slovak colonists despite the fact that he had intended to investigate mainly the Czech settlements. He came to the conclusion that "the Czechoslovak colony" in Canada was in fact the Slovak community. He stressed that fact in his report . Fort William was, according to him , the most significant and stable Slovak city. He estimated that some 1,100 to 1,200 Slovak souls were concentrated there with their own Catholic parish, and a nice church. He said that the Slovaks were working mainly in the port, loading and unloading the ships transporting goods across Lake Ontario, i. e. the inland Canadian "sea". In order to verify known opinions of his diplomatic predecessor concerning the pro-Hungarian orientation of Fort William Slovaks, he asked not only the old inhabitants , but post-war ones too. He came to the following conclusion: the community as a whole takes an autonomous attitude towards the solution of the problem of the constitutional position of Slovakia within the Czechoslovak Republic. The city of Winnipeg in Manitoba, as the destination place of his journey, was characterized as the biggest Czech settlement in Canada, with some four hundred souls, represented primarily by tailors and shoemakers. The Consul General stressed , however, the other function of Winnipeg. It was used as the "winter station" to retire in after the agricultural season on farms was over. His own opinions shifted into a different position because of having obtained new facts about the community. The Consul started 58s(JA, MV, Reg. 1015, No. 6980/1925. 26 SLOVAKIA to respond to the demands of older emigrants concerning education and national culture. He explained his attempt to the Czechoslovak authorities by the need to preserve national consciousness. He asked for the delivery of Slovak books for Montreal and Fort William, and above all, for a Slovak teacher for approximately two hundred school-aged children in Fort William.59 Thanks to the new consular representative, the Czechoslovak authorities were in 1926 forced to return to the problem of the social position of the Slovak immigrants. At first they started to investigate the chances of immigrants to obtain farms. Ottawa was asked questions about the place to obtain certain capital loans if an immigrant intended to do private farming.6() The federal Ministry did not intend to answer the question. The Consul was asked to address the responsible institutions, and first of all the Secretary of the Association of Canadian Bankers 61 who had offered him information on the existence of credit permitted by the Government in 1926 to be used exclusively for the purchase of agricultural land, the construction of houses, and affiliated buildings, for the purchase of cattle, irrigation systems, construction, etc.62 Despite a positive answer, no references were found in the archives referring to the use of that aid by Slovak immigrants. Because of those circumstances, the arrival of the two delegates from Czechoslovakia was a matter of question. They were invited by the Canadian Pacific Railway to investigate local conditions for settlement of independent families with some capital. Research has shown that there were only a few solvent families leaving Slovakia for Canada. Therefore, the information offered by the host company was quite useless for ordinary Slovak immigrants.63 Another delegate of the Ministry of Social Welfare offered to the interested Ministries information about his journey to Canada in the spring 1927 . He considered the position of Slovak agricultural workers as gene59S(JA, MSP, Reg. 3894, No. 6588. 6()PAC, RG . 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, 10. 6. 1926. 61PAC, RG . 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, I 7. 6. 1926. 62SCJA, MSP, Reg . 3965, 2782/26. 63SCJA, MV, Reg . 1015, 498/1927. SLOVAKIA 27 rally bad. He presented the following facts: they were working without any contract between them and their employers, and thrown on the mercy of the farmers. Above all, they were working without any health or accident insurance. No such insurance existed in Canada. Only Railways and larger industries had their own insurance systems. The afflicted immigrant could be protected only through a benefit society of fellow-countrymen, or by Canadian charity institutions. 64 When the Consulate had intervened in the Canadian Department it was offered a long list of the agencies and associations entitled to protecting the interests of immigrants in Canada.65 During the following year quite different opinions appeared among fellow-countrymen, evaluating the situation of Slovak immigrants. Some of them had strongly criticized their position because they had to be regularly aided through the Slovak League of America. Others were satisfied, pointing to those individuals living in Canada for a long time who became rich. The most objective evaluation, however, resulted from the latest information gathered during the years 1924-1927. It was as follows: "Fellow-countrymen are not for the time being doing well" _66 Evidence about it was provided by the Czechoslovak Consulate in Canada in a document published in Slovak newspapers. The title of the mentioned article was "Information for Those Emigrating to Canada" .67 It analysed the social conditions of Slovak immigrants in Canada, considered them to be insufficient, thus preventing others from making the decision to leave for Canada to work. The intention to get through Canada to the USA was considered nonsense. There were many profiteers promising to get people secretly over the borders to the USA, extorting their last money. The Consulate warned people because the promises had been false. Those profiteers were interested only in their hard-earned money. 64 SUA, MV, Reg . 1015, No . 27464/1927, 11.4. 1927. 65 S0A, MSP, Reg . 3965 , File 6849/1927, 28. 12. 1927. 66 Kopac, A.: "Ako sa zije na~fm v Kanade?", I:udova politika, 3, 1927, p. 3. 67 Narodnie noviny, 58., No . 50, 29. 4. 1927 , p. 3. No . 207, 15. 9. 28 SLOVAKIA Despite those facts, the Consul Kveton sent in the summer of 1928 an optimistic report to Prague about enough job opportunities, and that there was no unemployment among the immigrants. 68 He was, however, undoubtly conscious of the fact that critical situations were emerging after seasonal work was over, i.e. during the longlasting winter. It was almost the same by the end of the year 1928 . The unemployed started, as usual, to concentrate in Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, and other cities. That concentration resulted in great associative activity. Consular reports paid special attention primarily to the activity of the Slovak League of America, which had succeeded in establishing its subsidiaries in Canada in the years 1927 and 1928 (in Toronto and Montreal, and a year before also in Winnipeg). For most Slovak immigrants in Canada membership in those organizations was quite necessary, because they had been aiding them in case of illnesses, or accidents. However, the activity of the Slovak League did not correspond with the above-mentioned intentions of the Czechoslovak Consulate. The Committee for Emigration was immediately addressed with urgent demands for the Government to provide some financial aid to the co-operative association in Montreal to cover its activities. 69 Such procedures did not surprise anybody. Once again the original arguments were used about the Slovaks looking for locations with older settlements of their fellow-countrymen, and gradually losing their interest in the idea of the so-called Czechoslovak nationality _?O That private opinion of the informer was in strong contradiction with the tendencies of the Slovak League being known with its identification with the Slovak autonomy programme during the inter-war years. The League was popular among the immigrants, especially for its co-operative function. The situation, however, got worse as the years went on. Unemployment was increasing, and as a result, a new phenomenon ap68S(JA , MSP, Reg. 3965, 30.11.1928 . 69S(JA, MSP, Reg . 3966, No . 21443, 28 .6.1928 . 7oIbid. SLOVAKIA 29 peared in the diplomatic agenda as early as the winter of 1929-1930 . It concerned the deportation of Czechoslovak nationals from Canada. According to existing Canadian law a man who, during the first five years of his arrival in Canada applied for, or was provided with some public finacial aid, was considered an undesirable person, not able to conform to Canadian conditions. Such a person was to be deported to his mother country .7 1 The situation between the two countries worsened. There were frequent controversies between them. Many of the persons to be deported by the Canadians were ill or even incapacitated, either physically or psychically, and there were also criminals among them. Finally, the Czechoslovak authorities refused to accept those individuals who had not had, after a ten years' stay in Canada, re-established their Czechoslovak citizenship, or had not requested an extension of the validity of the right of domicle abroad. It is very difficult to find an accurate count of such persons,72 but they were often mentioned in diplomatic reports. It is obvious that this situation resulted from the economic crisis which broke out in 1929. The Depression affected the immigrants as never before. Besides increasing unemployment, the crisis meant also a significant reduction of the immigration quota for Czechoslovakia to two thousand people a year. This uncompromising procedure of the immigration authorities irritated the Czechoslovak Consulate so much that the Consul addressed Ottawa with an open protest. It follows from his report, sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague, that he was discussing the problem with Deputy Minister Egan in Ottawa. The Consul considered the quota unfair, and even offensive, for Czechoslovakia. The reaction of the Canadian Minister to that invective was related the Czechoslovak Minister of Foreign Affairs as follows: the Deputy Minister said that "if only the immigrants from Bohemia and Moravia were concerned, 71SuA , MSP, Reg. 4029, No. 4310-36. 72 PAC, RG 76 , Vol. 251 , File 183211. 30 SLOVAKIA the whole situation would have been quite different, but there was only a minimum percentage of immigrants coming those regions" .73 At the beginning of 1930 K. Kveton was ending his diplomatic mission in Montreal , and was replaced by the new Consul-General, K. Moser. The attitude of the Canadian public and the immigration authorities as well, towards the immigration policy became even more hostile . Finally, in August of 1930 immigration from Czechoslovakia was halted. Public opinion accused the Government of having caused both the crisis, and the unemployment, too, due to its rather "benevolent" immigration policy, mainly in the second half of the 1920s. According to this opinion, the labour market was saturated, resulting in unexpected problems. No improvement in the field of employment occured even after spring work had started. The situation was the same even during the harvest. Farmers were so cutting back on wages that it became quite unprofitable to travel for work to the prairie provincies. Therefore the new Consul Moser reported to Prague in June of 1930 that: "don't let the emigrants come here under these circumstances, as they would only have travel expenses and _a temporary stay here" .74 Thus the hot issue of a part of the diplomatic agenda, represented by the immigration policy, disappeared from it at the beginning of the 1930s. A natural consequence of that was only sporadic contacts between the Czechoslovak Consulate and the Federal Department for Immigration and Colonization. Due to the restriction of immigration, the Federal Department had given up its original position, and importance as well, and beginning with the year 1936 started to function as the Immigration Branch of the Federal Department of Mines and Resources. Unemployment and deportations represented the most serious problem of the period of the economic crisis. Therefo- 73 SUA, MSP, Reg. 3990, 6. 2. 1929. It is necessary to add that the Canadian Government limited or stopped immigration from the entire continent of Europe, of course except for families with some capital, or wives and children of those already settled in Canada, In: an article "Immigration from Europe is Stopped" . The Gazette, Montreal, 16. 8. 1930. 74<'1, .:>UA, MSP, Reg . 3990, No. 6921, 3. 6. 1930. SLOVAKIA 31 re, the Czechoslovak Consulate paid special attention to the internal i.e. social, associative, and political life of the Slovak community. When in 1930 the Director of the Czechoslovak Institute of Foreign Affairs in Prague V. Tlapak went on a study-tour to Canada, he could only confirm the well-known facts about numerous unemployed immigrants who would like to return to their native land, if only they could. Many of them did not earn enough money to pay the travel expences for the journey back home . He found many examples of those who worked only to cover their daily food costs.7 5 The first to sense the impact of the Depression were farm workers . Having come to Canada in the second half of the 1920s, these people were not accepted in Canada with special favour. The crisis made their position quite unbearable. The Federal Government, trying to solve the situation as best as it would, created a programme of emergency works. Nearly every province "drew" the unemployed from the cities and organized in the country so-called labour camps. Especially the young unemployed did such beneficial work as reconstruction of roads, cultivation of natural parks, etc. No Slovaks took part in it, according to diplomatic reports. In January of 1932 Consul Moser reported to Prague that unemployment was not decreasing at all, but on the contrary, it was gradually increasing. 76 Not only the immigamts who were agricultural workers had problems. Even some better-situated individuals had problems. In spite of the fact that some of the immigrants had succeded in getting land, they had to leave the farms as they were not able to pay off the mortgage.77 Deportations became the accompanying phenomenon of unemployment. Canada resorted to that unpleasant measure in order to shake off the burden of the persons who were not able to care for themselves.7 8 There were many Slovak immigrants among them. Consul General Moser, in his effort to somehow protect the interests 75 SDA, MSP , Reg . 4019, No . 3751/30, 29.11.1930. 76AFMzv, PZ-M, year 1932, No. 3, 27 .. 1. 1932. 77 SUA, MSP , Reg . 3990, No. 4105 - 32. 78 vystehovalecky zpravodaj Ministerstva socialnf pece , Vol. 2, 20. 5. 1932 , p. 19 . 32 SLOVAKIA of the immigrants, sent a complaint to Ottawa in August of 1932, stressing the fact that Canada was deporting immigrants too late, because most of them were in such a bad situation that they could not wait the two-to-three months for the departure. Therefore, he asked the Department to deport them as early as possible.79 The Department in Ottawa answered that they had a huge list of those waiting for deportation, and in any case could not make the deportation process quicker, especially due to the limited capacity of the ships departing from Montreal. 80 Even in January 1934 the consular materials contained information about unemployed immigrants who, for three years, had hopelessly waited for deportation. Therefore, some of them illegaly left for the USA, only to be caught, and in such way to be more quickly deported (after a two-to-three months stay in prison) to Czechoslovakia.81 By the end of 1935 the Consul suggested that things were going better and visits to the Consulate were rare. At the same time he reported that numerous immigrants had succeded in finding some work in construction, mines and forests, while others had returned to Czechosloyakia. 82 It does not mean, however, that he automatically considered an improvement in the field of employment a symptom of the restoration of the immigration process, or the release of the restrictions imposed on immigration policy. The only exception was that concerning the possibility of immigration of some peasant families with a capital of $1,000 - $2,000. Even under those circumstances the Consul considered the immigration of well-off individuals more than disputable. He reasoned in the following way: If the applicant for immigration to Canada sells in Czechoslovakia his whole property to get the necessary financial means, it will be enough only to invest in uncultivated land. Very hard work will follow the purchase, with the results coming in most cases too late. 79PAC, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, I. 8. 1932. 80PAC, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, 20. 8.1932. 8lx, .:>UA, MSP, Reg. 4029, 12. I. 1934. 82X' .:>UA, MSP, Reg. 4029, 27.1.1936. SLOVAKIA 33 This will make the immigrant fail , which often will result in his deportation. 83 It has been stated already that no other event influenced the Slovak community so much as the Depression. The immigration process of the second half of the 1920s was practically halted and the number of immigrants in the community was relatively stabilized (representing some 30,000 Slovaks, and about 1,000 Czechs). During the period preceding the crisis , the community was insufficiently organized. It was lacking in leaders, preachers, teachers, and schools. During the crisis the community was more active, and even more radical. Some new associations were founded. Ethnic consciousness was also activated. This resulted in a rapid decrease in their interest and willingness to co-operate in so-called Czechoslovak: associations. The activity of the benefit society in Montreal was nearly halted. 84 The Consulate notified Prague of the revival of autonomist tendencies, illustrating it with the fact that the First Slovak Benefit Society came into existence in Western Canada. More seriously, he considered the fact that there were being established numerous subsidiaries of the American-Slovak: associations with centers situated in the USA. He noticed, however, the great disappointment among the Canadian members because their funds had been delivered to the USA, thus not sufficiently meeting their needs. Finally, some of the members met in Winnipeg, Manitoba to reach a decision about leaving the American-Slovak: Association in order to found their own Canadian-Slovak: one. 85 The newly established Canadian Slovak League, together with the newspaper Slovak v Kanade, were by Consul Moser characterized as the principal representatives of the autonomist flow in the Slovak community, with the addition, that the same opinion was shared by the First Catholic Slovak Union in Canada. When F. Pavlasek took up his consular mission in Canada, he came to the conclusion that Slovaks were against the Czechs because 83SDA , MSP, Reg. 4029, 19. 8.1936. 84AFMZV, Section II., Reg . 492, No . 6787, I. 10. 1932. 85 SDA, MSP , Reg . 4029 . Periodical Report of the Immigration Branch , IV . quart. 1932. 34 SLOVAKIA of their motto "Slovakia for the Slovaks" .86 According to the new Consul General, the immigrants transfered from Slovakia to Canada many of Andrej Hlinka's ideas. Their attitudes were enforced both due to the American Slovak influences, and the agitation about the Pittsburgh Agreement. The fact that the Slovaks represented the poorest layers of the inhabitants of Canada, and belonged often to the unemployed, resulted in some being attracted to Marxism. The Consul discovered that in Montreal some four hundred persons were concentrating around the Slovak newspaper Robotnfcke slovo. The Consul Pavlasek characterized the group as quite compatible and devoted to their common ideal. At the same time he stressed the fact that the magazine was doing well and had a lot of symphatizers, in spite of the fact that many of them were not organized in the Association at all .87 Finally, in 1934 he characterized the community as politically split between the autonomists, autonomist communists, and those loyal to democratic Czechoslovakia. He considered it the result of the differentiation process which occured during the Depression. The autonomist communists were originally Czechoslovaks but had split in 1936 into Czechs and Slovaks. He tried to contact the different groups . "At first I tried to attract the conservative Catholic associations (the parish of Saints Cyril and Methodius) but without any success ... When I saw that the door for my activity among autonomists was shut for a certain period, I turned to less radical workers in order to build up co-operation between them and a middle democratic group. The result, however, was much the same ... 11 88 The Consul came to the conclusion that comunists triumphed during the crisis because they had exploited unemployment for establishing new associations. Among them were Czechoslovak Worker Education Clubs, the Slovak Workmen's Association, The International Workmen's Association, etc. They had numerous sym86AFMZV, Section II ., Reg. 531, 18.7.1934. 87 Ibid. 88 As in Note 55. SLOVAKIA 35 pathizers among the common people. They improved the financial state of their associations, and a quality newspaper as well. In other words, they were very succesfuI. 89 The Consul Pavlasek stressed the intensity of communist propaganda among their fellow-countrymen in 1936. At the same time he noticed the fact that the propaganda could not be discounted, and in spite of the fact that it had been the result of a long-term Depression, it was spreading very rapidly, and fellow-countrymen were accepting it.90 Already in 1937 the Consul Pavlasek.was very pessimistic: "The position of this office is extremely difficult, because we have nobody to lean on. There are only a few Czechs here, and they are mostly assimilated, and a majority of them have withdrawn from public life due to permanent attacks". The fact that the Slovak community rejected Czechoslovakism nearly 'en bloc', he characterized as follows: "loyal Czechoslovak thinking, ever respecting the democracy and the Czechoslovak national unity, represents in some colonies but a minority", at the same time he added that the Czechs had arrived in Canada already before World War I, and they had been living there for two or three generations. They had been greatly assimililated, because the second generation had been educated in the Canadian manner. Finally, he expressed his "sad" conclusion that he himself, as well as the Consulate, were permanently attacked by the autonomists, and communists as well. It meant that the Consulate was to a great extent isolated from the Slovak community as a whole, in spite of the latter's internal ideological differentiation. In other words, the Consulate's mission was unsuccesful - it failed completely to unify the Czecho-Slovak nationals in Canada. Therefore, its arguments, formulated in 1937, suggesting that "everything must be done to keep the consciousness of Czechoslovak national unity in spite of the protests and demonstrations of the autonomist circles", were in vain.9 1 89SuA , MSP , Reg. 4029 , 25 . 10. 1935 . 90SuA, MSP, Reg . 4029 , 13.5 . 1937 . 91 As in note 88.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Slovak Emigrants in Canada as Reflected in Diplomatic Documents (1920-1938) Description An account of the resource Elena Jakešová Slovakia, Vol. 35 (No. 64-65), 1991-92 pp. 7-35 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jakešová, Elena, 1937- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-92 LCNAF+dates https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/0320081ee2ff2025916682b59c012c94.pdf 2dafcfc71dce2c68e8997c530f0965f7 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA SWVAK EMIGRATION Constantine Culen 49 I ,J I 1 n ' At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the middle and lo;wer noibility held 70 % of the land in Slovakia. 'Dhe laind from which the Slovalk people was supposed rto maJke a liviing, the urlbarial land, a;mounted to only about 11 % of the total, ,b ut JI' even tlhis land did not b,e long to it. From what the land, yielded, the SlovaJk had to pay his taxes to feudal lords to wlhom the land ,b elonged according to the Ja,ws of that time - and to the so1Verign, w'ho tried to secure ,t he mil>it>a:ry defense of his realm from the taxes of the poorest people. Disease and constant warfary, of the rebellious nOlbility decimated t:Jhe tp0pu:lation. The nobility ruppropril}ted depopulated arets, even where some people ~till rerp.ained, usually -the more. productive areas. ,Slovakia lost its productiive force and gained an uniprodudive no~ bility. ' At that time one-half of the privileged class of the wlhole of Hungary lived in t3lovaki~; in BratisJa,v a County every tent'b ,p erson was a nobleman. The same situation preivailed in t,he counties of Turiec and Zemplin. This class reaUy did live a parasitic life; it was without initiative and considered it an insult to wor,k · it lived a wild life from the swea1:t. and blo9d of the po~rest people. According to I. A:csady, eminent Magyar author, the nolbility toolk away 167 1000 "Pressburg measures" of land from the peasants from 1700 to 1720. We can aippreciate wlhat that meant if we realize that five ,s uch measures a1lowed a livelihood for one family. In twenty years, therefore, mOTe than 33,000 Slovak families lost their means af livelihood; and ~bout 200,000 people were deipriived. of bread and ah existence! In five years (from 171·5 to 17'20) , 1,240 fawlies of Uptov County and 2,000 families of SaTis County were reduced to beggary oy the mY.b1eis. In the times when the rest of Europe was liberating itself from feudal regimes, Slovakia had to provide for 53 %<of the pTtvileged porpulaition of Hungary frro1m tJhe means that were not even sufficient for the .tnost primi- �50 SLOVAKIA tiive living of the serfs themselves. Practically every decade of the eigihteenth century is ma:z,ked with the death of tens ,o.f thousands of people firom hunger and pestilence. 'Dhe inhabitants fled from the villages, fathers of families abandoned their wives and children, and thousands oif acr~ of land .r ema,i ned uncuit1vated. Ba:ttalions oif gendarmes inteIWened, but to no avail. The oppressed and miseraJbJe people 'kept pouring to the south, to the more fertile land, wlhence reports had spread aibout a better and more free life on the desolat-ru but Twk-albandoned "Dolna zem" (lorwer coutry). Orv,e r 1,000 farrnilies left Liptov from 1715 to 1717; Orav;a County, among tlhe most populated of that time, lost almost onethivd of its 1peo1ple, Spis one-fifth, while in Saris the peasants aJbandoned three villa,ges completely and nine others almost comipletely. Thousands of peQple poured into south ern HungaTy from the counties of Zemplin and Albauj. In 1703, the first Slovaks had already settled in BOTos Jeno in Arad County; in 171'5, SlovaJk,s .built up Slovenska Caba, Endrod in 1'718, Sarvas i,n 1722, Slovensky Komlos in 1746, an:d communities in Bekes County; In 1747, the communities of Mokra and Menyhaza in Arad County, etc. Of course, with this first migiration the misery in .SlovaJkia did not diminish. Division of the land remained unchanged, because not even Theresian registers, nay, not even the agrarian reforms of 1836, brought any relief. A neglig~ble percentage of land was in the hands of peasants and strong population increases only aggraJVated the situation. From the second half o.f the eighteenth century until the liberation of the serfs in 1848, Slo,v ak blood continued to fl'orw to the south and strengthened t'he settlements of the Dolna ,zem. From there it flowed to Backia and Banat, then c·o ursed its way farther to the east into Transylvania, to the west into Croatia and Slavonia, and along the Darnulbe all the way to Bulgaria. Marie-Therese colonized Novo Selo and Padina with Slovaks in 1762; the Royal Ex-chequer settled them in Palota, Canada County, in 1768, while Joseph I plaiced them, in 17813, in Ba/lmvar, Ternes County, and also in 1 �SJ,OVAKIA 51 Elbendorf, KTasoiva County. In 1805, Francis I settled Slovaks together with Germans in Sairca, Torontala County; in 1807, in Butin, Arad County; in 1810, in the .communities o£ Sana:d and Baton.a o,n the Military Border (Vojenska hrani,ca); :from 1843 to 1845, the Ex-chequer settled them in. the communities of .AJ1'berti and NadlaJk, Canada County, where Slovruks had already settled previous to that time. It is not an easy task to trace accUTately just when and hoiw many Slovruks emigrated from their homeland to foreign lands to seek freedom and bread, b;ut the fact that already in 1880 one-qua:r,ter million SlovaJks of Hungary lived outside of Slovak national territory remains an eternal aiccusation against Hungary feudalism. Up to the yea,r 1880, Slovruk emigration a!p.peairs to be the first collective protest against the feudalistic economic regime. Mter that yeaT, a new psychological motive ruppears on the scene. The time of the economic conjuncture of the New W~ld and the time to enrich oneself had arrived. 'Dhe oppfessed ,p eople maJkes a grand effort to rid itself od' its bondage. 'the docile SlcwaJks be<::ame fully awaire of their own strength, 'perseverance and honesty, and believe that they can malke out better in foreign lands than at home. What economic improlent could the Slovak meland, but the popue ~ t at home? People left their lation kept on increasing. At ho , where bwo thirds of the cleared land, only a part of. hich belonged to the people, became so atomized because of the heritage laiws that one-fourth of all the agricultural units were less than one measure? The Slova;ks saw no hope of better economic conditions at that time. The low productivity of the soil, the competition of Magyar farm products, the lack of industry and commerce, philoxera which destroyed all the winelands of eastern SlovaJkia, increasing local and state taxes, poor distribution and increasing price of vital necessities, high interest rates and constant exiploitation held the small huslban man in a permanent crisis. But the land barons were not concerned with the plight of the small husbandmen; they would not �52 SLOVAKIA let go pf any part of their lands. This was all contrasted with the rosy ;pi:ot,ure of America, whJrch soon came to be ca1led ".tlh e promised lamd." T,he desiTe for national freedom and the hunger for cheap land soon had hundreds of thousands of Slwalks m8Jking their way, legally or illegally, to the ; 'New World." Slovaks began to emigrate in greater numbers to America in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. From 1879 to· 18 91, Slova.ks from Zemplin County numbered 23,940; only 6,718 of them returned after a time, so that wer 17,000 of the first Slorva!k pioneers remained in America. .A'ccording to population staltistics of that time, the cooorties of AJb.auj, Zemplin, Saris, and Spis, together had a population of 888,678. But a census of the people rervealed that there were only 810,393 peorple in those countries. More than 75,000 Slovaks from these countris had alrady emigrated to America! By that time there were also 5,000 Slovaks in America from the counties of Gerner and Liptov, the total in America then being 80,000. Letters from Slovaiks in the "New World" to relahves and friends in the "home count·r,y" soon had more thousands of Slovaiks crossing the ocean to America. In the beginning, the Hungarian gorvernment, controlled by the Magyars, did nothing to stop the emigration to America and other lands. Later on, however, when the emigration mavement reached catastrophic prQPortions. the government tried to stop the trend by building urp industry in the hilly regions, but this did not remedy the situation. There was no comparison between America and Hungary when it caime to the question of getting "real" money for wo:rlkin1g. Petty and insignificant social reforms proclaimed by the Hungarian g nvernments, most of them never realized, did not influence the Slovaks. After all, thei-r brethren had tasted of real freedom in America ! Up to the first World War, Slorva:kia lost some 22,000 people annually ; they emigrated in the best yea·r s of theiir productive life and formed the most valuable and enter,prising class of the population. Uip to the year 1890, ars we saw a!bove, an average of 9,000 Slovaks left their homeland annually. In the years �SLOVAKIA 53 following this average increased raipidly. In 1869, there were 1,997 ,0-96 persons in twe1ve Slorvalk counties; but in 1'890, 31 years later, there were 2,240,044 in the same counties, indicating an increase of only 12.2 % (242,948), even though birtihs exceeded deaths by 27.5 % ! Obviously tJhe differenice between the natural and the actual increase, 307,81'3 persons, was already beyond the boTders of SlovaJkia in 1900. The Hungarian pu'b,lic paid no attention to this great movement. It was generally said that it was due to the "itch to tra vel aJbroad" and wa;s convinced t!hat every Slovalk emigrant, after a time, would return to his homeland. Of course, it is true thait Slo,vaJks returned home in greater numbers tha,n Germans and MaJgyars, but the numlber of returnees was. insignificant in comparision to the number of those who settled down permanently in America. In 1900, 14,170 persons emigrnted from SlolV'aJkia; in 1901 - 19,302 ; in 1902 - 18,760; in 1903 - 17,063; in 1·904 - 17,477 ; but in 1905 - 38,770! In the latter year, 4,038 SlovaJks returned to SlovaJkia, but 34,732 remained in America. What Euro,p ean states lost more population by emigration in those same years? From 1905 to 1910, 117,188 Slovalks left thek homeland and 39,965 of them returned: in five years 77,223 more Slovruks settled beyond the ocean. In that first decade of the present century, the migrational stream swallowed up ,t he natural increaise in the counties of Tu:riec, Hont, and Orava: three times that of Gerner and Zemplin counties: five times that of the counties of Uzhorod and Albauj: and 12-13 times that of Spis and Saris counties. From 1910 on, the number of emigrants frOIIn Slovakia constantly decreases, indicating a decline of conjunctuTe and tighter immigration regulations. From 1,910 to the beginning of World War I, only an average of 10,760 persons emigrated from Slova;kia annually, while more than 4,000 of them returned annually. DuriTllg tlhat period Slovakia lost 33,788 ~ons and daughters. By recaipitulating the figuTes given aJb01Ve, we learn that from 1880, the year when emigration from Slovakia began in greater numbers, to the outbreak of World War I, 1 �54 SLOVAKIA S,lQ/Vaooia lost more than 550,000 pe0iple through emigration. That more than that numlber actually left Slovakia during that time (,w e must rookon with those who emigrated illegally to America and, hence, did not figure satisticatly) is ,pr01ven by the 1921 census, accord,ing to which there were more than 619,000 Slovaks of the first and second generations in America. From 1 901 to 1910, Hungarian immigrants sent postal money orders in the amount of 1,248,81'8.7-40 crowns. During that tilme a total of 1,236,000 persons emigrated frOIIll Hungary; 18 % of that total - 228,000 persons - was Slovalk. Hence, we can saifely sa;y that Slovalkis sent their relatives at least l.'8 % of the total a,mount of crowns, that is, 223,'5127,000 crowns, or an average 22,352,000 crowns aru:JJually during that period. Adually, however, we know that si,gnifiicamtly more than this amount helped out SlovaJk economy, because many Slovalks sent money through b,an!ks and aill those who returned brought it with them, but we do nn have any record of this amount. With American doUws the SlovaJks at home paid their debts, bought new land from the great landowners, built stone and brick houses, boug:ht agricultural implements, and began to invest in various industrial entenprises. The family at home was better orfif economicaHy and wages began to increase. What the Slovaiks had learned in America they put to good use in Slov,aJkia after their return, raiising the sodal level particularly orf the poorest people o:f eastern Slo,vakia. With the progress of time, however, the spiritual effects prOlVed to be even more significant than the econolffilic effects. The late Dr. Francis Hrusovsky, eminent Slo,va:k historian, pointed this out when he wrote: "ISlovaik emigraints that left t 1heir homeland, often without national consciousness, became conscious of their ethnic 01rigin in a foreign world, in a new environment, and far from their homeland, aind they cultivated and deepened their Slov·a k national soUdarity wherever they had an QPportunity to do so. It so happened that Slo.vruk emi,g rants far beyond the ocean or in pre-wa,r Russia were more strongly conscious of tJheir nationality and possessed a profounder SlovaJk feeling than the Slovaks at home who lagged in their 1 �SLOVAKIA 55 national development, or succumbed to Magyarization, influenced as they were by the MaJgyarization politics of the Hungarian government. The results of the contacts between Slo,vaik Amedca and Slovald.a became a,parent in various fields and in vairioUJs manners, and the Magyar government evaluated them well, seing in the national awrukening of eastern Slovaik,ia the influence of .American emigrants from Saris and Zemplin, and tried to paralyze this inf1uence by all pos•silble means. "The hundreds of thousands of American Slo,valks attentitvely followed the development of national life in SlovaJkia, intenvened in this development a:nd moraHy and materially aided every Slovak underta:king whioh aimed to gain national freedom for their countrymen. We would be very ungrateful and unjust, if we should underestimate th!.s participation of the American Slova'k s in the histori-cal development of the SloivaJk nation." • • • WHO SAID IT? "We are a chosen generation to which it has been granted to fulfill a unique historical task: to rid our country of Germans, in other words, the eternal danger to peace in our land and in Europe ... What was done and supported by laws i:n our country was the entering upon a path which the nation has chosen and along which it shall develop. There is no turning back from this path, even if some one would desire to do so. Obviously we ourselves do not wish to do so. We have begun a gigantic task which must be successful. For its success all of us are responsible to future generations." (Dr. Peter Zenkl, SVOBODNE SLOVO, Jan. 1, 1946) . • • "At this fateful ti-me, when the Red Army and the armies of the United States and other United Nations are fighting on German sohl, we can look forward with even greater confidence to the early defeat of the Nazi aggressors and the attaiinment oif our common goail - a durruble and just peace and a continuance of close coHruboration between a!1l the United Nations." - F. D. Roosevelt's caJblegrrum, Noiv. 6, 1944, to the SovieJt President on the occasion of the 27ith amtiJVersary orf the fOU!lldling of the USSR. � SLOVAKIA SWVAK EMIGRATION Constantine Culen 49 I ,J I 1 n ' At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the middle and lo;wer noibility held 70 % of the land in Slovakia. 'Dhe laind from which the Slovalk people was supposed rto maJke a liviing, the urlbarial land, a;mounted to only about 11 % of the total, ,b ut JI' even tlhis land did not b,e long to it. From what the land, yielded, the SlovaJk had to pay his taxes to feudal lords to wlhom the land ,b elonged according to the Ja,ws of that time - and to the so1Verign, w'ho tried to secure ,t he mil>it>a:ry defense of his realm from the taxes of the poorest people. Disease and constant warfary, of the rebellious nOlbility decimated t:Jhe tp0pu:lation. The nobility ruppropril}ted depopulated arets, even where some people ~till rerp.ained, usually -the more. productive areas. ,Slovakia lost its productiive force and gained an uniprodudive no~ bility. ' At that time one-half of the privileged class of the wlhole of Hungary lived in t3lovaki~; in BratisJa,v a County every tent'b ,p erson was a nobleman. The same situation preivailed in t,he counties of Turiec and Zemplin. This class reaUy did live a parasitic life; it was without initiative and considered it an insult to wor,k · it lived a wild life from the swea1:t. and blo9d of the po~rest people. According to I. A:csady, eminent Magyar author, the nolbility toolk away 167 1000 "Pressburg measures" of land from the peasants from 1700 to 1720. We can aippreciate wlhat that meant if we realize that five ,s uch measures a1lowed a livelihood for one family. In twenty years, therefore, mOTe than 33,000 Slovak families lost their means af livelihood; and ~bout 200,000 people were deipriived. of bread and ah existence! In five years (from 171·5 to 17'20) , 1,240 fawlies of Uptov County and 2,000 families of SaTis County were reduced to beggary oy the mY.b1eis. In the times when the rest of Europe was liberating itself from feudal regimes, Slovakia had to provide for 53 %<of the pTtvileged porpulaition of Hungary frro1m tJhe means that were not even sufficient for the .tnost primi- �50 SLOVAKIA tiive living of the serfs themselves. Practically every decade of the eigihteenth century is ma:z,ked with the death of tens ,o.f thousands of people firom hunger and pestilence. 'Dhe inhabitants fled from the villages, fathers of families abandoned their wives and children, and thousands oif acr~ of land .r ema,i ned uncuit1vated. Ba:ttalions oif gendarmes inteIWened, but to no avail. The oppressed and miseraJbJe people 'kept pouring to the south, to the more fertile land, wlhence reports had spread aibout a better and more free life on the desolat-ru but Twk-albandoned "Dolna zem" (lorwer coutry). Orv,e r 1,000 farrnilies left Liptov from 1715 to 1717; Orav;a County, among tlhe most populated of that time, lost almost onethivd of its 1peo1ple, Spis one-fifth, while in Saris the peasants aJbandoned three villa,ges completely and nine others almost comipletely. Thousands of peQple poured into south ern HungaTy from the counties of Zemplin and Albauj. In 1703, the first Slovaks had already settled in BOTos Jeno in Arad County; in 171'5, SlovaJk,s .built up Slovenska Caba, Endrod in 1'718, Sarvas i,n 1722, Slovensky Komlos in 1746, an:d communities in Bekes County; In 1747, the communities of Mokra and Menyhaza in Arad County, etc. Of course, with this first migiration the misery in .SlovaJkia did not diminish. Division of the land remained unchanged, because not even Theresian registers, nay, not even the agrarian reforms of 1836, brought any relief. A neglig~ble percentage of land was in the hands of peasants and strong population increases only aggraJVated the situation. From the second half o.f the eighteenth century until the liberation of the serfs in 1848, Slo,v ak blood continued to fl'orw to the south and strengthened t'he settlements of the Dolna ,zem. From there it flowed to Backia and Banat, then c·o ursed its way farther to the east into Transylvania, to the west into Croatia and Slavonia, and along the Darnulbe all the way to Bulgaria. Marie-Therese colonized Novo Selo and Padina with Slovaks in 1762; the Royal Ex-chequer settled them in Palota, Canada County, in 1768, while Joseph I plaiced them, in 17813, in Ba/lmvar, Ternes County, and also in 1 �SJ,OVAKIA 51 Elbendorf, KTasoiva County. In 1805, Francis I settled Slovaks together with Germans in Sairca, Torontala County; in 1807, in Butin, Arad County; in 1810, in the .communities o£ Sana:d and Baton.a o,n the Military Border (Vojenska hrani,ca); :from 1843 to 1845, the Ex-chequer settled them in. the communities of .AJ1'berti and NadlaJk, Canada County, where Slovruks had already settled previous to that time. It is not an easy task to trace accUTately just when and hoiw many Slovruks emigrated from their homeland to foreign lands to seek freedom and bread, b;ut the fact that already in 1880 one-qua:r,ter million SlovaJks of Hungary lived outside of Slovak national territory remains an eternal aiccusation against Hungary feudalism. Up to the yea,r 1880, Slovruk emigration a!p.peairs to be the first collective protest against the feudalistic economic regime. Mter that yeaT, a new psychological motive ruppears on the scene. The time of the economic conjuncture of the New W~ld and the time to enrich oneself had arrived. 'Dhe oppfessed ,p eople maJkes a grand effort to rid itself od' its bondage. 'the docile SlcwaJks be<::ame fully awaire of their own strength, 'perseverance and honesty, and believe that they can malke out better in foreign lands than at home. What economic improlent could the Slovak meland, but the popue ~ t at home? People left their lation kept on increasing. At ho , where bwo thirds of the cleared land, only a part of. hich belonged to the people, became so atomized because of the heritage laiws that one-fourth of all the agricultural units were less than one measure? The Slova;ks saw no hope of better economic conditions at that time. The low productivity of the soil, the competition of Magyar farm products, the lack of industry and commerce, philoxera which destroyed all the winelands of eastern SlovaJkia, increasing local and state taxes, poor distribution and increasing price of vital necessities, high interest rates and constant exiploitation held the small huslban man in a permanent crisis. But the land barons were not concerned with the plight of the small husbandmen; they would not �52 SLOVAKIA let go pf any part of their lands. This was all contrasted with the rosy ;pi:ot,ure of America, whJrch soon came to be ca1led ".tlh e promised lamd." T,he desiTe for national freedom and the hunger for cheap land soon had hundreds of thousands of Slwalks m8Jking their way, legally or illegally, to the ; 'New World." Slovaks began to emigrate in greater numbers to America in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. From 1879 to· 18 91, Slova.ks from Zemplin County numbered 23,940; only 6,718 of them returned after a time, so that wer 17,000 of the first Slorva!k pioneers remained in America. .A'ccording to population staltistics of that time, the cooorties of AJb.auj, Zemplin, Saris, and Spis, together had a population of 888,678. But a census of the people rervealed that there were only 810,393 peorple in those countries. More than 75,000 Slovaks from these countris had alrady emigrated to America! By that time there were also 5,000 Slovaks in America from the counties of Gerner and Liptov, the total in America then being 80,000. Letters from Slovaiks in the "New World" to relahves and friends in the "home count·r,y" soon had more thousands of Slovaiks crossing the ocean to America. In the beginning, the Hungarian gorvernment, controlled by the Magyars, did nothing to stop the emigration to America and other lands. Later on, however, when the emigration mavement reached catastrophic prQPortions. the government tried to stop the trend by building urp industry in the hilly regions, but this did not remedy the situation. There was no comparison between America and Hungary when it caime to the question of getting "real" money for wo:rlkin1g. Petty and insignificant social reforms proclaimed by the Hungarian g nvernments, most of them never realized, did not influence the Slovaks. After all, thei-r brethren had tasted of real freedom in America ! Up to the first World War, Slorva:kia lost some 22,000 people annually ; they emigrated in the best yea·r s of theiir productive life and formed the most valuable and enter,prising class of the population. Uip to the year 1890, ars we saw a!bove, an average of 9,000 Slovaks left their homeland annually. In the years �SLOVAKIA 53 following this average increased raipidly. In 1869, there were 1,997 ,0-96 persons in twe1ve Slorvalk counties; but in 1'890, 31 years later, there were 2,240,044 in the same counties, indicating an increase of only 12.2 % (242,948), even though birtihs exceeded deaths by 27.5 % ! Obviously tJhe differenice between the natural and the actual increase, 307,81'3 persons, was already beyond the boTders of SlovaJkia in 1900. The Hungarian pu'b,lic paid no attention to this great movement. It was generally said that it was due to the "itch to tra vel aJbroad" and wa;s convinced t!hat every Slovalk emigrant, after a time, would return to his homeland. Of course, it is true thait Slo,vaJks returned home in greater numbers tha,n Germans and MaJgyars, but the numlber of returnees was. insignificant in comparision to the number of those who settled down permanently in America. In 1900, 14,170 persons emigrnted from SlolV'aJkia; in 1901 - 19,302 ; in 1902 - 18,760; in 1903 - 17,063; in 1·904 - 17,477 ; but in 1905 - 38,770! In the latter year, 4,038 SlovaJks returned to SlovaJkia, but 34,732 remained in America. What Euro,p ean states lost more population by emigration in those same years? From 1905 to 1910, 117,188 Slovalks left thek homeland and 39,965 of them returned: in five years 77,223 more Slovruks settled beyond the ocean. In that first decade of the present century, the migrational stream swallowed up ,t he natural increaise in the counties of Tu:riec, Hont, and Orava: three times that of Gerner and Zemplin counties: five times that of the counties of Uzhorod and Albauj: and 12-13 times that of Spis and Saris counties. From 1910 on, the number of emigrants frOIIn Slovakia constantly decreases, indicating a decline of conjunctuTe and tighter immigration regulations. From 1,910 to the beginning of World War I, only an average of 10,760 persons emigrated from Slova;kia annually, while more than 4,000 of them returned annually. DuriTllg tlhat period Slovakia lost 33,788 ~ons and daughters. By recaipitulating the figuTes given aJb01Ve, we learn that from 1880, the year when emigration from Slovakia began in greater numbers, to the outbreak of World War I, 1 �54 SLOVAKIA S,lQ/Vaooia lost more than 550,000 pe0iple through emigration. That more than that numlber actually left Slovakia during that time (,w e must rookon with those who emigrated illegally to America and, hence, did not figure satisticatly) is ,pr01ven by the 1921 census, accord,ing to which there were more than 619,000 Slovaks of the first and second generations in America. From 1 901 to 1910, Hungarian immigrants sent postal money orders in the amount of 1,248,81'8.7-40 crowns. During that tilme a total of 1,236,000 persons emigrated frOIIll Hungary; 18 % of that total - 228,000 persons - was Slovalk. Hence, we can saifely sa;y that Slovalkis sent their relatives at least l.'8 % of the total a,mount of crowns, that is, 223,'5127,000 crowns, or an average 22,352,000 crowns aru:JJually during that period. Adually, however, we know that si,gnifiicamtly more than this amount helped out SlovaJk economy, because many Slovalks sent money through b,an!ks and aill those who returned brought it with them, but we do nn have any record of this amount. With American doUws the SlovaJks at home paid their debts, bought new land from the great landowners, built stone and brick houses, boug:ht agricultural implements, and began to invest in various industrial entenprises. The family at home was better orfif economicaHy and wages began to increase. What the Slovaiks had learned in America they put to good use in Slov,aJkia after their return, raiising the sodal level particularly orf the poorest people o:f eastern Slo,vakia. With the progress of time, however, the spiritual effects prOlVed to be even more significant than the econolffilic effects. The late Dr. Francis Hrusovsky, eminent Slo,va:k historian, pointed this out when he wrote: "ISlovaik emigraints that left t 1heir homeland, often without national consciousness, became conscious of their ethnic 01rigin in a foreign world, in a new environment, and far from their homeland, aind they cultivated and deepened their Slov·a k national soUdarity wherever they had an QPportunity to do so. It so happened that Slo.vruk emi,g rants far beyond the ocean or in pre-wa,r Russia were more strongly conscious of tJheir nationality and possessed a profounder SlovaJk feeling than the Slovaks at home who lagged in their 1 �SLOVAKIA 55 national development, or succumbed to Magyarization, influenced as they were by the MaJgyarization politics of the Hungarian government. The results of the contacts between Slo,vaik Amedca and Slovald.a became a,parent in various fields and in vairioUJs manners, and the Magyar government evaluated them well, seing in the national awrukening of eastern Slovaik,ia the influence of .American emigrants from Saris and Zemplin, and tried to paralyze this inf1uence by all pos•silble means. "The hundreds of thousands of American Slo,valks attentitvely followed the development of national life in SlovaJkia, intenvened in this development a:nd moraHy and materially aided every Slovak underta:king whioh aimed to gain national freedom for their countrymen. We would be very ungrateful and unjust, if we should underestimate th!.s participation of the American Slova'k s in the histori-cal development of the SloivaJk nation." • • • WHO SAID IT? "We are a chosen generation to which it has been granted to fulfill a unique historical task: to rid our country of Germans, in other words, the eternal danger to peace in our land and in Europe ... What was done and supported by laws i:n our country was the entering upon a path which the nation has chosen and along which it shall develop. There is no turning back from this path, even if some one would desire to do so. Obviously we ourselves do not wish to do so. We have begun a gigantic task which must be successful. For its success all of us are responsible to future generations." (Dr. Peter Zenkl, SVOBODNE SLOVO, Jan. 1, 1946) . • • "At this fateful ti-me, when the Red Army and the armies of the United States and other United Nations are fighting on German sohl, we can look forward with even greater confidence to the early defeat of the Nazi aggressors and the attaiinment oif our common goail - a durruble and just peace and a continuance of close coHruboration between a!1l the United Nations." - F. D. Roosevelt's caJblegrrum, Noiv. 6, 1944, to the SovieJt President on the occasion of the 27ith amtiJVersary orf the fOU!lldling of the USSR. � 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 1958, Vol. 8 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 1 (No. 26), March 1958.</li> <li>Issue 2 (No. 27), June 1958.</li> <li>Issue 3 (No. 28), December 1958.</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 1958 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 SWVAK EMIGRATION Constantine Culen 49 I ,J I 1 n ' At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the middle and lo;wer noibility held 70 % of the land in Slovakia. 'Dhe laind from which the Slovalk people was supposed rto maJke a liviing, the urlbarial land, a;mounted to only about 11 % of the total, ,b ut JI' even tlhis land did not b,e long to it. From what the land, yielded, the SlovaJk had to pay his taxes to feudal lords to wlhom the land ,b elonged according to the Ja,ws of that time - and to the so1Verign, w'ho tried to secure ,t he mil>it>a:ry defense of his realm from the taxes of the poorest people. Disease and constant warfary, of the rebellious nOlbility decimated t:Jhe tp0pu:lation. The nobility ruppropril}ted depopulated arets, even where some people ~till rerp.ained, usually -the more. productive areas. ,Slovakia lost its productiive force and gained an uniprodudive no~ bility. ' At that time one-half of the privileged class of the wlhole of Hungary lived in t3lovaki~; in BratisJa,v a County every tent'b ,p erson was a nobleman. The same situation preivailed in t,he counties of Turiec and Zemplin. This class reaUy did live a parasitic life; it was without initiative and considered it an insult to wor,k · it lived a wild life from the swea1:t. and blo9d of the po~rest people. According to I. A:csady, eminent Magyar author, the nolbility toolk away 167 1000 "Pressburg measures" of land from the peasants from 1700 to 1720. We can aippreciate wlhat that meant if we realize that five ,s uch measures a1lowed a livelihood for one family. In twenty years, therefore, mOTe than 33,000 Slovak families lost their means af livelihood; and ~bout 200,000 people were deipriived. of bread and ah existence! In five years (from 171·5 to 17'20) , 1,240 fawlies of Uptov County and 2,000 families of SaTis County were reduced to beggary oy the mY.b1eis. In the times when the rest of Europe was liberating itself from feudal regimes, Slovakia had to provide for 53 %<of the pTtvileged porpulaition of Hungary frro1m tJhe means that were not even sufficient for the .tnost primi- 50 SLOVAKIA tiive living of the serfs themselves. Practically every decade of the eigihteenth century is ma:z,ked with the death of tens ,o.f thousands of people firom hunger and pestilence. 'Dhe inhabitants fled from the villages, fathers of families abandoned their wives and children, and thousands oif acr~ of land .r ema,i ned uncuit1vated. Ba:ttalions oif gendarmes inteIWened, but to no avail. The oppressed and miseraJbJe people 'kept pouring to the south, to the more fertile land, wlhence reports had spread aibout a better and more free life on the desolat-ru but Twk-albandoned "Dolna zem" (lorwer coutry). Orv,e r 1,000 farrnilies left Liptov from 1715 to 1717; Orav;a County, among tlhe most populated of that time, lost almost onethivd of its 1peo1ple, Spis one-fifth, while in Saris the peasants aJbandoned three villa,ges completely and nine others almost comipletely. Thousands of peQple poured into south ern HungaTy from the counties of Zemplin and Albauj. In 1703, the first Slovaks had already settled in BOTos Jeno in Arad County; in 171'5, SlovaJk,s .built up Slovenska Caba, Endrod in 1'718, Sarvas i,n 1722, Slovensky Komlos in 1746, an:d communities in Bekes County; In 1747, the communities of Mokra and Menyhaza in Arad County, etc. Of course, with this first migiration the misery in .SlovaJkia did not diminish. Division of the land remained unchanged, because not even Theresian registers, nay, not even the agrarian reforms of 1836, brought any relief. A neglig~ble percentage of land was in the hands of peasants and strong population increases only aggraJVated the situation. From the second half o.f the eighteenth century until the liberation of the serfs in 1848, Slo,v ak blood continued to fl'orw to the south and strengthened t'he settlements of the Dolna ,zem. From there it flowed to Backia and Banat, then c·o ursed its way farther to the east into Transylvania, to the west into Croatia and Slavonia, and along the Darnulbe all the way to Bulgaria. Marie-Therese colonized Novo Selo and Padina with Slovaks in 1762; the Royal Ex-chequer settled them in Palota, Canada County, in 1768, while Joseph I plaiced them, in 17813, in Ba/lmvar, Ternes County, and also in 1 SJ,OVAKIA 51 Elbendorf, KTasoiva County. In 1805, Francis I settled Slovaks together with Germans in Sairca, Torontala County; in 1807, in Butin, Arad County; in 1810, in the .communities o£ Sana:d and Baton.a o,n the Military Border (Vojenska hrani,ca); :from 1843 to 1845, the Ex-chequer settled them in. the communities of .AJ1'berti and NadlaJk, Canada County, where Slovruks had already settled previous to that time. It is not an easy task to trace accUTately just when and hoiw many Slovruks emigrated from their homeland to foreign lands to seek freedom and bread, b;ut the fact that already in 1880 one-qua:r,ter million SlovaJks of Hungary lived outside of Slovak national territory remains an eternal aiccusation against Hungary feudalism. Up to the yea,r 1880, Slovruk emigration a!p.peairs to be the first collective protest against the feudalistic economic regime. Mter that yeaT, a new psychological motive ruppears on the scene. The time of the economic conjuncture of the New W~ld and the time to enrich oneself had arrived. 'Dhe oppfessed ,p eople maJkes a grand effort to rid itself od' its bondage. 'the docile SlcwaJks be<::ame fully awaire of their own strength, 'perseverance and honesty, and believe that they can malke out better in foreign lands than at home. What economic improlent could the Slovak meland, but the popue ~ t at home? People left their lation kept on increasing. At ho , where bwo thirds of the cleared land, only a part of. hich belonged to the people, became so atomized because of the heritage laiws that one-fourth of all the agricultural units were less than one measure? The Slova;ks saw no hope of better economic conditions at that time. The low productivity of the soil, the competition of Magyar farm products, the lack of industry and commerce, philoxera which destroyed all the winelands of eastern SlovaJkia, increasing local and state taxes, poor distribution and increasing price of vital necessities, high interest rates and constant exiploitation held the small huslban man in a permanent crisis. But the land barons were not concerned with the plight of the small husbandmen; they would not 52 SLOVAKIA let go pf any part of their lands. This was all contrasted with the rosy ;pi:ot,ure of America, whJrch soon came to be ca1led ".tlh e promised lamd." T,he desiTe for national freedom and the hunger for cheap land soon had hundreds of thousands of Slwalks m8Jking their way, legally or illegally, to the ; 'New World." Slovaks began to emigrate in greater numbers to America in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. From 1879 to· 18 91, Slova.ks from Zemplin County numbered 23,940; only 6,718 of them returned after a time, so that wer 17,000 of the first Slorva!k pioneers remained in America. .A'ccording to population staltistics of that time, the cooorties of AJb.auj, Zemplin, Saris, and Spis, together had a population of 888,678. But a census of the people rervealed that there were only 810,393 peorple in those countries. More than 75,000 Slovaks from these countris had alrady emigrated to America! By that time there were also 5,000 Slovaks in America from the counties of Gerner and Liptov, the total in America then being 80,000. Letters from Slovaiks in the "New World" to relahves and friends in the "home count·r,y" soon had more thousands of Slovaiks crossing the ocean to America. In the beginning, the Hungarian gorvernment, controlled by the Magyars, did nothing to stop the emigration to America and other lands. Later on, however, when the emigration mavement reached catastrophic prQPortions. the government tried to stop the trend by building urp industry in the hilly regions, but this did not remedy the situation. There was no comparison between America and Hungary when it caime to the question of getting "real" money for wo:rlkin1g. Petty and insignificant social reforms proclaimed by the Hungarian g nvernments, most of them never realized, did not influence the Slovaks. After all, thei-r brethren had tasted of real freedom in America ! Up to the first World War, Slorva:kia lost some 22,000 people annually ; they emigrated in the best yea·r s of theiir productive life and formed the most valuable and enter,prising class of the population. Uip to the year 1890, ars we saw a!bove, an average of 9,000 Slovaks left their homeland annually. In the years SLOVAKIA 53 following this average increased raipidly. In 1869, there were 1,997 ,0-96 persons in twe1ve Slorvalk counties; but in 1'890, 31 years later, there were 2,240,044 in the same counties, indicating an increase of only 12.2 % (242,948), even though birtihs exceeded deaths by 27.5 % ! Obviously tJhe differenice between the natural and the actual increase, 307,81'3 persons, was already beyond the boTders of SlovaJkia in 1900. The Hungarian pu'b,lic paid no attention to this great movement. It was generally said that it was due to the "itch to tra vel aJbroad" and wa;s convinced t!hat every Slovalk emigrant, after a time, would return to his homeland. Of course, it is true thait Slo,vaJks returned home in greater numbers tha,n Germans and MaJgyars, but the numlber of returnees was. insignificant in comparision to the number of those who settled down permanently in America. In 1900, 14,170 persons emigrnted from SlolV'aJkia; in 1901 - 19,302 ; in 1902 - 18,760; in 1903 - 17,063; in 1·904 - 17,477 ; but in 1905 - 38,770! In the latter year, 4,038 SlovaJks returned to SlovaJkia, but 34,732 remained in America. What Euro,p ean states lost more population by emigration in those same years? From 1905 to 1910, 117,188 Slovalks left thek homeland and 39,965 of them returned: in five years 77,223 more Slovruks settled beyond the ocean. In that first decade of the present century, the migrational stream swallowed up ,t he natural increaise in the counties of Tu:riec, Hont, and Orava: three times that of Gerner and Zemplin counties: five times that of the counties of Uzhorod and Albauj: and 12-13 times that of Spis and Saris counties. From 1910 on, the number of emigrants frOIIn Slovakia constantly decreases, indicating a decline of conjunctuTe and tighter immigration regulations. From 1,910 to the beginning of World War I, only an average of 10,760 persons emigrated from Slova;kia annually, while more than 4,000 of them returned annually. DuriTllg tlhat period Slovakia lost 33,788 ~ons and daughters. By recaipitulating the figuTes given aJb01Ve, we learn that from 1880, the year when emigration from Slovakia began in greater numbers, to the outbreak of World War I, 1 54 SLOVAKIA S,lQ/Vaooia lost more than 550,000 pe0iple through emigration. That more than that numlber actually left Slovakia during that time (,w e must rookon with those who emigrated illegally to America and, hence, did not figure satisticatly) is ,pr01ven by the 1921 census, accord,ing to which there were more than 619,000 Slovaks of the first and second generations in America. From 1 901 to 1910, Hungarian immigrants sent postal money orders in the amount of 1,248,81'8.7-40 crowns. During that tilme a total of 1,236,000 persons emigrated frOIIll Hungary; 18 % of that total - 228,000 persons - was Slovalk. Hence, we can saifely sa;y that Slovalkis sent their relatives at least l.'8 % of the total a,mount of crowns, that is, 223,'5127,000 crowns, or an average 22,352,000 crowns aru:JJually during that period. Adually, however, we know that si,gnifiicamtly more than this amount helped out SlovaJk economy, because many Slovalks sent money through b,an!ks and aill those who returned brought it with them, but we do nn have any record of this amount. With American doUws the SlovaJks at home paid their debts, bought new land from the great landowners, built stone and brick houses, boug:ht agricultural implements, and began to invest in various industrial entenprises. The family at home was better orfif economicaHy and wages began to increase. What the Slovaiks had learned in America they put to good use in Slov,aJkia after their return, raiising the sodal level particularly orf the poorest people o:f eastern Slo,vakia. With the progress of time, however, the spiritual effects prOlVed to be even more significant than the econolffilic effects. The late Dr. Francis Hrusovsky, eminent Slo,va:k historian, pointed this out when he wrote: "ISlovaik emigraints that left t 1heir homeland, often without national consciousness, became conscious of their ethnic 01rigin in a foreign world, in a new environment, and far from their homeland, aind they cultivated and deepened their Slov·a k national soUdarity wherever they had an QPportunity to do so. It so happened that Slo.vruk emi,g rants far beyond the ocean or in pre-wa,r Russia were more strongly conscious of tJheir nationality and possessed a profounder SlovaJk feeling than the Slovaks at home who lagged in their 1 SLOVAKIA 55 national development, or succumbed to Magyarization, influenced as they were by the MaJgyarization politics of the Hungarian government. The results of the contacts between Slo,vaik Amedca and Slovald.a became a,parent in various fields and in vairioUJs manners, and the Magyar government evaluated them well, seing in the national awrukening of eastern Slovaik,ia the influence of .American emigrants from Saris and Zemplin, and tried to paralyze this inf1uence by all pos•silble means. "The hundreds of thousands of American Slo,valks attentitvely followed the development of national life in SlovaJkia, intenvened in this development a:nd moraHy and materially aided every Slovak underta:king whioh aimed to gain national freedom for their countrymen. We would be very ungrateful and unjust, if we should underestimate th!.s participation of the American Slova'k s in the histori-cal development of the SloivaJk nation." • • • WHO SAID IT? "We are a chosen generation to which it has been granted to fulfill a unique historical task: to rid our country of Germans, in other words, the eternal danger to peace in our land and in Europe ... What was done and supported by laws i:n our country was the entering upon a path which the nation has chosen and along which it shall develop. There is no turning back from this path, even if some one would desire to do so. Obviously we ourselves do not wish to do so. We have begun a gigantic task which must be successful. For its success all of us are responsible to future generations." (Dr. Peter Zenkl, SVOBODNE SLOVO, Jan. 1, 1946) . • • "At this fateful ti-me, when the Red Army and the armies of the United States and other United Nations are fighting on German sohl, we can look forward with even greater confidence to the early defeat of the Nazi aggressors and the attaiinment oif our common goail - a durruble and just peace and a continuance of close coHruboration between a!1l the United Nations." - F. D. Roosevelt's caJblegrrum, Noiv. 6, 1944, to the SovieJt President on the occasion of the 27ith amtiJVersary orf the fOU!lldling of the USSR.  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 Emigration Description An account of the resource Constantine Čulen Slovakia, Vol. 8, No. 2 (27), June 1958 pp. 49-55 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Čulen, Konštantín, 1904-1964 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource June 1958 SNK